Thank You!

Dear 2nd graders and 2nd grade families,

THANK YOU for making Teacher Appreciate Week so special!  You have all been so supportive and generous throughout the year but this past week was above and beyond anything I could have imagined.  On Tuesday my desk looked like a garden had sprouted and the kind notes I recieved from you and your kiddos brightened my day on Wednesday.  I am also so appreciative of the thoughtful gifts of chocolates, books, and the Target gift card.  Not only were these such generous gifts but they were each so thoughtful.  I am so lucky to have families like yours and to be working with you and your students this year! 

We have started two new projects in our classroom.  The first was created by Esther (a big thank you to you!).  The students will be using their knowledge about money, adding, subtracting, measurement, writing, reading, and mapping skills to travel through magical lands.  They will have budgets to keep and adventure logs to record their travels within.  This is going to be a great project to have the students delving into their imaginations.  Ultimately we are hoping that the students will create their own magical lands for their friends to travel to.

The other project is based around Swimmy (our tadpole).  As Swimmy becomes a frog we are wondering what to do with him.  We are doing research on lakes, ponds, and streams to determine what frogs need to survive and what else is in their habitat.

In math we are continuing to explore addition, multiplication and division as well as their relationship to each other.  Today we played a game called "Left Overs."  The students played the game in pairs and used counters and dice to divide groups of objects.  Ask your student to teach you the rules!  Some students began to realize that division problems that had a remainder of 0 could also be turned into multiplication problems but division problems with a remainder were different.  This is something we are still discussing in class.

Broc is helping Ethan decide if he wants to place his role in the 10s column or the 1s column.

Javhi is adding up his total of the moment before he decided where he wanted to place his last role.

On Friday we played another great game called "101 and Out."  This is an addition game that is also played in pairs.  This game is about number sense and place value.  Again, all you need is a die and a sheet to record the scores on.  Please ask your student to play with you at home!  They can teach you the rules.

Words of the Week:  plural nouns where we drop the y and add ies

city - cities

party - parties

family - families

story - stories

baby - babies

END OF THE YEAR CONFERENCES AND POLs:  May 23rd-26th

Please sign up under the class bulletin board for your choice of date and time.  So far I only have 4 families that have signed up.  If any of the times do not work for you please let me know and we can schedule something before school or I can stay later to meet your needs.

SD ZOO FILEDTRIP:

If you have volunteered to chaperone for the Zoo Trip, thank you!  The students will have small assignments while they walk around the zoo so I will get a list of your group members as well as what their assignment at the zoo will be on Friday.  You will only have about 3 students in each group and I will probably be doubling up chaperones.  If you or your student has a preference of who they would like to be with please let me know by Thursday.

Thank you all again for a wonderful week last week!  I am blessed to be working with your students and to have the support of families like you!

Jennifer