Happy Nevada Day and Happy Halloween

Week of October 27th

Dear Parents,

What a GREAT week!!!  We completed our Then and Now Projects.  The past 5 weeks have been filled with so much learning as we have researched, written, and created artifacts that went along with specific topics (Transportation, Games, Cooking, Music, and Education) 150 years ago and now.  There were definitely moments of frustration, joy, and amazement as students took on this very challenging project. The projects are now at the Churchill County Museum and will be judged this week.  I am soooooo PROUD of the students of Room 5 and can hardly wait to start the next project!!

As you know Halloween is a holiday that gets recognized at Oasis Academy!  I am super excited to have elements of Halloween throughout my lessons for the coming week and of course to enjoy the students in their costumes on Thursday.  Our party, being organized by Mrs. Hyde will be on Thursday as well.  It will run from 2:30 PM until 4:00 PM.  

Last week in Math we continued to work with open number lines.  The students are really picking up this strategy.  This past week we used open number lines to add, subtract, and solve word problems.  Students also got practice writing 2-digit addition and subtraction word problems.  We are using these student written problems to practice more open number lines and to practice a new strategy that students will learn this week--Adding With Partial Sums.

Here's the homework schedule for this week...

Mon.     Partial Sum 2-digit Addition Worksheet

Tues.    Partial Sum 3-digit Subtraction Worksheet

Wed.     Partial Sum Word Problems Worksheet

Thurs.    No Homework (Enjoy a Happy Halloween and Nevada Day)

It was wonderful to meet with many of you on Friday and I look forward to meeting with everyone else this coming week!!  Parent Teacher Conference time is a powerful opportunity for us to come together to focus on your child!!  Mrs. Jackson and myself appreciate your timeliness in coming to your conference and your input during the conference.  

As I close this week's blog, I hope that you all enjoy Halloween and Nevada Day!!

Sincerely,
Anne Bloomfield

Here's Mrs. Jackson's reading blog information...

October 27-30

Halloween is here!

My household is bustling with pumpkin carving, costumes and Halloween preparations.  I imagine some of yours may be as well.

This week we will spend time focusing our mini-lessons and  our Guided Reading groups on 6 important question stems.  Those we will be covering include who, what, when, where, why and how. Halloween related books will be used as models for our questioning techniques.  

We will also spend time working on a Close Reading of the song Monster Mash.  This Close Reading will include answering the above questions, studying unfamiliar vocabulary, identifying secret story word patterns as well as long and short vowels.

In our Word Work we will be studying “ain” words.  Your child should have a list of Spelling words using this “ain” word family in their blue Reading folders.   They will be tested on these words on Thursday.  They  may also bring home a reading comprehension sheet asking who, what, when, where, why, how questions about their Guided Reading books.

It was so fun to meet all of you during conferences.  I appreciate your input and knowledge about how I can even better educate your child. It’s great to work as a team to make your child successful in their Reading.

Please continue to communicate with me if you have any other questions, ideas or comments.   This week Mrs. Bloomfield and I still have over 10 conferences to complete.  We will be conferencing some afternoons until 6 and then on Friday from 8-1.  In some conferences, we created specific Action Plans.   Due to this busy conferencing schedule, I will begin incorporating some the Action Plans we created this week or the week of November 3.   

Have a great week!  I hope you have lots of spooky times together!

Mrs. Jackson

2nd Quarter--Here We Come!!!

Dear Second Grade Families,

The first quarter is complete and we are onto the second quarter.  This year is flying by. Before I write about last week, I want to mention some important events happening this week.  First of all, this coming week is Book Fair Week.  Our class will be visiting the Book Fair on Tuesday afternoon.  This is an opportunity for students to check out the Book Fair.  During this time they will have the chance to browse, make a "wish list", and make a purchase if they have money.  Thursday, October 23rd will be Family Night for the Book Fair.  Besides visiting the Book Fair,  your family can enjoy a snack, have a picture taken, and watch local falconer, Chris Honecker work with his falcon.  It promises to be a very exciting night!  I hope you can attend!!

