Merry Christmas!

The joy in our classroom this week was contagious and overflowing! Christmas is such a special time of year to celebrate with young children.  

Thank you to Lindsay Tuttle for organizing a great party!  Also, thank you to all of the parents that helped out at the party, donated items, or joined us for the fun.  We appreciate all of your time and contributions.

We had a many delicious snacks!

We made an adorable Christmas ornament.

We also played a FUN game with great prizes!!!!

Thank you for all of the wonderful Christmas presents.  I am very blessed (and spoiled)!  It has been so much fun celebrating the Christmas season with your child. 

Have a great Christmas break and a Happy New Year!

See you in 2018!!!

Merry Christmas from the MERRIEST 2nd Graders!!! 

December 15: Newsletter

IMPORTANT DATES:

December 21: Classroom Christmas Party 9:30-10:30

We hope you can join us for the party!

December 23-January 7: Christmas Break

January 8: Classes Resume

January 12: Early Release (wear "Be Awesome" shirt)

Spirit Week is coming!  Check out our fun days coming next week!!!

This Christmas, our class will be exchanging gifts between boys and girls.  We would like to do a book exchange!  We are asking that each child buys a book that is age appropriate and does not cost more than $5.00.  Boys will buy a book for a boy and girls will buy a book for a girl.  The afternoon of our Christmas party day (Thursday, Dec. 21), we will play a fun game and exchange our books.  Please have the wrapped book, along with a tag for boy or girl, to school by Wednesday, December 20.  If the cost of buying a book for this exchange is a problem, please let us know and we will take care of it for you.  Thanks and we look forward to some fun reading!

Please make sure your child has appropriate winter gear for outdoor recess. (Hats, gloves, snow pants, coats, boots, etc.) Also... please be sure your child either has a pair of shoes at school, or brings a pair each day. Wet boots and our tile floor don't mix well. It gets really slippery. 

READING:

Please continue to sign and fill out your child's Weekly Reading Logs.  This is a quick and easy way for me to hold students account to their reading homework.  Thank you!
Next week we will wrap up our study on informational texts.  We will focus on how great readers stop to ask questions while reading as well as jot down new findings.

WRITING:

Next week we will finish writing our informational books.  We have been working on writing a main idea sentence, interesting facts, transition words, and a wrap up ending.  

MATH:

Next week we will take two days to review for our upcoming math assessment.  Students will take the Unit 2 math assessment on Wednesday, December 20.  The assessment will cover place value, comparing numbers, skip counting by 5, money (dimes, nickels, and pennies), and 2-digit addition.  Please look for a review coming home next week Tuesday.  This review test will be very similar to the actual test and would be very helpful to look over with your child. 

SOCIAL STUDIES:

We will continue to learn about the characteristics of a community next week.  We will focus on local governments.  In fact, we will even have a visit from the mayor of Hudsonville!  You will have to ask your child what they learned about government from our very own mayor.  :)

GROWTH MINDSET:

Questions to develop a growth mindset in children...

What did you do today that made you think hard?

What happened today that made you keep on going?

What mistake did you make that taught you something?

These can make for great conversations around the dinner table!

December 1: Newsletter

IMPORTANT DATES:

December 21: Classroom Christmas Party 9:30-10:30

December 23-January 7: Christmas Break

January 8: Classes Resume

January 12: Early Release (wear "Be Awesome" shirt)

The 2nd graders did a FABULOUS job at the Christmas program this week.  They all looked so fancy and sang beautifully.  My face hurt by the end of the night from smiling so much...beaming with pride!

Please don't miss the two papers in your child's Friday folder regarding our upcoming gift exchange between students.  One paper explains the gift exchange in full detail and the other paper is connected to a couple Scholastic book orders.  I will place the book orders on Friday, December 8 that way the books will arrive in time for Christmas.  There are many great books in these orders for 2nd graders.  Please let me know if you are ordering any as gifts and need them to be hidden from your child.  Also, I ordered a book for all of the 2nd graders.  Please avoid purchasing Olive the Other Reindeer.  Your child will be receiving it very soon!  

READING:

Continue to sign and fill out your child's Weekly Reading Logs.  This is a quick and easy way to hold students account to their reading homework.  Thank you!
Students are very excited to read informational books.  They are learning new facts while reading everyday.  Next week we will focus on fluently reading our informational books with a teaching voice.  We will also begin to identify text features.  Our goal is to be able to name various text features and tell how they help us learn.  We will look for the table of contents, headings, photographs, captions, labels, and many others.  

WRITING:

You may have noticed that we are starting to edit our Weekend Reports.  The blue marks on the writing shows students areas to correct punctuation, capitalization, or spelling.  Students will fix their mechanical errors before it comes home.  The hope is that students will begin to have less and less errors to correct as the year goes on.  I have also noticed that many students are using dialogue in their Weekend Reports.  I love how the ideas from our writing lessons are spilling over to all of their writing.  Their reports are always a highlight of my week when I get the chance to read them.

MATH:

We have had a big week in regards to our math instruction.  Students are learning how to add two-digit numbers.  First, we explored ways to add by relaying on a math drawing.  We then tried to connect that thinking to a step by step strategy to increase our accuracy and efficiency.  The two strategies that we will work on this year in second grade are called Show All Totals and New Groups Below.  You will find a friendly letter in your child's Friday folder explaining each method.  The New Groups Below is very similar to the traditional strategy of "carrying".  However, when we "carry" the ten over we now call it a NEW TEN.  If your child masters this method, they can even put the new ten above like the traditional method rather than below.  In class, we have discovered that this is a journey.  We have not mastered this concept YET, but we will continue to work through it until we understand each step along the way.

SOCIAL STUDIES:

On Friday, December 8 we will have Diversity Day in our classroom.  As we learn about community, we have found out that there are seven characteristics of communities.  The characteristics of a community are natural characteristics, businesses, places to have fun, buildings, transportation, government, and DIVERSITY.  To help students understand this concept, we will spend part of our day next Friday celebrating the diversity in our classroom.  Please look for the Diversity Day paper in your child's Friday folder.  It is our goal for all students to fill out this paper to get to know more about their own heritage and share their diversity with the class.  If you would like to go beyond this paper and send in pictures, food, or props that would be great, but that is completely OPTIONAL.  Please let me know if you have any questions regarding this day.

GROWTH MINDSET:

A growth mindset pledge:

Every day I will try my best.  I will not quit.  I will not rest.  Until my brain has grown a bit.  And I have learned how to do it.  If I fail I will be ok, I will just try a different way.  I will say I just can't do it yet because I have a GROWTH MINDSET!