Happy Christmas All and to All a Good Night!!

Dear Parents,

We are down to the last 4 days before Christmas Break!!  I know that everybody has busy households as we finish all our Christmas preparations, yet stay caught up with our day to day activities.  Easier said than done--but try very hard to enjoy some peace within this busy time of year.

Math
In Math our unit on money continued with adding money amounts up to $10.00 using several strategies.  We used number bonds, a counting on strategy, and the partial sum strategy to help us add money amounts.  Having multiple strategies helps students with their number sense and allows them to pick a strategy that is a "good fit" for them.

We also tackled some word problems that included adding money amounts.  Word problems can be a bit challenging for students.  We are working hard to look at what the word problems are really wants as an answer--the whole or the part.

Since this week will be busy with assessing students, Mrs. Neal and myself have decided not assign homework.  Enjoy a week free of Math homework:)

Writing
Students are completing their final drafts of their informational pieces about the Pilgrims and Wampanoags.  I was hoping to complete this last week but we were not so it is pushing into this week.
We also spent some time reviewing letter writing.  We wrote a letters to Santa Claus and we are hoping that he will have time to write back to us.

Language Arts
Our focus in Language Arts was contractions.  We discussed how contractions are 2 words put together with some letters replaced by an apostrophe.  We listed some contractions on a tree map.  Our work with contractions will continue this week.

Projects
Although students shared their projects last week.  We will continue to edit and revise projects so I can take a final grade on them this week.  When we come back from vacation in January; our projects will focus on the area of Science.

As the 2nd quarter and calender year comes to an end; I wish all of you a peaceful and relaxing holiday season and a new year filled with joy!!

Sincerely,
Anne Bloomfield

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

December 15-18

What a delightful time of year!  It’s such a balance between checking off our holiday lists and enjoying the season.  

This week in Reading, we continue to finish our report card assessments. Many of these require me to work individually with each student, so students will be spending some time this week working independently on activities connected to some holiday read-alouds, illustrating non-fiction mini-books about reindeer, writing about reindeer and reviewing some of the concepts they've seen throughout the year with a variety of activities.

There will be no new Spelling list this week.  I will be sending home last week’s Spelling test tomorrow.  We are a becoming much better spellers as we continue to work on Word Families.  I appreciate how much time some of you spend on Spelling throughout the week.  That practice has really been making a difference with some of the more difficult words.  

Have a wonderful vacation.  It is such a magical time for children. I hope it is for you as well.

Thank you for a fabulous fall!

Kristen Jackson

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas!!

Dear Parents,

The time between Thanksgiving and Christmas is going soooo fast. Students are very excited about all the holiday activities that are going on around them. Many students have been coming to school so happy to share about all the fun family activities whether it be going tree hunting, trimming the tree, or about the "Elves" that have been visiting them. It is such a magical but busy time.

Math

Our work in math centered around making equivalent amounts of money using different coin and dollar denominations, making change, and subtracting cents from a dollar and dollars and cents from ten dollars.

We practiced two strategies for subtracting dollars and cents from ten dollars. I want to share them with you so that you can support and reinforce these concepts with your child at home.

These concepts proved to be a bit challenging and took longer than I expected. Because we needed to spend additional time on these concepts our assessment will be Monday (12/8) rather than last Wednesday as scheduled.

Homework
Mon.  IXL P.9-Add money up to a dollar
Tues.  IXL P.10-Subtract money up to a dollar
Wed.  Practice Test Worksheet
Thurs.  No Homework (Test)

Writing

The students of Room 5 have been doing an excellent job with our informative writing piece. Students used facts gathered from books, videos, and web quests about the Pilgrims and the Wampanoag Indians. Our research was done before Thanksgiving and we completed rough drafts this past week. the rough drafts have been very good and I am anxious for students to complete final copies this week. We will continue our informative writing with Christmas in the countries of Australia and Germany.

Language Arts

In Language Arts we continued to identify words that need to be capitalized. Students are using the acronym MINTS to help them remember words that need to be capitalized. 

Months of the year and days of the week 
I (even in the middle of a sentence)
Names
Titles of books, movies, and songs
Start of every sentence

We created an anchor chart as a resource for our room with student illustrations and examples. I know that we will refer to this resource often during writing.

We also worked on possessive nouns. Students worked on making singular nouns possessive by adding an apostrophe s. Our work with possessive nouns will continue this week.

Projects

This past week we have been putting the final touches on our 51st state projects so that they will be ready to present next week. As was sent out in an earlier email, parents are invited to hear students present their projects on Thursday, December 11th from 1:00 to 2:30 PM. At this time students will present their slide show presentations, travel brochure, and state maps. Hopefully you will be able to attend.

As the time until Christmas gets shorter, we all get so busy!! My hope for all my 2nd grade families is that even within the "holiday rush" you are able to step away and enjoy the beauty of the season. Here's to a peaceful week.

Sincerely,
Anne Bloomfield

Here's the Reading information from Mrs. Jackson...

2nd Grade Blog

Dear Families,

I saw some of you this weekend enjoying Christmas in Fallon with your families.  One of our very favorite things to do as a family is to attend the Christmas tree lighting.  Things always feel magical with big flakes of snow brushing your face.  I’m going to spend time each day appreciating and enjoying the magic that surrounds all of our children and families during this special time.    

This past week we had a wonderful time enjoying 4 different versions of The Gingerbread Man.  It is so fun to pull out books that we only read once a year and revisit them.  We are still working at finding stronger comparisons and contrasts between different versions of the same text and will continue working on this throughout the next two weeks.

This week we will also be be using a variety of informational text on reindeer in order to identify the main ideas of individual paragraphs within a multi-paragraph essay and identifying information that we learn in the text of an article or story vs. in the illustrations of an article or story.  

Our word family this week is the “ight” Spelling pattern.  Just a reminder, if you would like your child to use Spelling City on-line to help them practice, I have included the link below. I will have this week's words posted on the website later this afternoon. Also as a refresher,  your child will be assessed on their “ight” word list on Monday.  Then during the week we will review this pattern daily, and on Thursday we will have a Spelling assessment over our words.  Tomorrow, your child will be bringing home their Spelling assessments from last week.

Spelling City

 http://www.spellingcity.com/kjacksonoasis

Have a fabulous week.  

Thank you-Kristen Jackson