11/24/15

Wild Life Encounters

We had a great last day before our mini-break! Wild Life Encounters came and gave us an incredible experience this morning. We saw a large member of the lizard family named Monster, a member of the bird family named Sid, a Patagonian Cavy (from the rodent family) named Nibbles, a Flemish Giant Bunny, and a Boa Constrictor! We learned the difference between a plant eater and a hunter. Did you know..."Eyes in the front, ready to hunt! Eyes on the side, I like to hide." We learned so many interesting facts, like Nibbles can run 40mph, and that snakes have no feelings- they live purely by instinct! We got to touch the animals before we left, 2D was very brave! 

Stratham Post Office

We had a great visit from postal workers from the Stratham Post Office. We were able to ask questions relating to the post office and the community. It was so interesting to hear about the day of a postal worker and how mail travels around our country and the world. We even found out that some odd things can be mailed! 

Dragonfly News

 Have a great Thanksgiving and enjoy your family time! We will be visiting the book fair on December 3rd, at 10:00!

Newsletter 11/23/15

Hello 2D families! I hope you had a wonderful weekend! I made it home safe and sound; and surprisingly on time from my conference, despite storm Bella's attempt! I am writing to give you some highlights from last week and a quick update on this week. We do not have school on Wednesday, November 25th due to Thanksgiving Break. Homework packets will not be sent home this week, just continue reading and working on decoding skills and comprehension skills. Have a great Thanksgiving and enjoy your family time!

Reading

We are wrapping up our non-fiction unit and it has been so amazing to see the research going on in this room. We have worked so hard to truly understand the make up of a non-fiction book. Today we did a partner share to teach someone else about our topic, it was so great to see everyone so interested in their partner's work. We will be celebrating the fact that we are experts tomorrow during reading!

Writing

We have enjoyed our Authors as Mentors unit and we have talked about how much time authors put into the stories they write. We have worked hard to edit and realize that quality stories take time and planning! Starting next week we will be working on lab reports during writing. We will talk about the parts of a lab report and how they are written. We will be experimenting and thinking like real scientists! 

Math

We wrapped up Unit 3 today in math. We have worked hard to familiarize ourselves with the different strategies for subtraction. We continue to work on the fluency of these facts because we know that it will help us with our future math. We have learned many fun math games, such as Salute and Top It! I must say that we are absolute masters at fact families!

Social Studies

"Dress as You'll be Day" was a success! We had so many great careers in our classroom. Thank you for taking the time at home to think up such great outfits! It made for a special day of learning! We have been so lucky to have our community visitors come and speak to us about their role in the Stratham community. So far, we have had a visit from the police, Mr. Goodrich, and Scamman Farm. Tomorrow we have a visitors from Wildlife Encounters and the post office coming in! It is going to be a busy day! 

Dragonfly News

Progress Reports were sent home on Friday and must be signed and returned to school. They are blank due to conference notes being sent home. If you are not receiving email alerts each time I post to the blog, you are not fully subscribed. Please let me know so that I can help you fully subscribe! :)

HAVE A HAPPY THANKSGIVING & SAFE TRAVELS!

2D Quick Note 11/17/15

Hello 2D families! I hope you are enjoying this chilly November week! I am just writing to remind you that tomorrow, November 18th is an Early Release Day for Teacher/Family Conferences! Dismissal is at 12:50. It is also "Dress as You'll Be Day!" Please encourage your child to dress up as they would in their future desired career! I can't wait to see all of the outfits tomorrow!

One last note: Progress Reports will be coming home this week. The first Progress Report you receive will be blank due to conferences. If you would like another copy of your conference notes, I am more than happy to send them home as well. Please email me if you have any questions about this. As always, if you have any questions about anything, please do not hesitate to email or call me! 2D is a place of learning and joy and we appreciate all of the hard work families also put into our learning! Thank you families, for all that you do!

Newsletter 11/13/15

Hello 2D families! Just a reminder that tonight, Friday the 13th at 6:00pm is the Bingo Spaghetti Dinner at SMS. I will see you there! 

Reading

This week we focused on becoming experts in one area. We have chosen one non-fiction text about a topic that interests us. We will now find other books about the same topic. It has been so fun to explore these books and compare them to the fictional stories we have read this year. It has been so exciting learning new facts, recording them and making connections. I have been so pleased with how the students have embraced this new unit for reading. They are so serious about becoming experts and the topics are so interesting! They range from snails and slugs to ancient Egypt!

Writing

We are wrapping up our Authors as Mentors unit and publishing our stories. The students are so eager to share their stories with the class and we will be making a special share time to show all of the hard work we have done. If you have already been to your conference then you know just how amazing these stories are. If you're conference is this coming week, I can't wait to show you!

Science

We have been working so hard in our Rocks and Minerals unit to think like scientists. Since our rock hunt, questioning and sorting; we have recorded the properties of our favorite rock in our science journals and included illustrations. We will be switching our writing with a partner and the partner has to be able to pick out their partner's favorite rock from a large pile of rocks- with only the descriptive writing to help them! We will soon be moving into our Properties of Matter unit where we can conduct experiments and truly test our scientific thinking.

Social Studies

Our community unit is about to get so exciting! We have visitors from the town of Stratham coming in throughout the upcoming weeks. On Tuesday and Thursday we will have visitors from the Stratham Police Department and Scamman Farm. Next week we will welcome a visitor who has lived in Stratham for their entire life and a speaker from post office.

Word Work

We have been cruising along with our word sorts and truly focusing on taking what we have learned while sorting and applying it to reading and writing. I am so impressed with the additional weekly study words and how well the students are doing! If you are studying the weekly words, continue to do so- it is working! I will begin sending these weekly tests home as I know many of you are wondering how your child does! Thank you for being patient while I figured out my system for this. The differentiated groups are going so well!

Dragonfly News 

Please remember that this coming Wednesday, November 18th is an early release day for teacher-family conferences. Also, on Wednesday the 18th it is "Dress as you'll be day", feel free to have your child dress as they would in their future desired career! We will be visiting the SMS book fair on Thursday, December 3rd. This week we celebrated Veterans Day and the students asked if I could post our poem that we used during morning work on the blog so they could sing it at home or to veterans that they know. Thank you to those who serve or have served our country to keep us safe!

See the Veteran

See the veteran,

See the veteran,

Oh so brave!

Oh so brave!

We thank you for your service!

We thank you for your service!

You're so strong. 

You're so strong. 

We remember,

We remember,

On this day

On this day

Fighting for our freedom

Fighting for our freedom

We thank you.

We thank you.
(found on Pinterest)