January 19, 2015

First, congratulations to the students who completed all reading centers this week:

(comprehension, spelling, writing, listening)

Brody       Addy

Cache      Berkley

Colin        Emma

Kristian     Megan

Nelson

Sawyer

Tate

Jordan

*Kids aren't held accountable for centers when they are absent.

Coming home on Tuesday is the information for the spelling bee. I guess some of the rules have changed since I first sent it home last Novemberish. So if your child is interested in joining the spelling bee, please read the new rules so you are aware of the changes. Then start practicing.

Next, we really need the count on how many grandparents are coming to the program. We already started the art portraits. If the kids need to make more, we need to use every available minute to do that. Also, on Thursday we are writing the invitations for the grandparents. The kids need to know how many to write.

During our weather unit, the students will periodically be bringing home homeword-in-a-baggie homework activities. We can't do these at school. They would be destroyed the first time we put them outside. They are such fun activities that I want the kids to have the opportunity to do them. Hands-on is always the best way to learn!

Last, I have found out that we need to have treats for the grandparent program. If you can help with this, let me know. Thank you!

Mrs. O

Grandparents Program

On February 13th at 1:30 in the gym the second grade classes will be putting on a grandparents program. (Of course you are invited, too, but the honored people will be the grandparents.)

I need a count of how many grandparents will be attending so the kids can begin writing the invitations, doing the personalized writing for each grandparent, and drawing a portrait of each one.

Please contact your child's grandparents to see how many will be attending. Either email me with the number, or have your child tell me by next Tuesday.

Thank you for your help!

--

Carolyn Olenslager

Happy New Year!

Very first I want to say thank you for all the lovely things you sent in for the class's use and for me. I appreciated them so much!

FYI:

1. Next Tuesday the children get to have toy day in PE. They can bring one toy to play with.

2. Send in December's home reading sheet if you already haven't.

3. If your child has moved up in his/her reading level, you should be seeing a higher level book coming home in the leveled library bags.

4. Art has changed to 1:30 on Fridays.

5. MLK holiday is on Monday, January 19th. There is no school that day.

6. This Friday is the end of the second term. The following week I will get the progress reports completed and send home a copy to you. If you have concerns or questions, please come in and see me. Let's get these little munchkins going!

Curriculum:

Reading: We began "summary" writing this week. I'm glad we started early because it is going to be a challenge for the kids. They are used to retelling. Now they have to find main ideas and put them together.

Language: We are continuing our review and practice of phonics concepts. this week we are concentrating on silent e at the end of a word.

Math: We are still working on regrouping with addition. Most of the kids have the concept now. We'll continue on through the chapter. Next will be subtraction with regrouping.  The kids who have not been practicing their math facts are struggling now with the new concepts and figuring out the facts. Work with your child if s/he falls into this category.

Science: Next week we will begin our weather unit. It will run about 6 weeks.

Spanish: We finished up our days of the week study today. Next we will learn weather and season words to coordinate with science.