Sunday, February 18, 2018

Read Across America Week

Hi Everyone! 
I hope you're having a nice weekend! Thank you for sending in disinfecting wipes and tissues- it is very much appreciated! This upcoming week is our last week of learning before winter break! To make this week a little more fun, our school will be participating in Read Across America week! Each day has something fun and Dr. Sues related to make for a special last week. Here is the information if your child chooses to participate! 

The annual Read Across America celebration is coming to SMS
the week of Monday, February 19th!!  This national event,
sponsored  at SMS by the Stratham Teachers Association
and the National Education Association, promotes reading in
honor of Dr. Seuss,  famous author of books like The Cat in the Hat.
*Our celebration this year will have many components.
 Students will be encouraged to dress up for each of the following theme days:
Monday, 2/19-Fox in Socks Day:
wear crazy socks and show them off!

Tuesday, 2/20-Cat in the Hat Day:
wear your favorite hat!

Wednesday, 2/21-Wacky Wednesday:
wear mismatch clothing!

Thursday, 2/22-Theodore Geisel Day:
dress up as your favorite book character!

Friday, 2/23-Curl Up and Read Day:
Wear pajamas and bring a pillow/stuffed animal
and curl up for our school-wide Drop Everything
and Read Event!

Please let me know if you have any questions! 


Wednesday, February 14, 2018

Classroom Needs

Hi Everyone! 
We are in the midst of flu season and we are in need of Clorox wipes and tissues! Yikes! I have picked up enough to last us for a short time but we could definitely use some donations- if you would like! Thank you for always supporting us and helping us to stay healthy this winter! 

Happy Valentines Day! 🖤

Saturday, February 10, 2018

Academic Update!

Hi Everyone! 
I hope your weekend is off to a restful start! The past two weeks have been full of exciting new projects, challenges, and some community building in our classroom! The dragonflies have been working so hard and I can't believe the progress I am seeing on a day to day basis- it's pretty amazing! Thank you for sending back report card envelopes! We celebrated Day 100 and it is crazy to think we are more than half way through our year together! Friday Folders were sent home this weekend and have so much of your child's challenging work inside! 
Math 
As you know, we have been working on arrays and equal groups in math. Students were able to solve word problems about equal groups, draw arrays, and answer questions about their rows and columns. This early stage of multiplication is tricky but the dragonflies loved the challenge! You will see work coming home that shows we are grasping multiplication and understanding what it means to multiply. With an understanding of equal groups, we are ready to enter third grade with a solid understanding of what multiplication is! Some dragonflies are already working on their multiplication facts as an extra challenge! We made some cute math monsters using what we know about multiplication as a final celebration and now we are moving onto our new unit- measurement! We have talked about the differences of inches and centimeters and the do's and don'ts of measuring with rulers. Next we will solve math problems all about measuring. 
Words Their Way
Our word work time has become quite serious in 2D. The students are loving moving into more difficult sorts and they are doing AWESOME on their weekly assessments. Please continue to encourage your child to study the five weekly sight words in addition to their weekly sort. These words follow no particular pattern and come up a lot in our language!
Writing & Science
I apologize in advance if you are sick of hearing our Lab Report Rap at home but we've really stepped up our game in writing! The students can tell you each part of a lab report and we've been writing these step by step with each experiment we have conducted. Students have learned about essential questions, creating a good hypothesis and sticking to it, gathering materials, procedures, results, and analyzing results. So far we've experimented with each type of matter and colloids such as slime and "Oobleck". We are using our work in science to write lab reports that can teach others. We have also talked about how often scientists go into an experiment and leave with more questions- making them need to experiment more! This has happened in our learning and we look forward to experimenting with some of our new questions about matter! 
Reading
Now that we have entered trickier books it is clear that authors are expecting us to read between the lines and find deeper meaning in their writing. We are leaving books that allow us to have concrete understanding and entering the world of literary language! This is an exciting time for readers as it is where we start thinking about our books and craving more! As we focus on inferential comprehension in reading, we are also paying close attention to when something sounds like it could hold some hidden meaning. When we find phrases that sound like this, we then record it and talking about it during reading conferences or with our reading buddies to solve what that meaning could be. We are trying to keep readers thinking instead of just cruising through the words. Now that we have mastered decoding what we read, it is time to slow down and think! Easier said that done, but we are doing an awesome job being reading detectives. 
Winter Academic Olympics
The second grade team has encouraged the entire school to join us in celebrating the 2018 Winter Olympics! This looks different for each classroom participating, but in 2D we will be participating as the country of Canada! We have already decorated our classroom and gotten into the spirit! The school will hold a school-wide scavenger hunt using the decorated doors of each participating classroom. Eric Flaim came to speak to the school about goal setting and his achievements as an Olympic speed skater! We had a special visitor come in to teach us about life in Canada and we are realizing how many similarities and differences there are between our two very close countries! As the olympic games continue, we will watch how Canada is doing (and the USA of course) and track their progress! We will also have our own academic olympics with some challenging events both academic and sport related as a class! This will take place closer to the end the Olympic games, as we just entered new units! 
Dragonfly News
Thank you so much to our recent mystery readers! We love having you and we appreciate you taking time out of your busy schedules to read with us! Our Valentine's Day celebration will be Wednesday 2/14 at 2:00. Please have your child bring 20 valentines to share with the class! Please let me know if you need another class list! Believe it or not February vacation is right around the corner and I'm already missing these sweet faces- 2/26-3/2! Enjoy our pictures from the last two weeks!