Sunday, September 28, 2014

Week 7

Dear Second Grade Parents,  

I don't know about you, but I am loving this "fall" weather!!  It definitely makes me want to spend the day baking and the evening curled up with a cup of cocoa and a good book.  Hope you were able to enjoy this weather this weekend as well.  

The big news for the week was diving into our new project, "Then and Now".  This project is going to be alot of work, but it is work that is quite exciting!!  Researching with 2nd graders has been a learning curve for all of us.  Students are using their chrome books and have been exploring sites but the reading (even when the site is specific for children) has been a challenge.  

Part of our research this week was done through our walking field trip to the Churchill County Museum.  The students did a fantastic job in the museum.  Behavior was excellent and students asked many good questions about the exhibits.  The Dairy Queen treat was very well deserved.  If it's been awhile since you visited this Fallon gem, I would highly suggest stopping by. 

On Friday our professional development was with Tiffany Kelly from Google.  She opened up Google Classroom for us.  I was able to create assignments for the Project Groups and post videos that will help students with their research.  I am really excited to share this information with the students of Room 5. 

Speaking of the project, research, and videos...I am looking for 4 parent volunteers to come it and help students with the project on Tuesday, September 30th from 1:00 to 2:00 pm and possibly Thursday, October 2nd.    You would be viewing selected videos with students, discussing the content, and supporting students as the put the important ideas down in writing.  If you are able to join us please let me know:) 

In math we spent the week on Part-Whole Word Problems and Comparison Word Problems.  Word problems are always a bit tricky for students.  As we work on them we are "dissecting" the problems looking for the important clues, to help us to understand and answer the problems.  In our answer we are writing an equation and writing an answer sentence.  Below are some examples.    

Part-Whole Word Problems
Sarah drew 7 pictures on Saturday.  She drew a few more pictures on Sunday.  She drew 15 pictures altogether.  How many pictures did she draw on Sunday?
Number Bond
Equation: 15 -- 7 = _8_ or 7 + _8_ = 15

Answer Sentence: Sarah drew 8 pictures on Sunday.

Comparison Word Problems
There are 12 cherries and 5 pears.  How many more cherries than pears are there?
C = cherry
P = pear


C
C
C
C
C
C
C
C
C
C
C
C
P
P
P
P
P








Equation:  12 -- 5 = _7_                or                 5 + _7_ = 12
Answer Sentence:  There are 7 more cherries than pears.
Our work with word problems will be ongoing. 

Here's the homework for this week.
Mon.  Worksheet:  Word Problems Part 1
Tues. Worksheet:  Word Problems Part 2
Wed.  IXL G.1 Add Multiples of 10
Thurs. IXL H.1 Subtract Multiples of 10    

Just a reminder with homework--students should be doing 20 minutes of reading and 15 minutes of math per night Monday through Thursday.  No students should be working for hours on homework.   

With the lovely cooler weather students will be wearing more clothing, just remember to label your child's "logo wear" and outer wear.  It hasn't even been that cold yet and our "lost and found" table is getting full.

Have a great week!!  

Anne Bloomfield

Here's a message from Mrs. Jackson...
2nd Grade Reading Blog from Mrs. Jackson
September 29-October 2


September will be ending this week and October will begin.  Next week the October Halloween books will come out in our classroom and the excitement and anticipation will begin.  I continue meeting with your child daily in small Guided Reading groups.  I so appreciate the work you are doing at home helping reinforce the Reading strategies that we are learning in our groups.


We are also going to delve into the characters in our books and the ways that events cause characters to change throughout a book.  At the same time, we will continue focusing on the main facets of all stories (setting,  characters, plot, beginning, middle, end, etc. ).


We continue to write almost daily in our Work on Writing Journals.  Our writing is developing and including more adventure and fantasy writing (mostly fictional stories with animals for characters).  

Last week we also began our Listen to Reading center.  We listened to a story focused on the history of the airplane and used this story to get more experience restating our questions in our answers.  

I look forward to another great week!  A huge kudos to Mrs. Bloomfield for all the extra work that she has been doing to make the classroom projects a success!  The work that she has done guiding each child’s initial learning on their chromebooks is phenomenal.  She also brought many of her own personal items to make the past come alive.  

