Fall Has Arrived!!

                                                                                          September 28, 2015
Dear Parents,

Room 17 had a very busy week!!  We presented our first project, completed our first writing piece that went through the entire writing process, celebrated 3 birthdays, and enjoyed "Pajama Day".

We also completed our first round of "Mystery Students" from Room 17.  It is so much fun to have the opportunity to focus on one student for the day looking for the positive student behaviors.  Students get so excited to learn who the "Mystery Student" is at the end of the end of the day.  They love hearing the note that goes home and when the "Mystery Student" pushes the send button, to share the note with their parents.  Students are equally disappointed if the "Mystery Student" does not earn their note.  If the note is not earned the "Mystery Student" remains a secret and their name gets put back in to be selected again in the future. The second round has already started--be looking for another "Mystery Student" note soon.

Math
In math we spent the week on Part-Whole 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.  Students are working on identifying whether a number in the problem is the "whole" or one of the "parts".  Our mantra has been...
Part + Part = Whole (If the problem gives you the parts, you would add to find the whole.)
Whole - Part = Part (If the problem gives you the whole and a part, you would subtract to find the other part.)
In our answer we are writing an equation and writing an answer sentence.  Below is an example.    

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 (Whole 15 -- Part 7 = Part 8)
Equation: 15 -- 7 = _8_ or 7 + _8_ = 15

Answer Sentence: Sarah drew 8 pictures on Sunday.

Our work with word problems will be ongoing. 

Here's the homework for this week.
Mon.  Worksheet Word Problems Whole-Part
Tues. Workbook pages 39-40
Wed.  Worksheet Word Problems Comparison
Thurs. Worksheet Adding and Subtracting Branches

Language
In Language, students started learning about verbs.  We created a circle map that included many verbs.  Students listened to a verb "rap", then completed their own verb "rap" which they performed in groups for the class.  We also discussed the present and past tense of verbs.  Students used a bridge map to show present tense verbs and past tense verbs made by adding the "ed" ending.  They then used the present and past tense verbs in sentences.  

Writing
The writers of Room 17 completed their first piece of writing that has gone through the complete writing process, a riddle about themselves.  The riddles are now hanging up in the hallway with their self-portraits.  Hopefully parents will be able to stop by and try to guess which riddle belongs to your child. 

With our first writing completed we spent time working on sentence fluency this week.  Students completed an activity in partners where they selected a topic from a list.  They then rolled a die to determine how many words needed to be in the sentence.  The pairs needed to write at least 6 sentences on the topic and no two sentences could begin with the same word.  Going through this activity helped students to see how varying the beginning of sentences and sentence length, makes their writing more interesting.

Projects
Although our Tribes in Action Project took longer than anticipated, we completed it this week!!  I was so proud of all groups.  The puppet shows were great!  Students did a wonderful job presenting to Mrs. Marsh's kindergarten class and the parents that were able to attend.  

Our next project will be in the area of science and will begin this coming week.  More on that in next week's blog.

Reminders
Picture Day for Room 17 will be Wednesday, October 7th at 10:30 AM.  Students are to wear their uniform on picture day.  More information on picture day will be out later this week.

Nachos will be available to purchase at lunch every Wednesday for $3.00.  Last week was the first "Nacho Wednesday" and it seemed to be a BIG hit!!

Here's wishing you a great week!

Sincerely,
Anne Bloomfield

And now some information from Mrs. Loop...

Hello Second Grade Families,

It is hard to believe that October is fast approaching and the first grading period is almost coming to an end.  I began report card assessments last week and will continue them every Thursday throughout the remainder of the grading period.  (The grading period ends on October 16.)  This means that your child will have assigned reading books every day but Thursday.  On Thursdays I will be conducting small group and individual report assessments.  I still want your child to continue to read over the weekend.  It is imperative that they stay in the habit of reading so their brain can continue to build stamina and grow in strength as they read.  On the weekend I would ask that every student spend a minimum of 20 minutes reading something of their choosing aloud to a parent.  If they would like to read every day during the weekend that would be amazing but they are only required to read one night for a minimum of 20 minutes during the weekend.  Please have your child write down what they read and bring it to me to share on Monday or email me what they read at kloop@oasisacademyfallon.us  Second graders are assessed on their reading fluency every Wednesday.  It is easy to have your child practice their reading fluency at home by counting 100 words in a book at their ability level and timing them for one minute and having them practice reading all 100 words.  Speed and accuracy are two things we are working on during reading fluency.

