October 7: Newsletter

UPCOMING EVENTS:

• Friday, October 14:  Early Release/Dismissal at 12:15
• Monday, October 24: Holiday posters are due!
• Tuesday, October 25: Turkey Trot
• Friday, October 28: Michigan vs. Michigan State Day
• Monday, October 31: Halloween Party
• Friday, November 4: Early Release/Dismissal at 12:15

READING:

Today is the official kick off to our reading homework.  Please look for your child's SRC book bag that came home today.  You will find a letter further explaining homework in 2nd grade and the Scholastic Reading Counts (SRC) program.  Please help your child establish a steady homework routine.  I'm not sending as much work home this year, but would like all 2nd graders to consistently read five nights a week for 20 minutes each night.  Also, they should be asking you to help them fill out their weekly reading log each night they read.  Reading logs are due back to school every Friday.

This session of SRC will continue until December 4th.  It is our goal to have all students take and pass ONE quiz a week.  That means it is their goal to take 10 quizzes by December 4.  In order to take a quiz, your child will read one of their library books at home.  Students may even want to read their book more than once!  When they are ready and have returned their book to school, they will take a 10 question quiz online.  Please help your child bring their SRC book bag to school each day.  I know they may not take a quiz daily but we want them to begin the habit of having their books with them each day to build responsibility and consistency.

WRITING:

Next week we will work on adding details to our small moments that help develop the characters in our stories.  Students will work on describing their characters' feelings, actions, thinking, and talking.  Also, we will take time to look at the first small moment that was written at the beginning of the year.  It will be exciting for the students to see how they have grown as writers already this year!

MATH:

We will continue to work through various word problems next week.  We will practice strategies to do before, during, and after finding the solution to each word problem.  Students know to read the word problem and retell it before trying to solve.  Then as they work on the word problem students are identifying important information, writing an equation to match, and showing their thinking through a math drawing.  Finally, students will double check their answers and label their work after they have found a solution.  Through this process students are able to thoroughly explain their thinking and are successfully answering very tricky word problems.

SOCIAL STUDIES:

Next week will spend the majority of our week creating our own maps of Hudsonville.  Students will make a map of their neighborhoods and as many other parts of Hudsonville that are nearby.  All students will need to include natural characteristics on their map as well as human characteristics.  Natural characteristics are characteristics of the environment that are part of nature (rivers, lakes, mountains, etc.).  Human characteristics are characteristics that a human made (bridge, buildings, railroad tracks, etc.).  See if your child can identify the natural and human characteristics around your neighborhood!

VOCABULARY WORD:

Our vocabulary word this week is retell.
Retell means to tell in your own words.

OTHER NEWS:

• Please see the note regarding our classroom scrapbook that was sent home last week.  Our classroom scrapbook becomes one of our favorite books in the classroom.  Thanks for helping with this fun project!