Into March

Dear Families,

Tomorrow is a very important SDUSD board meeting.  Please come to the meeting at 5:00pm with the IA staff and other families to show the district how important it is for us to have a school site next year.  Today during writing your students wrote letters to the board members explaining why we deserve a school site and what they think we are missing at our current location.  The students' letters included the want for an outdoor playground, a clean cafeteria to eat lunch in, and larger classrooms.  I will be bringing these letters to the board meeting to hand deliver to the board.  It would be great if the students could be there to deliver the letters themselves!

 Wednesday, March 2nd is Theodor Geisel's birthday.  To celebrate Dr. Seuss & his love of literature we are going to spend the day reading his books.  Please send your child to school dressed as their favorite Dr. Seuss character, or in their PJs. 







Our words of the week are past tense verbs where the silent e must be dropped before adding the -ed.
     hope - hoped
     time - timed
     care - cared
     like - liked
     bake - baked

President's Day Week

Hi Families,

Many exciting things are happening in 2nd grade this week! 
We finally go our tadpoles.  Many of the students have been asking about getting more class pets and since a 2nd grade standard is life cycles I thought it would be great to combine the two.  It is going to be so great to observe the tadpoles as they go through their changes.  In fact, one of the little guys already has his tiny hind legs.  This sparked a great discussion between the students.  Ethan commented that it was weird that the smallest tadpole has the legs and the other larger ones didn't which led into a discussion about age vs. size and how maybe they were different species and thats why they were different sizes.



We are excited to welcome Tiny, Swimmy, and Tad



Finished product

This afternoon Kim Blough came in to do another pottery lesson with the class.  Last time she introduced coil and pinch pots.  This time she had the students get a little more technical and introduced slab work.  The students had to use their knowledge of geometry, measurement, and fractions to create their boxes.  It was such a great way to show the students how math is incorporated into art.  Thank you Kim!

Using rulers to measure the right length and width
of each piece was very important.

 

Yesterday was our field trip to the Microsoft store.  The students learned how to make PowerPoint presentations.  The students worked in groups of 2 or 3 to create slides about famous athletes and singers. They went online to find facts and pictures.  They also learned how to save images to the computer and then add these images to their slide shows.  Thank you to all the parents who drove!  We could not have gone without you.

This weeks words of the week are verbs in the present tense form.  All of the verbs end in a silent e that must be dropped to add -ing.
hope - hoping
care - caring
share - sharing
take - taking
hike - hiking

A Great Family Day!

Dear Families,

Thank you so much for coming to our 2nd grade Family Day!  The students loved having you in the class to see how the classroom economy works.  I'm glad that you were able to see the students engaged in their jobs and really taking responsibility for their classroom. 
Also a big thank you to our room mom, Kim Carpenter, for another successful holiday party.  The Valentine's Day party was such fun with great food and valentine exchange.  Thank you to all the parents who came to volunteer their time and brought in goodies for the party!  We also had a surprise visit from Arwen, which your children were all very excited about, that added to the sweet celebration!

This week's words: HOMOPHONES
pair    pear
flour   flower
ant     aunt
be      bee
rows  rose
red    read

We began a science unit on frogs and frog life cycles today.  The students are discussing what they know, what they want to know, and then will be reading books and doing research to find the answers to their questions.  I hope to get tadpoles for the class soon so that we can observe these amphibians as they go through their changes.

In math we are continuing on with fractions.  We will be working on word problems tomorrow and finish the week with fractions as decimals.

Social studies is centered around the economy.  Goods, services, supply and demand are key words.  An issue we will be discussing this week is why nothing is free.  This was a huge qualm the students have with our economy.  It is an interesting issue and would be a great discussion to have with your kids!

Don't forget...
Fieldtrip to the Microsoft Store in Fashion Valley is Tuesday, February 22nd from 1:00-2:00.  The students will be learning PowerPoint.

Thanks for reading!
Jenn

Family Day

Dear Families & Friends,

Don't forget that tomorrow is Family Day!  From 1:00-2:00 the students will be demonstrating how they do their classroom jobs, get paid, deposit or cash their money, and go to the class store.  They are excited to show you how the economy is working and how they have taken responsibility for their classroom community.
After the classroom economy is our Valentine's Day party from 2:00-3:00.  If you do want to bring Valentine's, please bring one for the whole class.  There is a class list on the back of last week's Weekly News.  We will be having snacks, making Valentine's crafts, and passing out Valentine cards.
There is no school on Friday, February 11th or Monday, February 14th.  Enjoy the long weekend!

This week we were working on homophones.  We learned that homo means same and phone means sound, so homophones are words that sound the same but are spelled differently & have different meanings.

ate eight
ball bawl
two too to
they're their there
hear here
blew blue
right write

As part of our fraction unit the class baked banana bread.  I accidently left my whole cup measuring cup at home on Friday so the students had to figure out how to make wholes from thirds, fourths, and halves.  It was a great activity for the students to work together and discuss their ideas about fractions.  It was great for the students to put the fraction concepts into a real-life situation....and it was an activity that was just as much fun to eat as it was to make!

banana mush

Deciding how many fourth cups of sugar they need to make 1 1/2 cups

Mash! Mash! Mash!

 

Enjoying the delicious banana bread!