Dec 12

There will be no homework this week, other than reading.  We will be having our class store on Tuesday or Wednesday. We could still use some old unwanted toys.  We have been saving money to spend at our store. The students have gotten 2 checks for finishing all the required work in class and a few students have got a bonus for going the extra mile. We also have a visa and the students get charged money for blurting out, not staying on task and other things.  Luckily all the students were able to pay them off and received some extra dollars. We will be finishing our unit on Europe, traditions and cultural this week. We hope you take time if you come to the school Christmas Sing on Thursday to read out persuasive letters to Santa on our needs and wants and why we deserve certain things this Christmas. Also, each student researched the traditions of different European countries and wrote about them and then they compared then to their family traditions. We will finish this unit off by having traditional treats form the different countries and getting a stamp in our passport books. I hope you have some extra family time with your child this week with no homework, just reading, and enjoy your family Christmas Traditions. It is a pleasure to teach your children.

Mrs. Kitchen

Dec 5th

We have been working really hard on some writing assignments. We have wrote persuasive letters to Santa trying to let him know of our wants and our needs.  We also have been studying the Christmas traditions of the European countries and writing about them. (These are the topics we are studying in Social Studies.)  We are right in the middle of regrouping in addition and we are doing fairly well.   I was so proud of the students summaries this week. Every student has made so much growth. We are saving money for our class Christmas store.  The students got their first pay check and a visa this week.   Remember, we would love to have toys your family no longer uses to be donated to our class store. Please do not buy anything. Wow!!! the minutes that have been turned in for Novembers Reading Calendar have been super.  November Reading Calendars are due NOW!!! The reading store will be coming to our classroom soon and Pizza Hut certificates will be passed out next week.  Thanks for all you do.  We are making great progress.
Thanks,
Mrs. Kitchen

Nov. 21

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving. The only homework is to READ just for fun!

Nov. 17th

We have been working on Place Value, Thanksgiving Poem, Facts and Opinions about the Moon, and a Thanksgiving Art project.

Nov 7th

We are almost finished with our Moon unit and have finish an art project using circles.  We started a unit in math on place value to 100 and our summaries are  really improving.  I can tell the children are visualizing what they are reading and that really makes me HAPPY.  The end of the term is Friday Nov. 10th so make sure your OCTOBER READING CALENDARS have been turned it.  The students are great children. I love teaching each one of them.

Oct. 31st

Wow, there was really some cute costumes! The students have been working hard. I have really seen their words per minute go up and the accuracy in which they are reading.  Remember Book Orders are due on Friday and they make really good Christmas Gifts.

Oct. 24th

We have spent a busy week refining our Halloween Stories. In math we started skip counting, arrays, and repeated addition. We are excited for our Halloween Friday.

Oct. 15th

Keep reading over Fall Break and bring back your September READING CALENDAR for those who have not turned them in.

Oct. 10th

Thank You parents for coming to Parents Day. There will be no homework because of Fall Break.  Enjoy your time just reading with your children.

Sept. 26th

We did our firsts summary with the beginning, middle, and end this week. If your child is still on list 1-4 of “Fry Phrases” they need extra practice at home.  In order to pass they need to say the list 100% correct in 45 seconds or less. We did not take our 100’s chart test and our “Friends of Ten” test because I felt we still need more practice.  But we are getting better! I would like the class to be on doubles or higher for the math drills.  Everyone has passed off +10 but we still have some on “Friends of Ten”.  Hooray, for those who are on +1! We are starting our “MOON” unit on October 1^st. Each night a student will bring home a moon bag with a paper where they are suppose to draw what the moon looks like and return it the next school day. Sorry for not having “Take Home Reading” every night last week.  We are still working it out and hopefully you will be getting books Monday-Thursday.  Remember to sign up for Parent Teacher Conferences. 

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Sept.19th

We finished all our reading strategies to help us decode words while we are reading and we worked on adding the ending to our summaries. Most of the students are now working on “Fry Phrases”. You can see how they are progressing on the front of this paper where the list they are on is marked. In math we finished our first unit and are preparing for our test. Our test will have all of the “Friends of Ten” on it using 2, 3,4 &5 addends to make a ten. Adding strings of numbers by finding tens (4+4+5+6+6+3+7+5=_______). Adding 2 digit numbers using the 100’s chart, and solving story problems. We finished talking about our State “Utah” for our Continent study and seeing where we fit into this big world. The students are “Spectacular” (that was one of the Wednesday Words).

