Welcome to the 2nd Quarter

                                                                                                              October 19, 2015

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 Monday afternoon from 12:45 -1:00 PM.  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.  

Related to Book Fair Week will be Monster Hair Day on Thursday.  I can't wait to see what kind of crazy designs students come up with!!

Thursday, October 22nd from 6-8 PM will be Family Night for the Book Fair.  Besides visiting the Book Fair,  your family mark a bookmark, play Monster Bean Bag Toss, and enjoy a Monster Treat to eat.  It promises to be a very exciting night!  I hope you can attend!!

Parent Teacher Conferences will start on Friday, October 23rd and continue into the following week.  This will be a very busy and exciting week, I am 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 continued to work on adding and subtracting within 1,000 without renaming.  Students have been using 3 different strategies (open number line, partial sum, partial difference, and branch addition and subtraction.  Students have really gotten quite proficient using the different strategies.  I realize that we are spending a good deal of time on this standard, but the foundation that we are working on is very important to build. 

Students also learned some new games to play during Math With Someone.  I am so happy to finally have all 3 elements of the Math Daily 3 up and running.  

Here is our homework for next week.

Monday          IXL  K.3 Fact Families
Tuesday         IXL  E. 15 Balance the Equation
Wednesday    IXL  L.2 Add & Subtract--Ways to Make a Number Up to 20
Thursday        No homework due to assessment

Measuring their Growing Creature

Projects
The scientists of Room 17 were busy exploring more about matter.  This week we put the Scientific Method into practice as we are exploring which liquid will make our "growing creature" grow the biggest.  We have water as the control group because that is the liquid used in the directions.  Students are trying to grow their creatures in Gatorade, cooking oil, salt water, Sprite, and vinegar.  We are measuring them daily and charting their growth.

Language
We continued to work with adjectives this week.  Our work with adjectives should wind up this week.

Writing
Our "Absolutely True" stories are done.  I will be putting them up on the bulletin board outside Room 17 this week.  We finished up the week started to think about a Halloween writing piece.  This time our writing is taking on more of opinion flair.  As this piece develops students will be giving 3 to 5 reasons they like Halloween.  Each reason will need to be supported with evidence.

Mrs. Linda Boyden

Last week the Nevada Library Association had a conference at the Fallon Convention Center.  One of their speakers was children's author and illustrator, Linda Boyden.  Mrs. Mackendon gave her blessing to bring the 2nd grade students to the Convention Center to hear Mrs. Boyden.  We were hoping she would be sharing her stories, but her talk was more focused to her adult audience.  Our students were amazing--so quiet, respectful, courteous, and patient!!  Because Mrs. Boyden's talk was for adults we left (very quietly) part way through the session.  After her presentation, Mrs. Boyden took the time to come to Oasis Academy for a visit.  She talked about her writing and illustrations and read several of her books to us!  It was a very special visit!!

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

Anne Bloomfield

Here's an exciting challenge from Mrs. Loop...

Reading and Pizza, it sounds like a win, win situation to me!!


Hello Second Grade Families,

Welcome to the first week of the second quarter!  I am planning on challenging your children to read during their independent time.  This week your child will be bringing home a reading log that they will be asked to keep track of their independent reading on.  They will need to write the title of the books that they read, the author of the book, and the pages they read.  I am asking that assigned books are not logged as I would like to encourage students to be reading books of their choice as well as assigned books.  When your child logs 20 books that they have read on their own they can present their completed reading log to me for a pizza certificate from Pizza Barn.  I will be keeping track of the number of books read by each student and I will be interested to see how many students choose to read 100 or more books by the end of the school year.  This is all voluntary but I hope to see all of my students participate in this fun challenge that will help them to become lifelong readers.

Happy reading!

Katy Loop