Happy reading,

Katy Loop

Hello Autumn

                                                                                                                     September 21, 2015

Dear Second Grade Families,

It was another GRAND week in 2nd grade!  I am so thankful every week for such a great group of students.  Just a couple of quick notes and then onto the weekly update.

Box tops--as a school community, Oasis Academy is collecting Box Tops. Box Tops come on many products.  As you are cooking and see a Box Top on a container please clip it and send it in with your child.  Box Tops are a source of income for the school.

Also I have had a request from Mrs. Dale, who has been helping with P.E. on Tuesdays.  If the girls could wear shorts, pants, or leggings under their skirts that would be helpful.  We are looking for more help with P.E.  as well.  So if you have some time on Tuesday or Thursday from 2:30-3:30 PM, please consider sharing your time and talent with us!!

Math

Students working on Scoot.

Sharing some answers on Scoot.

In Math we spent time comparing and ordering up to 3-digit numbers and working on the concept of counting on and back by 1's, 10's, and 100's.  We completed the week with a review of Unit 1 by playing a review game called "Scoot" with a partner.  Students tested on Unit 1--Numbers to 1,000; on Friday.  Even though much of this unit was review; it was a very full unit with many concepts to explore.  

Homework
Mon.  IXL M.3--Place Value Models-Up to 1,000
Tues.  IXL E.16--Addition Equations True or False
Wed.  IXL M.6--Value of Underlined Digit-Up to 1,000
Thurs.  IXL F.13--Subtraction Equations True or False

Language
We finished up our work our work with nouns.  Students completed the assessment on singular and plural nouns.  Although the assessment touched on all ways to make singular nouns plural the main focus was on irregular plural nouns.

Students were introduced to our next part of speech, verbs. This is a review of 1st grade work but we will be moving towards the 2nd grade standard of being able to form and use frequently occuring irregular verbs.

Writing
In writing, I had the pleasure of meeting with all students.  Together we reviewed their riddles.  It was great to be able to discuss the editing and revising they had done on their riddles.  All students are in the process of completing their final copy.  It was a very big deal to have completed our first writing that has gone through the entire "writing process".  It was a lengthy, but very valuable process.  The riddles and the self portraits will be displayed on the bulletin board outside of Room 17.   I wonder if you will be able to guess your child's riddle by their clues and self portrait.

Projects

Some of the puppets

We are finally nearing the end of our first project.  The first project is always so exciting.  Last week project groups wrote scripts and created puppets for their Tribes Agreement Puppet Show.  We will perform our puppet shows for Mrs. Marsh's kindergarten class on Wednesday, September 23rd at 1:00 PM in Room 17.  Typically parents are not invited to our first project but as we discussed our performance, the students felt very strongly about having parents attend.  Although it is extremely short notice, on the behalf of the students of Room 17, I would like to extend and invitation to join us for The Tribes Agreement Puppet Shows on Wednesday.  All 4 puppet shows will take no more than 15-20 minutes. 

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.

Here's wishing you a wonderful first week of fall week!!

Sincerely,
Anne Bloomfield

And now for some information from Mrs. Loop...

Hello Second Grade Families,

All students are doing great with reading their assigned books nightly and returning their completed reading logs to school each day.  I have asked the students to complete their reading logs in complete sentences by restating the question.  For example if the they are asked to tell what their favorite part of the book is and why, they would not just write their answer they would need to write “My favorite part of the book is _______ because…”  This is a skill that we will be working on throughout the year.  

Every student completed their spelling test on Thursday.  They all did well writing words with the “ake” spelling pattern.  Throughout the week they practiced rainbow writing the words and writing them in sentences.  They were assessed on spelling their words in isolation last week but will eventually be writing some in dictated sentences to see that they are able to spell them correctly while writing sentences and not just in isolation on a spelling test.  This week we will be practicing spelling words with the “ine” spelling pattern.

Continue reading nightly with your child.  It is important that you listen to them read aloud to ensure that they are reading their books correctly and feel free to ask them questions about what they are reading to ensure that they are comprehending what they are reading.

Happy reading,

Katy Loop

Short Week

                                                                                                     September 14, 2015
Dear Parents,

Here we are in week 5!!  These weeks are just flying by, especially when this past school week was only 3 days long!  