I have not got all the “Take Home Reading Notes” back. Please send them with your child. Our BOOK ORDER is due on Friday, Sept. 19^th.  We wrote the beginning of a Summary for the first time last week. You should have it with the work sent back. They did an amazing job on them. I go over each one individually with each child.  We mark it up together finding what they did right and what how they can improve.  In math we are studying “Friends of Ten” and how to add two digit numbers using the 100’s chart. I am sorry I did not explain the math flash cards form last weeks homework.  These are the math terms for the unit we are currently studying. If you still have them you could check to see if your child understands them. We are still learning some of the math vocabulary words. The winning Wednesday word was COUGARS. My favorite word was HAPPINESS. We talked about our school, neighborhood and community for Social Studies.

Sept. 5th

I appreciate the well-mannered students in my class. They are good workers and very respectful.  In reading we continue to learn decoding strategies and I have been modeling how to write the beginning of a summary. In math we continue to practice +10 and adding on, in writing, and the 100’s chart. We are working on revising our “Overall Me” assignments during writing time and we are continuing to study map skills and how we fit into our world.  The class “Wonderful Wacky Wednesday Word” was caveman. My favorite words were spectacular and friend. Please read with your children every night and have them read out loud.  Some of the children are on Fry Phrases and some are still trying to past off all of their sight words.  I sent home the Fry Phrase list and Sight Words list for your student depending on what they need to work on. Make sure you go over their homework and sign it.  Homework that is not sign and not complete looses 10 points per uncompleted page.  Homework that is signed by a parent will get 100% even if it is not all finished.

Aug. 29th

 We had a fabulous week! Many of the students passed off +10 from 0-10 and have moved on to +10 from 11-100.  We started a new writing assignment called “Overall Me” and will be working on it most of September. We had our first week of reading groups and have been working on passing off sight words. Once your child has passed off their sight words they will bring home the “Fry Phrases” to work on.  I am sending home a list of sight words for children who need extra help. Most children will be on ‘Fry Phrases” next week.  In Social Studies we have started to fill out the “Me on the Map” of the world.  We start with our “Home” because that is where children are the most.

          I have about half of the class paper plates with pictures and words about them. Please make them and return them to school if you have not finished this project.  I would like each child to bring an old sock to school that they can use to erase their white boards.

Thank You for letting me teach your child.  They are all very respectful and courteous children. We have a very well behaved class.

August 22

Mrs. Kitchen had a great week. The students all looked so nice and were are their very best behavior. I wanted to share their  writing projects after we made cookies the first day of class.

How To Make A Great Classroom

By

Marcus, Alexis, Andrew, Hinton, Damaris, Teara Rose, and Cooper

Ingredients: Start with a classroom.

Mix ½ cup of kids.

Crunch ½ cup of books.

Add a full cup of kindness glue.

Mix paper and pencils with 10 cups of learning.

And you will get a great classroom.

Recipe for a Good Sugary Classroom

By

Drew, Danny, Jenny, Emily, Sampson, Shiloh

Start with 180 school days.

Throw in 152 pinches of happiness, 4 gillion pencils and stir with love.

Add, never ending cups of friends.

Mix in 100 pieces of paper, 21 cups of backpacks, 2 cups of recess and a pinch of smartness.

Add 20 cups of listening and 1 cup of crayons.

And you will get a good sugary classroom.

Recipe for A Good Classroom

By

Kayden, Mindy, Logan, Jordan, Bryson and Jacob

Start with a big bowl for a classroom and mix in 2 cups of friends, 1 cup of books, 11,111 cups of good words, 1 flag and lots of patriotism. Add 1 desk for each child and a chair for each child. Stir in the best teacher.

You will get a great classroom.

How To Make A Great Classroom

By Kennadee, Caleb, Taybor, Emmberlynn, Ellie, Saedy and Aaron

Need: A class of books

                         Smiles

                         Desks

                         Paper

                         Pencils

                         Name Tags

Mix two cups of books, two teaspoons of cubbies, one teacher and 4 cups of glue sticks with 180 days of learning, 1000 cups of listening and 26 responsible, respectful, safe and courageous students.

Stir in friendship and love.

You will get a great classroom

May 16th

Notes:  Last time to turn in April Reading Calendar is Friday.

      Our class is having a “TEA PARTY” and parents are invited.  We will start in the Library Kiva with a short program and then move to our classroom for Lemonade and Cookies.  Please join us on Tuesday May 2oth at 1:15.

      Our class is going on a walking fieldtrip to the ART DYE Park on Tuesday May 27^th after the Talent Show. Approx. 10:45.  We will nr playing cooperation games, having lunch, and going on a Nature Scavenger Hunt.

