Ho Ho Ho! I'm sad that with the blizzard hitting that I didn't get to wish my students and their families a Merry Christmas in a timely manner. I hope your family enjoyed the LOOOONNNGG winter break and didn't eat all of Santa's cookies! I loved seeing family and playing in our first dose of snow. I didn't enjoy those awful roads, though. I hope you all stayed safe and sound!
There are a lot of things to consider in the new year. First, Reading Logs for December can be returned sometime this week. I'll be sending home the January log soon. I only have three returned, so if you find it send it back asap! Second, the weather has changed on us! :( We really had wonderful weather all fall and we played outside at recess most days. Now that the temps are so much colder expect kids to be inside for indoor recess more often. If the temp (or windchill) is 15 degrees or colder, we will stay inside. If your child expects to play on the playground equipment or in the snow, he or she must have and wear full "Winter Gear." This includes: hat (or hood which stays on), gloves/mittens, coat, snowpants, boots (and another pair of shoes to wear in the building). Even if a kiddo wears boots to school, he or she cannot play in the snow without the snowpants and change of shoes for class. Please be sure to send tennis shoes on Wednesdays since that's PE day! Third, since we missed two days due to the weather we will have school on both MLK, Jr. day and President's day. See the calendar for the dates. Reminders will also go home closer to those dates. Finally, we are celebrating College Pride Month at Brubaker. I am so excited to talk about where I went to college. I also can't wait to share my enthusiasm for why I chose my profession and what it took for me to get here. I hope kids enjoy the lessons we have planned!
Have a wonderful NEW YEAR! I'm so glad to be back and busy working with the 2nd graders again!
:) Mrs. S.
So here I am again after a long absence from blogging...
Where to start? If you often look at the website, you've been seeing the pictures of the busy fun we've been having in our room! I am so proud of our accomplishments. We have had three PBIS Green Zone parties, and each of my students has earned the priviledge to participate. As a reminder, students can participate if they have fewer than two level II office referrals in a month's time. I love celebrating the good choices the kids have been making! I am so excited for the great work we did with the Food Drive in November, too. See corresponding pics of the doughnut party we earned!
With three weeks left before our Winter Break, there is a lot of new curriculum to learn. We have completed one week of Unit 3 Journeys (reading). The comprehension focus was on Drawing Conclusions by using inferences. The kids realize that authors don't always write every detail and sometimes good readers have to make guesses about the meaning! The main selection story was "Click, Clack, Moo: Cows that Type." We so enjoyed reading that!
In math we have begun unit 3, also. We are covering greater than/less than and number order in the first couple of weeks. The kids are catching on to the < > symbols and are doing well. Next week is all about putting numbers in order and place value using base-10 blocks. I love this unit and I can't wait to dig deeper into number sense with the kids! :)
I hope you all have a wonderful weekend! Enjoy the temps they have predicted...I wonder how long these nice days will last?
Later! Mrs. S. :)
It's the first day of Autumn on Satuday! I cannot believe it...as I get older, it truly seems like time flies!
The same is true in 2nd grade this year. I cannot believe we are already post-testing our first unit in reading. Those tests will be done by the end of the next week. Our second grade team will gather after the data is collected and decide which areas need to be retaught or reinforced. I have enjoyed our new reading curriculum so far. I love the emphasis on phonics, grammar, and comprehension stratgies. Hopefully you have been asking your kiddo what he/she has been learning each day. The kids are used to me telling them what our purpose is for each lesson. I think it's important for kiddos to understand that they aren't simply "Doing" stuff at school, but there is actually something to learn and apply to what they do in reading and math.
Our math unit will end the following week. Similarly, once the assessment is done, we teachers gather to discuss the data and to see what skills still need to be practiced. Be sure you're working on basic facts for both addition and subtraction with your kiddo. They really need to fluenty add and subtract by the end of this year. We will work on strategies for solving our problems quickly in class, too. We work a lot on solving math stories in our lessons. We hope that students can solve them using at least two strategies, or methods. We will work on solving story problems for the remainder of the year!
Don't forget to plan to join us at the Blank Park Zoo on Tuesday, October 2nd. Dress accordingly since our evenings have been getting cooler!
See you on Zoo Night!
Mrs. S. :)
And we're off! The yar together has begun and we have had a great start! There is a nice group of kids in our class this year. I love seeing all those smiles in the morning!
We have started our reading an math curriculums. It's been fun working through the Iowa Core standards in both areas. I am really enjoying the new reading series, Journeys. The students enjoyed opening their reading books for the first time...they sort of crackled! (Remember the smell of new textbooks?) Our Essential Question last week in reading was, "Why is knowing the events of a story in order important?" We had fun talking about Sequence of Events.
In math, our focus is solving one and two-step problems. We will work on this ALL year long! Right now I'm enjoying finding out what the kids know to do about solving math problems. We also pretested for our first math unit. We'll work a lot on understanding balanced equations and solving our facts for the duration of the unit.
A few things to consider:
--I have noticed a lot of kiddos needing to use the restroom right away in the morning. Please make sure your child is using the bathroom before they come to school. Doing that can help cut down on distractions.
--I have also noticed some tired faces in the afternoons. That is normal during the adjustment time of getting used to the long school days. However, please try to allow your kiddo to get adequate sleep each night. I know some nights it's hard to get home and down for bed, but it's still recommended that 7 and 8 year-olds get up to 10 hours of rest per night.
--Our first PTA meeting is this Thursday night in the cafeteria at 6:00. I hope you think about joining us to help make good things happen at our school!
Whew! That's enough for now. If you have any questions or concerns, please let me know!