Mrs. Jackson and myself will be starting Parent Teacher Conferences on Friday, October 24th.  Between October 24th and the following week we will be conferencing with 40 families.  This will be a very busy and exciting week, both Mrs. Jackson and myself are looking forward to meeting with you to discuss your child's academic and social progress.  If you have not signed up for a conference please do so!!  You should have received an email from a web site called Sign up Genius to sign up for a conference.  If you have not received the link please contact me so that I can resend and you can get scheduled.

Now here's what we did last week...

Math
In Math we completed an end of quarter assessment.  I spent a big portion of Math meeting with students in small group and individually to review the end of the quarter assessment standards.  Students also worked with number lines that included both positive and negative numbers.  We have just been practicing counting on and counting back through a dice game, giving students experience with negative numbers.  In addition to our work with positive and negative numbers, students also started adding 2 digit numbers using an open number line.  This is an example of what the open number line strategy looks.

  
We will continue our work with open number lines this week, moving onto more complex addition equations (42 + 37 = __) and subtraction equations.  Because open number lines are not included on the IXL program, homework this week will be worksheets.  Here is our homework for next week.

Monday	Open Number Line Addition Worksheet
Tuesday	Open Number Line Subtraction Worksheet
Wednesday	Open Number Line Subtraction Worksheet
Thursday	No Homework due to quiz

Then and Now Project
Our work on our Then and Now Projects are coming to a close.  I will be taking our completed projects to the Churchill County Museum on Thursday afternoon.  This was a very challenging project and there were definitely some very stressful moments but as always the students have risen to the occasion.  We are very thankful to the many parents who have come in to help us with our projects and for Mrs. Mori's 6th Grade Class for helping us edit, revise, and search for images.  This past week we put the finishing touches on our writing that goes with the project and we mounted our writing and images on construction; getting the pieces ready to mount on the trifold boards.

Language
We finished our Tree Map on Plural Nouns both regular and irregular.  The students did a great job with an I have...Who Has?  card game.  They are getting faster and faster responding.  We also did some review of compound words and verbs.

Writing
This week our writing time was spent working on our projects.  As mentioned above, the projects have been so labor intensive with writing and typing, I have been using our writing block to support our project writing.  I am looking forward to having the writing block time back to work on the 6+1 Writing Traits.

Enjoy your week and I look forward to meeting with you all very soon!!

Anne Bloomfield

Reading information from Mrs. Jackson...

Dear 2nd Grade Parents,

I am anxious to see all of you within the next 2 weeks for conferences.  Most of our assessments are finally done.  All of the children in our classroom have made tremendous progress.  Please let me know if there is something you would specifically like to address during these conferences.  That way I can make sure to plan time during our 20 minutes to discuss information regarding that topic.

We have been doing Raz-Kids, an online reading program at each child’s optimal reading level for growth.  This program includes quizzes on the books that they have read to make sure that they are truly comprehending what they are reading.  Time spent utilizing this online program would be a great way to supplement the reading that I assign in class for homework.  

Your child can go into Raz-Kids and access their specific individual reading corner.  Oasis Academy has purchased licenses for all 1st and 2nd graders so that they will be able to utilize this program at school and at home.  In order to log in, please go to the teacher login section.  

My login is:

kjackson185

ungit478

I think you will find this program very useful at home and that your child will enjoy doing their nightly 20 minutes of reading using this as an alternative to actual books.

This week we will continue our Close Reading of The Spider and the Fly.  In this text we are working on the standards of asking and answering questions within a text, recounting a story and understanding its lesson or moral, describing how words and phrases supply meaning and rhythm in a story or poem and acknowledging different points of view of characters, using different voices to express each one’s character.  This has been a fun text to read.  I will send a copy of the text home with your child to read and explain to you this week as our investigation continues.  

We will also begin our “Wonder Stories”.  These are small passages with short answers at 2,3,4 grade level that will also support our comprehension.  We will be numbering paragraphs, highlighting our answers and using complete sentences to answer these comprehension questions  

For Spelling, our word family will be “ike”.  Please look for these lists in your child’s homework folder and encourage them to practice.  They can do practice tests on these words, write the ones they miss multiple times, practice in the car, etc.  

