Down to the "Finish Line"!!

Our 2nd Grade finish line.

                                                                                                             May 18, 2015

Dear Parents,

Here we are down to the final week and a busy week it will be!!  We are scheduled for Ag in the Classroom on Monday, Tuesday will be a normal day, Wednesday is the 8th Grade Graduation, and Thursday is a Field Day at the Regional Park.  Hopefully the rain will hold off a little and not disrupt all the planning that has gone into the special activities.

Last week was all about finishing up.  In math we did a lot of review and end of quarter testing.  Our time in projects was spent creating three dimensional dioramas of our habitats that included a plant and animal from that habitat.  Language was all about review and testing.  The focus in writing was about appreciations and journal writing.

Creating dioramas

Researching habitats

Another big event from last week was Room 5's Puppet Show.  It was great to see so many family members in attendance to watch the performance.  I have been in and out during drama over the 4th quarter.  While I have seen pieces of the puppet show coming together, it was a thrill to see the final product on Thursday.  The students did a fantastic job!!

Behind the curtain.

Getting ready to perform

Over the course of the year, students have asked to borrow some of my books.  All of my books have my name written in them (most of the time "Bloomfield" is written on the inside cover).  If you find some of my books over the summer, I just ask that you return them to me when school resumes in August.

IMPORTANT FIELD DAY INFORMATION--
The students of Room 5 will have the opportunity to climb the "Rock Wall" at the Regional Park.  In order to do this they must have a signed permission slip that is turned into the office by Tuesday.  This permission slip was emailed to you last week.  Students wanting to climb the "Rock Wall" must also be wearing closed toe shoes. 

In closing, I'd like to say a BIG thank you for making my first year at Oasis Academy so wonderful!  I feel so fortunate to have had each of your students and to have had a great group of supportive parents.  This year has been a blessing in so many ways.  I wish you all a restful, adventurous summer and I am sure I will see you many of you around Fallon during the summer months.

Sincerely,
Anne Bloomfield

Getting to the Finishing Touches

            

      
                                                                                                   May 11, 2015

Dear Parents, 

First I'd like to say a HUGE thank you for such a wonderful Teacher Appreciation Week!  The door (thanks Mrs. Goings) was well, "adorable"!!  The coffee cards and other assorted drinks are greatly appreciated and the flowers just lovely.  My favorite part of the week were absolutely the thoughtful pictures, cards, and sweet notes from the children.  Thanks for making the week so memorable!!

Math
We finished up our work in geometry this week.  Students worked on composing and decomposing shapes.  One of activities was working with tangrams.  A tangram is a square that is broken into seven pieces.  These pieces can be flipped or rotated (but not overlapping) to create pictures.  Some of these pictures can be quite challenging to make 

Even Mrs. Mackedon tried putting together a tangram picture.

 but the students enjoyed stepping up to the challenge.  This activity will be available for students to work on as part of their Daily 3 Math by Myself.

This week will be filled with review and end of the quarter assessments.  Since we are reaching the end of the year and will not be working on any new standards there will not be any homework.


Writing
By this time on Mother's Day this should not be a "spoiler" but our writing this past week was another opinion piece.  This time students wrote about why their Mom is the best.  I was very pleased with the reasons and examples students gave in their opinions.  This piece was taken to final copy and hopefully has been read as part of a Mother's Day card.
Projects

In projects we finished up learning about the six basic habitats (rainforest, arctic, desert, forest, ocean, and freshwater).  Students picked the habitat that they want to focus on this week.  Students will be becoming an "expert" on one habitat and be focusing on an animal and plant from their chosen habitat.  

 Part of our project time was spent being an audience for the 3rd grade projects on "Outrageous Weather".  The third graders did a great job presenting and the second graders were good attentive listeners and got to participate in some of the demonstrations.  It was very valuable for the students to see a polished end of the year third grade project.

In closing, I hope all the Moms had a wonderful, relaxing, love filled Mother's Day!  I certainly did!!

Sincerely,
Anne Bloomfield

Here's an update from Mrs. Jackson...

May 9, 2015

Thank you so much for all of your wonderful gifts!  Everywhere I look my house is filled with flowers and my  heart is filled with your children’s words of love and appreciation.