In Class Math Volunteer Opportunities
I'm very happy to report that next week I will be ready to have parent volunteers during the math block.   I am requesting 1 volunteer per block for Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday.  The 1st grade math block is from 8:15 to 9:35 AM.  I would like a volunteer (you don't need to have a student in the 1st grade class) from 9:30 to 10:15 AM.  The 2nd grade math block is from 9:50 to 11:25 am.  I would like a volunteer (you don't need to have a student in the 2nd grade grade class) from 10:30 to 11:15 AM.  Although the volunteer time is only a 45 minute slot, this would count as a hour.  Volunteers for these time periods will be helping small groups of students with their facts (high number) practice through games and individual students with reinforcement and practice of math concepts.  If you are able to help out on Monday, Tuesday, or Wednesday I would really appreciate it!!  Please let me know so I can schedule you in beginning next week (Sept. 21st).

Math
Last week in math our focus was to continue renaming 3-digit numbers.  This is challenging concept but the students of Room 17 are beginning to be pros.  It has taken a lot of work with manipulatives and working with partners but I believe we have it!!

Along with renaming we continued work with writing numbers in standard form, word form, and expanded form.  It got a little tricky when the place value was out of order, for example--What number is 6 tens 3 ones 4 hundreds? What number is 5 + 300 + 40?  But after only a couple of times students realized that they have to read the problem carefully, making sure the place value is in the correct order.

Math Homework
Monday--IXL M.4 Value of the Underlined Digit--tens and ones
Tuesday--IXL B.2 Comparing Numbers Up to 1,000.
Wednesday--IXL M.5 Value of underlined digit up to 100’s.
Thursday--Worksheet

Language
Nouns, nouns, and more nouns...we are still learning about singular and plural nouns.  This week we studied nouns that are irregular in the plural form.  Our focus was on nouns that ended with y, f, and nouns that you have to change the spelling of the singular form to make the plural form.  Here are some examples...
Singular                       Plural
penny                            pennies
scarf                              scarves
child                              children 

Writing

More revising

Revising

We are so close to finishing our first writing project!!  This week we spent time revising.  Students were confusing editing (fixing a piece of writing) with revising (changing a writing piece to make it stronger).  So we spent 2 class periods using teacher models and activities to revise as a whole class and in partners.  Finally students applied their revising knowledge to their own rough drafts.  I was also able to start meeting with students to edit and revise with them.  Students will be ready to write their final copies this coming week.

Still more revising.

Sharing revised pieces in groups.

Projects 
Student groups finished their agreement poster (Mutual Respect, Attentive Listening, Appreciations/No Put-Downs, and Right to Pass).  We started getting ready to write scripts for our puppet shows.  Groups looked at and practiced a script to learn about the parts.  Each script will include 5 characters, a setting, problem, and solution.  Although this project is taking longer than anticipated, I know the outcome will be well worth it!!

Hope your week is great!!

Sincerely,
Anne Bloomfield

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

Hello Second Grade Families,

We are in full swing of using all Daily 5 reading components in our reading class and students are doing great in their leveled reading groups.  Your child will have an assigned book nightly with an assignment for them to complete in their reading log. They should be reading 20 minutes a night.  

Some students will have sight words in their reading folder as well as a fluency page to practice reading aloud at home if they are reading fluently below a reading level L (which is considered the end of first grade.)  Students should be able to read at a higher level than their fluent level but as books get harder we want students to be able to read them at a fluent pace.  Please set a timer for one minute and have them read the passage aloud.  They need to read 100 words in one minute with a 95% accuracy (approximately no more than 5 mistakes).  If your child does not have a fluency passage in their folder they can count 100 words in their assigned book and see if they can read them in a minute or less with minimal mistakes.  Fluency assessments will be every Wednesday.

All students will be bringing home a spelling list that they will be practicing in class but will need to practice at home as well.  Spelling assessments will be every Thursday.

Happy Reading,

Katy Loop

Good-Bye August...Hello September

                                                                                       

                                                                                                  September 8, 20015                                                                                  
Dear Second Grade Families,

Already done with the third week of school...these weeks are just flying by.  How can we be in September already???  

Math

In math we have been very busy learning about the hundreds place.  We worked on a mini math project in which 5 bags with straws in them were shown to the class.  We talked about we could figure out how many straws there were.  Students talked about counting them by one's and then counting them by two's but after some discusion time students thought it would be best to count them by tens.  After some more conversation students decided that we would need to keep the groups of tens separate from one another.  We accomplished this by bundling them with rubber bands.  Students found that it was MUCH easier to count by tens but realized we had LOTS of groups of tens and that maybe we needed to bundled our groups of tens into 100.  That was quickly completed and the final straw count was 741!!