Thank you so much!  Kristen Jackson



Sunday, September 21, 2014

Goodbye Summer, Hello Autumn



Last Week

Projects
I'm pleased to say that we finished our first project last week!!  The students did a great job presenting their Tribes Agreements Skits for Mrs. Marsh's Kindergarten students.  Students became experts in one agreement and in teams of 4 they wrote a definition for their agreement and wrote a skit depicting their agreement.  Students practiced their skits, working on their speaking skills.  In my opinion the most valuable part of this project was hearing students give feedback as groups shared their products.  I must say that it was a very positive learning process.  

We launched our next project--"Then and Now" with lots of "hands on" activities including making butter and ice cream and playing marbles, jacks, checkers, and tops.  Students will be exploring what life in Nevada was like in Nevada 150 years ago.  Students have generated topics for the following categories--Technology, Culture, and Everyday Life and have selected the topics they will research.  This is going to be an exciting project.
Math
We reviewed and tested on Unit 1--Numbers to 1,000; in Singapore Math.  Even though much of this unit was review; it was a very full unit with many concepts to explore.  Students participated in the game "Scoot" to help them review with a partner.  On Wednesday, students completed the assessment and moved on to the Unit 2--Addition and Subtraction.
Writing
The "Writing Process" has been a big undertaking.  The student riddles are slowly but surely being completed.  Conferencing with each student about their writing takes time but it is sooooo worth it!!  

Along with working towards completing riddles, students also finished writing their Tribes Agreement scripts.  Although the scripts did not go through the complete writing process, students took quite awhile to write these scripts.
This Week

Projects
We will be jumping into researching our "Then and Now" projects.  Students will be spending time on their Chrome Books using guiding questions that have been developed by the 2nd and 3rd grade teachers for specific websites that are child friendly.  This will be our first big research project!

Research for the topic your child selected will also be done on a field trip to the Churchill County Museum on Wednesday, Sept. 24th.  We are so lucky to have this resource so close to us.  We do need some parents to accompany us on this field trip, if you are available from 11:40 am to 3:30 pm on Wednesday, please let me know.

Math
In Math, students will be reviewing strategies for adding and subtracting.  Students will be using 10 frames to help with addition and subtraction.  We will also use number bonds to help find groups of tens to help us quickly add and subtract.  The majority of our week will be spent with word problems.  Students will spend time with Part-Whole Word Problems and Comparison Word Problems.  As we work on these problems we will be focusing on looking for the important words and numbers to help us solve.  Our final piece of math work will be using mental math to help us add and subtract 2-digit numbers. 

Homework
Mon.  IXL E.16--Addition Equations True or False
Tues.  IXL F.13--Subtraction Equations True or False
Wed.  IXL E.12--Addition Word Problems One Digit
Thurs.  IXL F.9--Subtraction Word Problems Up to 18

Writing
All students should finish their riddles this week and hopefully all of them will be displayed on the bulletin board outside Room 5.  I wonder if you will be able to guess your child's riddle by their clues and self portrait.

This week we will review the parts of a letter and write a letter to Mrs. Marsh's Kindergarten class, thanking them for being such a great audience for our Tribe's Agreements Skits.  

Miscellaneous
Just a special request...please practice tying shoe laces at home.  There are several students who have difficulty tying their shoe laces.  Untied shoe laces can be very dangerous.

Now a few words from Mrs. Jackson...

2nd Grade Reading
September 22-25

Last week in Work on Writing we added punctuation into our sentences.  Our daily Work on Writing had sometimes been one long paragraph with NO PERIODS!  We read some of the our own paragraphs to identify this area that needed improvement.  Then we worked together as a class to listen for pauses and add in punctuation.  We also took some time to share our writing with each other and really enjoyed getting feedback and praise from our peers.  This week we will continue emphasizing this skill.  We also worked on the “op” Word Family.  This week we will be practicing our “op” words so that we can be successful on our Word Family test this week.

As you know, Mrs. Bloomfield is working on comparing our current style of living with the past style of living.  As much as possible I have chosen books that illustrate that point for our Guided Reading groups.  You may see these at home this week for as their assigned reading for homework.  The Mini-Lessons that we do this week will also all utilize books illustrating this contrast, so that our Reading learning reinforces what we are currently learning in our Social Studies.  As much as I can, I will try to support and match Mrs. Bloomfield’s curriculum focus.
We are also continuing our work on Story Mapping and restating questions in our answers.   

