Sept. 21st News

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Ms. Arnold’s Classroom News (9/21/14)

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What We’ve Been Up To:

What a great week with Dot Day, Picture Day, and Curriculum Night! Thanks for a great night and for your continued support in your child’s education!

*Curriculum Night: Thank you to all of you who were able to make it to our Curriculum Night! It was so nice to see so many of you. At Curriculum Night there was a sign up sheet for parent conferences and opportunities to volunteer. If you did not sign up for a conference, an availability sheet will be sent home with your child next week. Please take the time to choose your top three choices for a conference time and either email me or send the sheet back into school. I will do my best to accommodate everyone’s preferences. Parent conferences are a great opportunity to discuss your child’s progress thus far and determine goals for the rest of the year.

*Dot Day: On Monday, we had a great day celebrating International Dot Day! The day began with a wonderful whole-school morning meeting. Mr. Fosher taught us all a special "dot" greeting, showed us a slideshow full of facts about dots (did you know the dots on a golf ball are called dimples!), and then gave us a special reading of Peter H. Reynold's book The Dot.

     After reading the story, Mr. Fosher challenged us with the book's takeaway message: whenever something is hard, or you think you can't do it, begin by "making your mark" on the paper, and trying! It might end up being the mark you make on the world! To show one way SMS is making its mark, several SMS teachers were randomly selected to participate in the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge. It sure was fun seeing some familliar faces (especially Mr. Fosher and Mr. Goldsmith!) get soaked all for a great cause!

     After an exciting morning meeting, we headed back to our classroom to work on other dot-related activities. In math, we worked with coins, During centers, students got to check out the "colAR" app on the iPads, which brought their own creative dots to life!

     The colAR app is free in the iTunes App store. Just print the special coloring sheet (more designs available at http://colarapp.com/) and watch their creations become 3D! As you can imagine, this was a HUGE hit!

     Finally, in the afternoon of Dot Day, we joined our neighbors, the 2R Giraffes, for some collaborative fun. Students took their own dots, and cut them into quarters. They then had to trade pieces to create a new dot. What a creative, fun day!

                                      
*Read Aloud: Earlier in the week, we finished our first novel, The World According to Humphrey by Betty G. Birney. Read aloud is one of the students’ favorite times of day (and mine as well!) . They come in from lunch and listen intently as each day we get further and further into a wonderful novel. The World According to Humphrey is a story about a hamster who is the classroom pet of room 26. Each weekend he travels home with one of his classmates and learns a little bit about them along the way. Turns out Humphrey is pretty good at problem solving! This was a fun, light novel to start our year. Humphrey is the main character of many other stories. Friendship According to Humphrey and Surprises According to Humphrey are some of the great books in this series if you’re looking for a read aloud for at home!.

*Reading Buddies: We met with our fifth grade reading buddies again on Friday. To help us with our plant unit (and to enjoy the beautiful weather!), we went on a nature scavenger hunt! Working together, students were on the hunt for at least two different varieties of flowers, an acorn, a pinecone, something round, something smooth, animal tracks, a fall-colored leaf, and many more! They were quite successful!

                                      
 *Fall Leaf Project: Information about a fall leaf project will be coming home next week. Students will be asked to gather 20-30 dried leaves to bring into school. While the leaves are not due for a couple of weeks, it’s a good idea to start keeping an eye out for interesting, unique, bright, or bold leaves as they start to fall. More information will be sent home by next Friday.
*Math: During the past few weeks, second graders have been reviewing addition and subtraction number sentences. They have also been excellent number detectives as they explored number patterns and sequences. Unit #1 continues to reinforce their ability to use a number grid and number line as a math tool, to follow number patterns as they count up and back by a given number, and to represent a given number in many different ways.

     We continue to build IXL practice into our weekly routine and I am so impressed by the number of students using this great web-resource at home! As a class, we've already answered over 1,000 math questions! Keep up the hard work!

*Reading: During the past week, we introduced "read to someone" or "buddy reading" to our reader's workshop. Students were paired with a just-right reading partner and were taught how to best use this partner. By sitting "EEKK" (elbow-to-elbow, knee-to-knee) they can practice their fluency by reading books aloud together. They can also bring something they find during their independent reading to the table when they meet with their partner (a question they have about their story, a funny/exciting part they'd like to share, a word they're unsure of). We will talk more about being an "active" reading parter next week (eyes on the book, ears toward the reader, conversations on-topic, question starters to get your partner digging deeper into their book, etc.).

 *Homework: Beginning next week, students will receive a small amount of homework most days. I want to encourage students to set up regular study habits at home that work. Working at the same place and around the same time each day can be very helpful. Students may need an adult to help them get started with directions, but then they should be able to complete it on their own. Reading/math logs will be sent home on Fridays and are due the following Friday. Math Homelinks are due the morning after they are given. Students will also be given their weekly spelling sort list on Mondays (to make sure they are independent with the sorts, we will begin our spelling sort homework the following week). Homework should not take more than 20 minutes, even when there is math, spelling, and reading. I look over the homework that is returned and have students make corrections if necessary.

Have a great weekend!