Students have been exploring up to 3-digit numbers with base ten blocks and place value charts.  As we work with 3-digit numbers here are some of the ways your child is seeing them:

standard form = 274

word form = two hundred seventy-four

expanded form = 200 + 70 + 4,         

place value chart = hundreds    tens    ones
                                   2           7         4

Another math skill being worked on is writing number words up 3-digits.  Students are using resources in the room, an Interactive Writing that we created together.  This Interactive Writing piece has the numbers and the number words 1-20, the decade words (thirty, forty,...), and one hundred.  With this resource students are able to write the numbers from 1-999 correctly.

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

Monday-No Homework-Labor Day
Tuesday- M.2 Place Value Models--Up to Hundreds
Wednesday- C.4 Writing Numbers Up to 1,000 in Words
Thursday- A.9 Even and Odd Numbers on a Number Line

Language
We are adding on to our knowledge of nouns.  Students are now learning about singular and plural nouns.  As a class we are creating Tree Maps to help us see the different ways to make singular nouns (names one person, place, or thing) into plural nouns (names more than one person, place, or thing).

Writing
Students are continuing to work through the writing process with our riddles about ourselves.  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-- pre-writing, rough draft, editing and revising, and final draft.  I am so proud of the writers in Room 17.  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!?!

Projects

Team Work

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/No Put-Downs, and Right to Pass.  This past week students were broken into groups (They selected their top 3 agreements that they wanted to work on.).  Because this is our first group project we create "Working in Groups Norms" to help us stay focused on task.  So far the groups have created a poster to announce their agreement.  We will continue this week creating puppets and writing short puppet show scripts that shows each agreement.

P.E.

I don't normally write very much about P.E. in the blog, but this week Darity Openshaw shared a special talent with our class--Zumba!!  The Zumba class lasted 45 minutes and included warm-up, aerobic dance, game stations, and a yoga cool down. It was so much fun to exercise and learn about Hawaii!  We are so fortunate to have Darity Openshaw as a volunteer P. E.Teacher!!

Mark your calendar... 
Picture Day for Room 17 will be October 7th at 10:30 AM. 

Looking forward to another great week!!

Sincerely,
Anne Bloomfield         

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

Hello Second Grade Families,

Last week I begun meeting with small groups for reading groups.  Each student brought home assigned reading in their red reading folder last week.  Students are earning stickers for the treasure box when they take the time to read each night and complete a quick reading activity.  This week your child will be receiving a reading log that has quick reading assignments for each night to coincide with their assigned reading book.  Please take the time to listen to your child read aloud and ensure that they take the time to complete their quick reading activity.  Many of these activities are tied to grade level standards and give me an indication of student’s ability or struggle. Study hall will also begin next week and any students who forget to complete their reading assignment or are not prepared because they forgot their reading book at home may be required to attend study hall in the afternoon.

We have implemented 4 of the Daily 5 reading components in our classroom (read to self, read to someone, listen to reading, and work on writing).  I am including a list of the listen to reading sites below that students are utilizing at school.  During your child's reading homework time at home you are welcome to have them visit the sites that I share with you to offer them more reading practice.  Remember read alouds offer students the opportunity to hear reading fluency especially of books that they may not be able to read yet independently.  (I sent all parents an email with the links below.)

raz kids (teacher username is kloopa)

https://www.kidsa-z.com/main/Login

just books read aloud

http://justbooksreadaloud.com/

National Geographic Young Explorer

http://ngexplorer.cengage.com/ngyoungexplorer/

Storyline Online

http://www.storylineonline.net/

Your child will be bringing home their binder with a red folder in it. (I kept all binders at school over the long weekend.)  Inside the folder should have your child's assigned book.  When your child brings home an assigned book please have them read it aloud to you.  They can read it aloud multiple times if it is a short book or short part of the book.  If your child does not bring home an assigned book please have them visit one of listen to reading sites that I will be sharing via email or have them read aloud a book of their choice.  Reading homework should take no more than 20 minutes each night.  Ice cream and rocket sight words have been assessed for this year.  

Reading fluency assessments have begun.  Your child may have a reading fluency passage in their red folder to practice.  Please set a timer for one minute and have them read the passage aloud.  They need to read 100 words in one minute with a 95% accuracy (approximately no more than 5 mistakes).  If your child does not have a fluency passage in their folder they can count 100 words in their assigned book and see if they can read them in a minute or less with minimal mistakes.  I like to test my son 3 times each night and it takes no more than 3 minutes.  He tends to read faster and more accurately with each time that he practices.

Happy reading!

Katy Loop