Once again, I look forward to another week of learning, growing and success.  

Please contact me at anytime if you have questions.

Thanks again-Kristen Jackson    

Sunday, September 14, 2014

Week 5


Dear Parents,

Here we are in week 5!!  These weeks are just flying by.  I'm very happy to say that next week I will be ready to have parent volunteers during the math block.  I am requesting 1 volunteer per block.  The 2nd grade math block is from 8:10 to 9:35 am and the 1st grade math block is from 9:50 to 11:25 am.  Volunteers for these time periods will be helping small groups of students with their facts practice through games and individual students with reinforcement and practice of math concepts.

Picture day is this week.  I sent home an order form on Friday.  Students need to wear their uniforms for picture day.  Our class will have their pictures taken on Wednesday.

Last week in math our focus was relating 3-digit numbers to money, both coins (dimes and pennies) and bills (one hundred dollar bills, ten dollar bills, and one dollar bills) and place value discs.  Students also spent time comparing numbers using the <, >,and =.  We also put up to three, 3-digit numbers in order from least to greatest and from greatest to least.

This week we will count on and count back by 1's, 10's, and 100's.  During this we will be focusing on the patterns that we notice.  The students of Room 5 will also be reviewing the concepts in Unit 1.  We will assess on Unit 1 on Wednesday.  We will waste no time and start the first part of Unit 2-Addition and Subtraction within 20.  This will be a review of strategies that were taught last year.

Math Homework
Monday--IXL A.14 Counting Patterns Up to 1,000
Tuesday--Practice Assessment (worksheet)
Wednesday--IXL B.5 Numbers Up to 1,000 in Order
Thursday--IXL E.5 Addition with Pictures--Sums to 20

In writing most students are finishing up their riddles.  Some are already displayed on the bulletin board in the hall.  I wonder if you can figure out which student belongs to you!!  This week in writing we will be finishing up our scripts about the five Tribe Agreements (Mutual Respect, Attentive Listening, Appreciations, Right to Pass, and No Put-Downs).  Groups will be presenting their scripts to the kindergarten classrooms on Thursday.  This will conclude our first project.

This week we begin our second project of the school year.  It is called "Back to the Future".  We will be comparing and contrasting life today and 150 years ago.  Our focus will be on the categories of Technology, Culture, and Everyday Life.  Students will be creating projects that will eventually be submitted to a contest being sponsored by the Fallon Chamber of Commerce and the Churchill County Museum.  Just a heads up we will be taking a walking field trip to the Churchill County Museum.  The 2nd and 3rd grade classes will definitely need some parent volunteers for this trip.  We do not have the date of the trip yet as we are working on the scheduling part of this trip with the Churchill County Museum.  Hopefully I will have more information about this trip on Tuesday--stay posted!!

Every week I try to make my Blog entry shorter but I just can't seem to write a shorter Blog.  Too many great things happening in Room 5.

Hope your week in great!!

Sincerely,
Anne Bloomfield

Here's some information from Mrs. Jackson...

Hello 2nd grade parents-

Last week we began our first true week of Daily Five and Guided Reading groups.  It was a great success; I can think of nothing more fulfilling than to watch students learn how to become better readers.  I can't wait to read with each of them everyday this week.  

This week we will be focusing on restating questions in our answers, how to punctuate our sentences and identifying secret stories (such as vowel patterns) in words.

In Word Work, we will be studying the (op) Word Family.  

One more note:  The Reading assigned for homework (as well as any questions attached to this) is part of their 20 minute total Reading homework.  Please do not have them do an additional 20 minutes of reading.  Also please do not have them work on assigned Reading or Writing for me for more than 20 minutes.  If they are not able to finish in 20 minutes, it will inform me about the actual amount of work that each individual can complete within this time. 

Have a fabulous week!  

Sunday, September 7, 2014

Reading Information from Mrs. Jackson

First, I want to thank all of those parents that have graciously offered to help weekly in our classroom.  This time commitment will help all of our second grade readers to work once a week with a parent on their Word Work as well as to enable me to track their weekly reading progress.