      Our class will be having Banana Splits on Thursday May 29^th to celebrate passing off MATH FACTS. Mrs. Kitchen will supply the ice cream and bananas. We would appreciate any toppings, whip cream etc. that anyone would like to donate.

      We are still sharing Animal Reports.  The reports are wonderful. Thank you for helping you child do this report.

May 9th

Notes:  Remember April Reading Calendar. We finished our Rock Unit, Study of the Continents, Subtracting 3 Digits with Regrouping, and Measurement Units. We are reading novels in our Reading Groups and working on finding main ideas and supporting details in Whole Groups. 

      The 2^nd grade level talent show will be May 14^th at 10:15 in the lunchroom.  No one has turned in an entry form to me.  I know we have great talent in our class and I would love to see your child perform.

      Our class is having a “TEA PARTY” and parents are invited.  We will start in the Library Kiva with a short program and then move to our classroom for Lemonade and Cookies.  Please join us on Tuesday May 2oth at 1:15.

April 25th

We are almost finished with DRA testing and the students really did well. I was most impressed with their summaries and characterizations.  We finished our math unit on 3 digit addition with regrouping and will start on 3 digit subtraction with regrouping on Monday.  We finished our unit on weather and started to talk a little about rocks.  We stopped and made CHIA pets for a quick experiment on plants.  We took a quick visit to South America and saw some of the places we could visit there.

We are collecting a donation of $2.50 from each child to help pay for bright T-Shirts for the dance festival.

April 18

In your Monday folders you will get a copy of your child's Twisted Fairy Tale.  I stapled all the drafts that we made before we got our final copy. This was an assignment that took a lot of PERSERVENCE. 
We are going to start our final DRA test next week.  We did not quite finish our unit on weather so we will conitnue workig on it  next week.  In math we started our unit on adding 3 digit math problems with regrouping and the students are doing wonderful.
We colored matching easter eggs and we hid them on our Twisted Fairy Tales in the hall so children could find the matching egg.  We also played colored eggs.

April 4th

Have a great Spring Break

March 28th

Dear Parents,
We are going to return to fiction test and writing summaries again in preparation for ht upcoming DRA Test.  Wow 88% of our class is reading over 100 WPM, that's impressive.  We have finished our unit on time but there are 8 students who did not pass with 90% or higher so they will be reviewing and retaking the test this next week.  Please check your child's homework because I wrote on it if they were one of the students who did not pass. Also several students have a "N" in Learning Habits and Reading because they have not turned in their reading calendar and homework.  School is not out yet-- let's keep working.
Here is a copy of the notes that were attached to your homework this week.

*March Reading Calendar is Due FRIDAY. 

*Please read the requirements for the animal report.  If the students work on it little each day it will not seem so big. They should have almost all of the information from their notes they took in class. 

*All the students took the posttest for “TIME” last week.  If they are still working on it during school then they did not pass it and could use extra help at home.  Their homework should be a review for them.

*The students will be bringing home their habitats on Wednesday.  If any parents would like to come and view them they will be up in our classroom Tuesday.  If your child walks home or rides a bike you may want to come and pick them up on Wednesday (BEFORE OR AFTER SCHOOL).  Some of the habitats would be hard to carry home. Thanks for all your supplies. This activity is one of their favorites.

  

Here is the requirements for the students animal reports:

Animal Book Requirements:

·      Cover: Title, author, picture (copied or hand drawn)

·      Table of Contents: Chapter Headings and page numbers in numerical order.

·      5 Chapters:  Heading (title), 1 Main Idea and at least 3 supporting details. Each sentence needs to support the heading and main idea for each chapter. Concluding statement.

·      At least one illustration or drawing.

·      At least one photograph. (Can be black and white)

·      Captions under drawings or illustrations.

·      Labels under drawings or illustrations.

·      Glossary:  At least 3 words in ABC order with definitions.  (The words in the glossary should be in Bold or colored in their book.)

·      Index:  At least 3 words that appear in the book that is of interest.  They need to be ABC order with the page numbers they appear in their book.

·      Map of where in the world their animal can be found or other information that fits in their book.

·      Diagram of anything interesting on their animal.

Some of your headings could be: Babies, Adulthood, Food or Eating Habits, Predators, Habitats, Fun Facts, Hunting, Camouflage, Life Cycles, What Humans Use Them For, Nocturnal or Diurnal, Hibernate or Migrate, How To Take Care Of This Animal, etc.

We will project these books and the children will be reading these books to the class.

These reports are due the first week of May.

The children have already written notes from books form our classroom and by going to the National Geographic web sight for kids and searched “animals”. 

