October 13: Newsletter

IMPORTANT DATES:

October 17: Marco's Pizza Night (Don't forget to mention Bauer when ordering.)

October 20: Scholastic Book Order Due (see details below)

October 26: Picture Retake Day/BPC Skating Party 

October 31: Classroom Halloween Party 9:30-10:30

Today you will find a holiday poster in your child's Friday folder.  This is an optional project!  If your child is interested in participating in the Hudsonville Holiday Coloring Contest, they will need to turn the poster back into school by October 24.   All submitted artwork will be displayed throughout town, and the winners from each grade will be displayed at City Hall, receive a special prize bag, and get to ride on the Holiday Trolley in the parade.  Happy decorating!!!

READING:
Just a friendly reminder that the Scholastic book order is due by Friday, October 20.  To order online, use the code HM67V.   Thanks!

I am looking for a handful of parent volunteers to help out in the classroom once a week to work directly with our 2nd graders.   I am hoping to have one parent each morning to work with students on their reading fluency as well as build upon their addition and subtraction fact fluency.   It would work great to have your help from 9:00-9:40.  If this sounds appealing and works for your schedule, please let me know what day works best for you. Also, you will need a cleared background check before volunteering in the classroom.  This is district requirement.  Feel free to contact the office with any questions about starting this process if you haven't done so already.  Thanks!  I am excited to get started and greatly appreciate your help!!! 
I already have a volunteer for Tuesday and Thursday.  I would love your help for Monday, Wednesday, or Friday.  Please see the job description below for more details.

WRITING:

We are moving on to a new unit of study, but will continue to write personal narratives.  We will begin this unit by reading many books by famous authors and will use the authors as our mentors.  We will keep a running list of the writing strategies we enjoy in their writing in order to try the same strategies as we write.  Our main goals is to make sure we are the main characters in our stories and to provide details that help the reader picture each moment.  

MATH:

We started to learn how to solve compare word problems.  These problems are a bit more challenging than the previous ones we have worked with in class.  Compare problems ask students to compare two things by using the words more or fewer.  At this point, many students have a solid understanding of how to solve these type of problems using counters and drawings.  Next week, we will add in an equation to support our thinking and verify our answers.  

GROWTH MINDSET:

This week we watched a short video explaining how our brains works when we face challenges.  The students learned that our brains are filled with neurons that connect by sending electrical signals to one another.  We found out that this happens when we do many things like reading or riding a bike.  We can help our brains make more of these connections when we do challenging things.  After this video, I asked the students to try to overcome a challenge by figuring out a riddle.  As they were brainstorming answers, a student said..."MY BRAIN IS LIGHTING UP!"  I love how the second graders are learning that we can handle difficult things!!! 

Here is a preview of the job assignments for volunteers:
Reading:  You will be working with students one-on-one as they read 12 different sentences.  These sentences are called "fluency strips".  The purpose of these sentences is to help build up blending skills with simple 3-4 letter words as well as high frequency words.  In addition to this, the sentences are short and easily decodable to support fluency practice.  
Math:  You will be working with students one-on-one as they practice an individualized list of addition and subtraction facts.  The purpose of these facts is NOT to have students simply memorize the facts but to strengthen their number sense and provide strategies for solving each fact efficiently.