Feb. 10th

Dear Parents,

Thank you for coming to Parents Day. I really enjoyed visiting with each one of you. We have finished our unit on subtraction, but we will be continuing to review it. We have started a unit on measurement. As part of our unit we are making life size portraits of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln. We will compare how tall each of the students’ are to our President’s portraits.  We will be having a Valentine Party on Tuesday. We will make paper sack folders to put our valentines in. Some student still like to make boxes at home. You can do this, but it is not required. There are 20 students in our class. It is quickest to just have your student write their name on the Valentine, but I sent home notes for those who want to address each individual student.

Feb 3rd

This week in writing we wrote about goals and related them to a Chinese Proverb of planting a tree. WE also wrote winter poems. We are nearing the end of our double digit subtracting with regrouping and will be taking the test sometime this week. Please take a moment to check how well your child understands this concept.  We are starting a unit on “The Presidents- George Washington and Abraham Lincoln” and the study of the continent Antarctica.  I have not sent any extra credit homework home in a while. If you are interested will you please circle the yes or no below.   I have signed up all students for a Parent Teacher Conference slot. If these times don’t work out for you I would love to have a phone conference or 

Jan. 29

We are in the middle of our subtracting with regrouping math unit. For some children it is very hard. Please take sometime and check to see how your student is doing with regrouping 2 digit subtraction problems.  We made a collage of a winter forest for art this week. It went right along with our guided reading book that talked about the Rocky Mountains and the different levels of trees and animal life.  We had our feast of fried rice, noodles and won tons with sweet and sour sauce. We watched a power point of Mrs. Kitchen’s trip to China and Thailand. We were also very lucky to have Truman's dad came and talked to us about Russia. We will finish our unit on the continent Asia this week. Please sign up for Parent Teacher Conferences. I really love to visit with every parent. I love teaching your children.

Jan. 6th

We have had a great start to the year 2017.  We have started a unit on Human Rights by experimenting on how it feels to not be allowed drinking water in class. We also are starting units on Matter and the continent Asia. In math we have been working on regrouping 2 digit numbers and in reading our focus has been on expository text about weather and using text features as a comprehension strategy.

Dec. 16th

This week we took a math test on Graphs and one on Money. There are a few children still working on passing the money test.

We invited David’s mom to come in and tell us about Germany and Norway because she had lived in both places for a few years. We were excited to learn about the castles and the fjords. We also liked the yummy German cookies and to hear the Norwegian language. We found out that we could call our Christmas Store a Flea Market. We also had a feast from different foods from Europe. The favorite was spaghetti and the least favorite was sauerkraut. We also wrote a letter to Santa letting him know of our wants and needs and why we deserve them. You may read them in the hall along with our research on different European traditions.

For part of our class Christmas Party we are going to decorate edible Christmas Trees. I will supply the sugar cones and frosting but would appreciate help with small candy like M&M’s, Skittles, Nerds, Gum Drops Etc.  If you wish to donate please have them at our class by the 21^st so I know what I need to purchase. Our class would really appreciate any donation for this activity.

For our school Christmas sing we would like the entire second grade to dress up in their best clothes and if they want they can wear a Santa hat.

Dec. 9th

The highlight of our week was Genius Hour. The students are working in groups to create a new game. We hope to have them finished before Christmas vacation so we can play them for part of our Christmas party. We would like to thank Mrs. Colburn for coming in and sharing with our class some of the traditions from Belgium. It was exciting to see her dress, wooden shoes, and eat spice Speculoos cookies.

Every student has finished his or her adobe voice and I sent them to each parent via email. I hope you enjoyed this project.

Our class store will be Monday Dec. 19^tth.

For part of our class Christmas Party we are going to decorate edible Christmas Trees. I will supply the sugar cones and frosting but would appreciate help with small candy like M&M’s, Skittles, Nerds, Gum Drops Etc.  If you wish to donate please have them at our class by the 21^st so I know what I need to purchase. Our class would really appreciate any donation for this activity.

Dec. 2

We have had a busy week doing STEAM projects. Since it is a testing week for Language Arts we do not do our normal routine for reading.  The students take what they have learned in the previous weeks reading lessons and researched about animals, while Mrs. Kitchens test. The students got to choose 1 of 5 ways to present their information. They made a display of their project by folding paper different ways to make a flip chart.

In Social Studies we are studying about cultural, traditions and the Continent Europe. The student each chooses a country in Europe and wrote about the countries Christmas traditions.

We just finished our place value unit and started money.

You can check skyward for all the new reading test scores and the math Place Value test. The student’s words per minutes for reading made drastic improvement. Please ask your students questions about what they are reading. This will help their comprehension.

We are front loading our economics unit by earning money for our Christmas store. There have been some very busy 2^nd grade producers bringing in very clever items to sale. Our class store will be in 2 weeks. The students got their first paycheck for hard work at school. The also had to subtract what they got charged on their visa card for not being on task. The students are working hard on earning enough class money to buy Christmas gifts at our class store.