This week I will be conducting final 2nd grade Reading assessments on all of my students.  During the time that I spend assessing them, they will be working on writing and art activities related to books by the author Robert Munsch.  We will be focusing on Aaron’s Hair, Alligator Baby and Smelly Feet.  If we finish these activities, we will be reviewing our alphabetizing, synonyms, antonyms, word work, editing and other 2nd grade language skills.  

During class, we will also spend 20 minutes reading in order to finish the novels that we have begun in class during the past 2 weeks.  There will be no homework, but we will be finishing these texts this week during class.

Thank you!!!  Happy Mother’s Day to you all! May your weekend have been on free of cleaning and sibling conflicts.  

Have a wonderful end of the year! We have so many exciting school-wide events...it will prove to be 8 unparalleled, fun-filled days.

Hello May

                                                                                                             May 4, 2015

Dear Parents,

I'm not sure how it happened so fast, but the month of May is upon us.  The school clock is winding down but the students of Room 5 are still working away.

Math
The students of Room 5 are loving Geometry!!!  We continued our work with three dimensional solids.  Solids have been using a computer program that allows them to look at three-dimensional shapes and then the "net" or flattened form.  Students have been having a blast creating their own nets and seeing if they can make a "net" that will form a three-dimensional solid.  A few of them have been printed and students have cut them out, folding them on the lines to see if the "net" does form a solid.  So far we have done this with 2 "nets" and one formed a solid.

Students used what they learned about three-dimensional solids to create solids using toothpicks and mini marshmellows.

Our final math piece for the week was looking at "Club Quadrilateral".  Students are learning that for a two-dimensional shape to be a member of "Club Quadrilateral" the shape must have a four sides and four vertices.  Squares, rectangles, parallelogram, trapezoids, and the rhombus are all members of "Club Quadrilateral"

 
Here's the homework for this week...

Math Homework
Mon.     IXL T.3 Identify 2-Dimensional Shapes and 3-                    Dimensional Shapes
Tues.    Worksheet
Wed.     Worksheet
Thurs.   No Homework

Writing
Students are working on typing their persuasion piece. Through this writing we have been focusing on the organization and indenting.
Language
Students in Room 5 continued their work with Dictionary Skills.  We spent a little more time with Guide Words but this week our main focus was looking in depth at entry words.  An entry word is a word in the dictionary.  Each entry word has a definition, phonetic spelling, the part of speech, and sometimes an example sentence.

Projects
Students are continuing to observe their radish plants.  We have also planted bean seeds and students are watering them with different liquids including...soda, bubbles, lemonade, milk, gatorade, and oil.

Along with plants, students are starting learn about habitats and the plants and animals that share various habitats.  So far students have learned about the arctic, desert, and rainforest habitats.  This week we will focus on the forest, freshwater, and ocean habitats.  From their students will pick which habitat they will choose to focus on.

Baseball season, softball season, and school are begining to wind down.  I plan on enjoying the remaining school days to the fullest!!  I wish you all a wonderful week!!

Sincerely, 
Anne Bloomfield

A note from Mrs. Jackson...

May 3, 2015

Lemonade, lemonade, lemonade!  I was at a friend’s house tonight and their 8th grade daughter was readying her lemonade stand for tomorrow.  I am excited to see all of the different lemonade stand plans that our 8th grade students have come up with to beat out their fellow classmates and their stands!  We are so lucky to have our children at Oasis where we have such amazing teachers that make our learning real.

In 2nd grade this week, we will spend our last week of Guided Reading enjoying the final chapter books of 2nd grade.  Next week we will take our end of the year 2nd grade reading assessments.  It is so fun to end this year hearing students discuss books that are making them laugh and discuss different opinions about what they are reading.  Thank you for making sure that our reading is still getting done nightly and that you are signing their completed log as well!

We will be working with a poem about summer and reading some new non-fiction books this week during our Daily Five.  I know the students have been eyeing these new non-fiction books since it is our favorite genre, so I am excited to pull them out and share them with our 2nd grade class as part of our mini-lessons of the week.  

Have a great week.  This is our last week of softball (before tournament)!  Unfortunately, as much as I love it, I am ready for it to be done and to have evenings at home and in my own yard!  Thank you for being such wonderful volunteers here at school and such wonderful families working with your children at home!