Thank you once again!  I look forward to seeing you soon!

Kristen Jackson

Last Week of the First Quarter

I Love Fall Color!

Dear Second Grade Parents,

Here we are in Week 9 (our last week of the first quarter), I can't believe how fast this first quarter has gone.  It seems like just yesterday we were enjoying our first day of second grade!  In any event, with the close of the first quarter, it's time to start scheduling Parent Teacher Conferences.  Mrs. Jackson and myself will run our conferences together so that you can get the most complete information about your child's 1st quarter progress.  Our official Parent Teacher Conference is Friday, October 24th but since Mrs. Jackson and myself will be meeting with all families from both classes (40 families in total) our conferences will continue into the following week.  An official sign up will be sent out via email by Wednesday, October 15th.  Please be sure to respond promptly as you will be scheduled on "first come first serve basis".  I look forward to visiting with you all soon!

Here's the happenings from Week 8 in a "nutshell"...

Math
In math our focus was adding and subtracting 2-digit numbers without renaming.  We are working towards solving these problems mentally.  Here's an example of what your student might be thinking....
If the problem is...      25 + 43 =
In their mind they are breaking 25 into 20 and 5 and 43 into 40 and 3.
              20 + 5   40 + 3 =
Students then add the tens to get 60 and the ones to get 8 and then put them together to get 68.  It has taken longer in this Blog to explain than the students will take to calculate in their heads.  One of the keys to success in this strategy is knowing math facts (both addition and subtraction fluently).

The other big skill in Math this week was our work with word problems.  Again our focus was Part Whole Problems and Comparison Problems.  Our work on this skill will be ongoing.

We rounded out the week with our 3rd Math Assessment on Thursday. 

Here's the homework for the coming week...

Mon.  IXL A.7 Even and Odd Numbers Part 1
Tues. IXL A.8 Even and Odd Numbers Part 2
Wed.  IXL A. 9 Even and Odd Numbers on a Number Line
Thurs.IXL A.10 Which Even of Odd Number Comes Before or After?

Language Arts
In Language Arts we are working on irregular plural nouns.  The students have been generating a Tree Map to show that a noun doesn't always go from singular to plural by adding an "s".   We have learned that sometimes you have to add an "es" (dish becomes dishes), change the "y" to an "i" and add "es" (pony becomes ponies), some words that end in "f" need to change the "f" to a "v" and add "es" (wolf becomes wolves), and finally some words become plural by changing to a new word (foot becomes feet).  

Writing
In writing we finished our Interactive Writing to the kindergarten class.  This was a great way to learn the parts of a letter and the correct punctuation to use in each part.  Students are now working on their own letters to the Churchill County Museum for allowing us to visit and for providing us with a great tour that really focused on our "Then and Now" Project.

Projects
Our "Then and Now" Projects are coming along.  This has been a very rigorous process for the second graders, but I have seen so much improvement.  We have written rough drafts of the "then" and the "now" of their given category (Games, Education, Transportation, Cooking, and Music).  This past week we paired a student who wrote about the "then" with a student who wrote about the "now". One "then and now" pair compared (wrote about how they were the same) while the other "then and now" pair contrasted (wrote about how they were different).  We will be typing these pieces on our Chrome Books this week.  Some groups also got to select images to go on their trifold boards.  This has been a very BUSY project!!  It will be completed on Thursday, October 23rd when they are taken to the Churchill County Museum for judging and display!!

Looking forward to another great week in second grade!!  I hope your week is wonderful!!

Sincerely,
Anne Bloomfield

Here's a reading update from Mrs. Jackson...

Dear Second Grade Families,

I can’t wait to see you all very shortly for fall conferences.  I am excited to share all of the growth that your child has made in Reading since the beginning of this year.  

This week I will be doing individual assessments on each child.  Due to this fact, I will not be sending any assigned reading books home for homework for certain reading groups.  Please make sure that your child is still reading “good-fit” books even though I am not sending them home.  For other Reading groups, your child will be assigned to finish and answer questions individually about the small chapter books that we began reading last week.  