Thanks,
Mrs. S. :)
Alright, it isn't quite August as I sit and write this note to you all. But it's close enough for me. I am in the swing of things with getting my classroom prepared for the upcoming school year. I have visited Brubaker on several occasions and I'm trying to get the classroom and all the "Stuff" ready in there. It's fun to see other teachers there and to prepare things without the rushed, crazy feeling that often comes during the hustle of the school year.
As many of you know, Mr. Lord has been promoted to a different position in DMPS. We are super sad to see him leave us at Brubaker, but we are comforted in knowing that he's still over-seeing things at our building as a new administrator transitions in to the building. I received an email from him today, in fact...so he's still around as we need him! Regardless of the person sitting in the office, please be assured that the staff at our school are still the most committed group of people with which I have ever worked. As I mentioned obove, many people have already put hours into their classrooms already. The building looks great!
I hope you have been to the building to register your student (s). If not, please stop in before 4:00 some day and take care of that with the office staff. Ms. Walker is there and will help you with anything you need.
I hope your summer is going well. Please take time to hang out with your family and to enjoy each other. We all know how hectic it is as soon as school begins! :)
See you SOON!
Mrs. S.
Be sure to peek at the Calendar section...
There are a lot of things going on in the next month.
I'll try to keep you as updated as I can!
Be sure to look in your child's backpack daily, too.
Thanks!!!
Good afternoon! I know I haven't blogged for a whole month! Sorry about that!! I have been trying to keep the HomePage of the class website updated weekly. BE SURE to check there often to see what's the newest news in Room 201.
We have had a busy week in 2nd grade. We began the week by attending music rehearsal for our program. The show was on Tuesday and it was awesome! I am so proud of how well my class sang and participated. I'm so lucky I also got to participate. Thanks for all of the positive feedback about that! Great job to Mr. Sachs, too. He is a super energetic guy and we have truly enjoyed his work at Brubakerthis year.
On Tuesday afternoon, several of our class members participated at the Grand Blue Mile in downtown Des Moines. Those kiddos earned that chance by running miles and miles around our jog/walk trail throughout the school year. Thanks to The McFaddens and Pat Webb for orchestrating this program! They promise to do it again next year!
In reading we are working on unit 6 which includes understanding the 5-W questions...Who, What, When, Where, Why and How about stories. We also are working on summarizing those stories. This week we read Moses Goes to the Concert. It's been fun to work on those comprehension strategies.
In writing we are still working on writing poetry. This week we tried writing poems with movement and sound words. We also read poems where the writer compared one thing to another. You can ask your child about the clouds/sheep poem and the rain/mouse poem. :)
In math we are working on adding and subtracting up to 1, 000. We also are trying to understand how to balance equations. That can be tricky. We will continue to practice our strategies in real life problems, too!
Finally, in SCIENCE we have hatched Painted Lady Butterflies! We have followed them through their metamorphosis and we will now watch the adults fly around in thier indoor habitat. We wil release them soon.
I hope you are all doing well. If you have any questions, or nice t
Spring Break has arrived!!
With the usually nice weather, all of us have been a little extra energetic around here this week. Boys and girls are working to get their names on the new BINGO chart in class. I hope to catch them being good...when I do, they put their names on the chart. I intend to draw a winner at the end of each week. I didn't do that today, so I will begin the week of March 26 with our first winner. It is so much fun when I catch them being good!
When we return on March 26, we will continue working on unit 5 in reading. We have been focusing on characters and their traits. Next we will work on identifying story sequence. I look forward to sharing Patricia Polacco's Thundercake with students. They will enjoy it! This week we studied Farmer Brown from the Click, Clack, Moo series. We also read from Henry and Mudge, and Scardey Squirrel. All of those stories are great!
In math we are going to begin unit 6 when we return. It focuses on balanced euqations, place value, and adding and subtracting into the 1,000's place. PLEASE continue working on basic math facts with your kiddo. There are still boys and girls that are bringing down their test scores because they cannot rapidly answer timed tests. As I mentioned at conferences last month, by 3rd grade students are expected to know those facts. They get very little review time on adding and subtraction. Just food for thought...
Have a wonderful Spring Break!!!
Mrs. S. :)
Here we are again. The second graders had a great week working with Miss Coney. They worked on finsihing our unit with subtraction and addition problems in math. We also worked on cause/effect in reading. Testing for both reading and math for Unit 4 is complete. The data shows we need to work more on addition and subtraction facts in math. Unfortunately , 2nd grade is the final time these skills appear in math curriculum. Please work with your kiddo on these facts!
The focus in reading this upcoming week is drawing conclusions. Miss Coney had been busy finding wonderful read aloud stories with surprising endings. I'm sure they will enjoy that!
Our 2nd field trip the Civic Center is this Friday. We will watch Clifford the Big Red Dog at 10:00. We will arrive back to the building at eat lunch around 12:00. Thanks to our friends in 4th grade for switching lunch times with us that day! I can't wait to see Clifford!
Have a great week.
:) Mrs. S
Happy Friday! It has been a busy week in 2nd grade.
In social studies we have begun our studies of the world around us. We briefly talked about Maps and Locations. Next week Miss Coney will switch to our unit on different cultures. I can't wait to see what they are going to do with that!
In math we continue to practice working on solving math story problems with both addition and subtraction. We have practiced a lot of subtraction lately. Our unit 4 math test will be next week. We will also pretest for our unit 5 unit on geometry.
In reading, the kids have studies biographies this week. My favorite was the book about Jane Goodall. She studies chimpanzees in Africa. She was an amazing naturalist! Next week students will review using cause and effect for comprehending text. Students will also take the unit 4 reading test next week. (A few started today.)
I hope you all stay warm this weekend. Enjoy your time inside by browsing some of the websites listed on this website!
See you all at conferences!
Mrs. S. :)
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