Last week we continued working on our independent reading and writing skills (Read to Self, Read to Someone and Work on Writing), so that I will be able to begin working with small guided reading groups this week.  Beginning Monday, each child in 2nd grade will be working with me daily or 2 times each week depending on their reading levels and needs.  

This week, we will begin these reading groups as well as practicing our Listen to Reading using Razz kids, a computer program from A to Z learning.  Our volunteers will work on manipulating words with common spelling patterns on Monday and Tuesday and on Thursday another volunteer will be individually assessing student's Sight Words and Fluency.  

It was very exciting last week to watch your children pick books for their reading baskets.  They truly express a love, excitement and sense of anticipation towards reading.  They also loved reading together.  I wish you all could have seen them sitting with a partner around the classroom focused on their books, heads huddled, enjoying reading...just like it should be!

This week we will be touching briefly on 9/11, studying a passage daily and then working on answering comprehension questions related to this passage.  Please be aware that they may have additional questions at home.

Have a wonderful week!  

Week 4

Dear Parents,

Although last week was only 3 days, the students of Room 5 got a lot done.  

In math we have been very busy learning about the hundreds place.  Students have been exploring up to 3-digit numbers with base ten blocks, number strips, and place value charts.  As we work with 3-digit numbers here are some of the ways your child is seeing them:

274
two hundred seventy-four
200 + 70 + 4,         
2 hundreds 7 tens 4 ones
hundreds tens ones
       2       7       4

We practiced renaming up to a 3-digit number.  This is a difficult skill but students are getting better and better at being able to rename numbers.  We have been working on this skill everday and will continue to review this skill often to continue to build our number fluency.  

Another math skill being worked on is writing number words up 3-digits.  I am allowing students to use their math folders or journal as a resource so that they are spelling the number words correctly.

This week students will be introduced to another tool to help us to continue our work with 3-digit numbers.  The tool is number discs.  We will use number discs to help relate ones, tens, and hundreds to money.

We will tackle comparing numbers (greater than, less than, and equal to) up to 1,000.  Students will also review counting on and counting back by 1, 2, 10, 20, and 100.

Here is this week's homework.  Please have your child work for 15 minutes on the following objectives.

Monday-A.5 Number Chart
Tuesday-M.4 Value of Underlined Digit
Wednesday-B.1 Comparing Numbers Up to 100
Thursday-B.3 Comparing Numbers Up to 1,000

Speaking of homework, last week homework went much smoother.  I didn't hear from anyone that they were having a problem, YAHOO!  I do want to remind you that when your child works on IXL be sure that they are logged in as themselves NOT as a guest.  If they do accidently forget to log in and end up doing their homework as a guest please be sure to email me so that they get credit for completing their homework.  Starting this week students not completing homework will need to attend study hall.

We are getting close to completing our first project--Tribes in Action.  During the first 2 weeks of school we worked on learning about the Tribes Agreements--Attentive Listening, Mutual Respect, Appreciations, Right to Pass, and No Put-Downs.  This past week students were broken into groups (They selected their top 3 agreements that they wanted to work on.) and they have been using their knowledge and a class created circle map to create a definition for their assigned agreement.  This week the groups will be writing a script for a skit about their agreement that they will perform for the Kindergarten class the week of September 15th.  I am so excited to see the end project.

This week we will also complete our first writing project--a riddle about ourselves complete with a self portrait.  This writing project will not only create a great beginning writing piece for your child's writing portfolio, it is also taking the students through the complete Writing Process--prewriting, rough draft, editing and revising, and final draft.  I am so proud of the writers in Room 5.  They are doing an amazing job with this first piece, I can't wait to get them hung in the hallway.  I wonder if you will be able to guess which one is your child!!

Just a few final "odds and ends"...  

Our schedule is being adjusted ever so slightly.  Students are a bit listless in the afternoon and the playground is very crowded with other classrooms having a P.E. at the end of the day, so Mrs. Sorensen and myself (with Mrs. Mackedon's blessing) have decided to move P.E. to 3:00-3:30.  The updated schedule is in the Blog. 

I also wanted to point out we have 2 snack opportunities a day.  The first is during our morning recess 9:35-9:50 and the second snack is in class, a working snack time from 2:30-2:40 during our language time.  Every morning students put their 2 snacks for the day in their cubby.  We are trying to avoid going back into the hall for students to get snacks out of their backpacks (too time consuming and takes away from teaching/learning time if I have to stand in the doorway and monitor students in the hall).