We are also continuing to do assessments as a class focused on main idea, character development, setting, story mapping, etc.  We will be doing an activity all week focusing on close reading using the text The Spider and the Fly.  I think your child will really enjoy this book and it will definitely help them begin learning how to focus more deeply on the text that they are reading.  

This week we will spend time studying the -ore Word Family.  On Monday we will write sample words on white-boards using this ending, then your child should be practicing a Spelling list of these -ore Word Family words all week and be ready for their Spelling Test on Thursday.   

I look forward to talking with you more during conferences next week.  Please let me know if you have any questions.  

October Has Arrived

Dear Parents,

Welcome October!!  We have been enjoying the cooler weather.  Remember to dress your child in layers for their comfort throughout the day--cooler mornings to warmer afternoons! 

Math 
Our work in math this week continued to focus on word problems.  Students focused on determining whether a problem was a "Part-Whole Problem" or a "Comparison Problem".  When students are able to tell the type of word problem, they are able to apply the appropriate strategy to solve the problem.  This takes lots of practice and we will continue to work on this weekly.

Another BIG part of our work in math was reviewing mental math.  This is another concept that will carry into next week.  In mental math we have been working on adding and subtracting 2-digit numbers without renaming.  If the problem is 34 + 25 = ?, students are breaking each 2-digit number into tens and ones.  So 34 + 25 = ? would look like 30 + 20 = 50 and 4 + 5 = 9.  This all comes together to show that 34 + 25 = 59.  It is very exciting to see students starting to develp the ability to break down numbers and quickly add them in their heads.  Again this is another concept that will be be practiced throughout the year.  

We have also been working hard to build stamina in our Math Daily 3.  This past week we started talking about the final piece of Math Daily 3--Math With Someone.  This next week we will be learning more math games to play during Math With Someone.  With the final piece of Math Daily 3 being introduced this week.  I'm hoping that next week will be filled with building stamina in all 3 areas and the following week students will begin having choice in their Daily 3. Using the Math Daily 3 is allowing me to pull students that need help or enrichment in specific areas of math.  I am very excited to get this structure completely up and running but I also know from experience that it is better to go slow with the procedures so that students know exactly how to work in each area.  

Here's the homework for this week.

Homework
Mon.   IXL E.14
Tues.  Worksheet
Wed.  Review Test 
Thurs.  No homework

Project Update
Our "Then and Now" Projects are moving along.  Last Tuesday, Mrs. Christiansen, Mrs. Goings, and Mrs. Sorensen were able to join our class to help with the research.  These ladies were an amazing help and boost to this project!!  I can't thank them enough!!!

Students have moved on to writing their rough drafts.  The groups are all in differents places so it will be a busy week going from group to group supporting them as they write.  I will begin revising and editing with groups and they will begin the process of typing their reports.  As I have mentioned before, this is a very INTENSE project for the 2nd graders, but I am so PROUD of their continued efforts.  Late this week or early the following week, our 6th Grade friends will be joining us to help us with editing and revising on the chromebooks.

Writing
With our "Then and Now" Project being so writing intensive, I am using part of writing block to work on the writing for the project.  In addition to the project writing students are also learning about and writing friendly letters.  Again our 6th grade friends will come into play, as they will become our "pen pals".  I love that this will be a skill that is worked on throughout the rest of the school year in a "real world" way.

Have a great week!!

Sincerely,

Anne Bloomfield

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

2nd Grade Reading Blog

October 6-9

October excitement is here!  Monday I will have the Halloween books out in our room, so I imagine the students will be happy to see them.  

This week we will once again have a Spelling test this Thursday.  Your child will be bringing home a list of words to practice before Friday.  There is no assigned Spelling homework, but any practice you do on these can be counted towards their 20 minutes of Reading homework that night.  

Last week we began working on a standard that utilizes only illustrations to make inferences about a book. We also began analyzing character changes related to challenges in texts.  We will continue working on these standards throughout this month utilizing a variety of whole group and small group texts.  

In Writing, we continue to improve our journal writing.  We are working on adding visual images and details to our writing.  We also continue to work on our spacing, punctuation and the amount of effective journaling that we do daily.  

Please let me know if you have any questions about any Reading-related item.  

Thank you!