March 21st

Every week the students get better at writing main ideas, supporting details and a conclusion, but they still can't do it without help.  We have been editing our "Twisted Fairy Tails" one on one.  It takes a while the finish product will be worth it. We have not conquered quarter after and quarter till on clocks yet. But we will keep working on them.  Our habitats are all most finished. We have some more plants to add and then we will start working on adding the animals.

March 15th

We added concluding statements to our main ideas and supporting details.  Many of the students are having a hard time finding the main idea.  We will keep working on it.  For math we started learning about time.  We have done o'clock and hale past.  Starting Monday we introduce quarter after and quarter too. This is a hard concept for many of the children. We have been working on writing letters or just persuasive essay to get the Leprechaun to come to our class.  A few of the students have painted the sky for their background for their habitats.  We are all hoping that the Leprechaun will come and visit us.

March 7th

WOW!!! Our Main Idea's and Supporting Detail were great this week.  There was a big improvement in their sentence structure, thinking process, and working on them all by themselves.  In math we took the place value test up to 1000's. There are only 3 students who did not pass with 100%, but give us a few more days and they will pass too.  We are almost ready to start making our habitats.  Thank You parents for bringing in their shoe boxes and salt dough.  We had a fun writing assignment--"What do you think Mr. Rencher does when no one is watching?"  I found out that the children jokingly think he gets a hair cut, watches his beta fish, buys new shoes, orders Cafe Rio, sushi, subway, pizza and lots of other foods.  He also spies on us with the cameras, counts money to see if he can buy soccer balls and basketballs, and tries to think of fun announcements.

Feb. 28th

We just finished our first Main Idea and Supporting Ideas with non-fiction.  We still need more practice.  We finished our unit on double digit subtraction.  The students did awesome.  We are working on our Habitat books and when the students finish they can start to make their own habitats in a shoe box.  We published our similarities and differences of Antarctica and Australia.

Feb. 21st

We have been working on building stamina in reading, and finding main ideas and supporting details in non fiction text.We are finishing our subtraction unit this coming week in math. We sampled food from Australia and Antarctica, and looked up sights to visit in both continents. We found out that they are the only continents that do not have bears and Australia is the only continent that does not have a glacier. We are experimenting on "Passing on Service" to our school.

Feb. 14th

Wow!!! I think we are candy out in our classroom this Valentine Day.  We spent our week working on a fact an opinion paper on George Washington and Abraham Lincoln.  Then we figured out how tall he was and made a life size drawing. We continue to focus on finding the main idea of paragraphs and supporting details.  Subtraction with regrouping is coming along.  We hope to have it down next week.  We had a fun filled day passing out our Valentines and introducing an experiment on doing service and kind acts to other people. We hope to feel and see other peoples happiness by doing kind acts.

Feb 7th

I really enjoyed visiting with all the parents and students at Parent Teacher Conferences.  We 100% attendance.  We are writing  a fact an opinion essay on George Washington and Abraham Lincoln. We are working on Non Fiction Text Features and finding the main supporting detail in non fiction articles.  We started our unit on double digit subtraction with regrouping.  I hope everyone enjoyed all the art in the hallways at the art fair.

January 31st

We are starting Non Fiction Text Features in Reading.  We have been working on finding the topic sentence and supporting details.

We have been doing lots of ART WORK for the ART SHOW this week.

We finished taking our Money Test.

Jan 24th

We finished DRA Testing this week.  The students all made big improvements.  We have been working hard on the ART FAIR projects.  We finished our unit on Matter and  will be getting ready to take our test on MONEY next week.

We have had a great week.  We have been working hard on summaries and getting all the parts down. The week of Jan. 21st-24th your child will be given the DRA test.  We have started our money unit and the students are catching on.  We have been working on a Social Studies unit on Human Rights and have used this subject as part of our 3 paragraph essay this month.  In Science we have been busy making hypothesis on our Matter experiments.  And since the ART Fair is in 2 weeks we have been doing some fun winter art. On Wednesday the portal to sign up for SEPS will be opened. Have a great weekend.

Jan 10th

What a fantastic week.  We have done some water coloring and a procedure writing assignment.  In Reading the students are trying to write summaries more on their own without Mrs. Kitchen doing as much guiding.  We are trying to get ready for our DRA test.  In Math we took our double digit addition test.  Some students are redoing the packet because they did not show their thinking. And our goal is 90% correct in order to pass. We have been using the Scientific Procedure on our Matter Experiments. We found out that a solid, liquid and gas all take up space.  We have had a great week.  It is so fun to see how the students writing is improving.