Looking forward to another great week!!

Sincerely,
Anne Bloomfield

Monday, September 1, 2014

Week 2 Reading Blog from Mrs. Jackson

September 1, 2014

Welcome September! It is amazing to think that we are heading into the fall.  I saw many of  your children at the Labor Day Parade today and it reminded me of how lucky we all are to live in such a small-knit community.  Of course, my girls were hesitant to go to the parade, but they decided they loved it when they hauled home bags of candy!  Isn’t that what parades are about for little kids?

Your second graders really worked hard this week.  We worked on improving our Independent Reading and Writing time.  After practicing reaching writing expectations for 2nd grade, I was very impressed with the writing that all of our 2nd graders produced. 

Many students wrote about pets, sports, friends, family and adventures.  We are working on developing from being 1st grade writers into 2nd grade writers.  Some things that have changed in 2nd grade include longer, more elaborate pieces, the use of sketches without color vs. colored drawings and writing in normal notebooks vs. on larger K-1st grade paper with bigger spaces for writing, dotted lines and a large space for drawing.  

Having taught 3rd grade, I am excited to raise our 2nd grade writing to the next level.  I have been looking closely at the errors made by our 2nd graders and have  many things in store that I know will improve their skills.    Writing is one of my biggest passions and I feel very positive and excited about the growth we will make this year.  

During the beginning of last week, I chose books to fill each child’s book basket for Independent Reading.  On Thursday, after demonstrating effective independent reading, we focused on making good book choices on our own and picked out books to read this coming week during our Independent Reading time.  

This week we are going to begin our Word Work program (focusing on Spelling skills), continue improving our Independent Writing time and on learning the skills for 2nd grade Read to Someone.

It has been a great 2 weeks.  I look forward to another great week ahead.

Reminder-Volunteer Request
We really need 2-3 more volunteers to help during our reading block from 10:15-11:20.  These volunteers will make it possible for me to track sight word and fluency progress as well as to help small groups improve their Spelling through weekly guided Word Work.  These volunteers will begin next week when we will also begin our small Guided Reading groups.

Please let me know if you can help.  Thank you to the  parents who have already volunteered!  

Have a wonderful afternoon with your families!

Happy Labor Day

Dear Second Grade Families,

I can't believe we will enter our 3rd week of school tomorrow!!  It's been an exciting 2 weeks and I believe we are settled into a rountine.  Between this week and next week I will be setting up my volunteen schedule for those parents who wanted to volunteer in class, specifically those parents who wanted to help out with math facts.  Thanks so much in advance for your eagerness to help!!

This past week was our first week of homework using the IXL Program.  It has been a real learning curve for me!!  Thank you for your patience as we worked through some issues with log in information.  I'm hoping next week will be smooth sailing.  Remember that your child should be spending 15 minutes per night on the assigned objective.  We have been using the program with our Chrome Books in class everyday so your child should be getting to be an expert on the log in procedure.

Speaking of IXL, here are the assignment objectives for homework this week...

Tuesday  C.3  Number Words Up to 100.
Wednesday  M.2  Place Value Models
Thursday  C.4 Number Words Up to 1,000

I wanted to let you know that I assign the objectives based on my lesson plans for math at the beginning of the week.  There are times that I have to slow down or speed up based on how the students are working through the the objectives.  That is why the objective that your child writes down in their planner can sometimes differ from the assigned objective in the Blog.  If your child writes down a different objective that is because we got further or in some cases not as far in my planned lessons.  While the objectives for homework are listed in the Blog please use what your child writes in their planner as the homework for any given night.

I am entering uncharted waters for me with this Blog.  Kim Sorensen and myself recorded some math videos last week.  The math videos will be targeting concepts that we are working on in class that are difficult.  Kim and myself recognize that the way we are presenting some math concepts in class are very different from the way we learned the same concept.  This can be a real challenge when you are trying to work with your child.  Our first 2 videos are on renaming numbers, we are hoping to expand on these videos to support you as you support your child.  I am hoping that I am successful in attaching the videos.

I hope that you are having a great long weekend!

Sincerely,
Anne Bloomfield