Editing in writing workshop

   We are using colored pens and glasses to help us with our editing in writing workshop.    We use the green pen and glasses to help us find upper case letters at the beginning of our sentences.  We get to trace over them when we did them correctly and fix them with pencil if we made a mistake.  The yellow glasses and pens help us check for spaces between all our words.  Pink pens and glasses are used to look for ending punctuation.

Newsletter 9-30-11

This week we took our first reading test and our third math test.  Good work second graders!

We are learning how to edit our drafts in writing.  We call that fixing up.  Then we get to fancy up our illustrations.  We are all getting ready to choose a piece to fix up.

We got a few snacks for our snack cabinet – Thanks!  Feel free to send in more periodically!

Spelling words for next week:

broke   choke   cute   flake   spine   bag   map   snake   skate   rain   black   crash   made   make

Upcoming events:

Field trip to Koinonia on Tuesday, Oct. 4!  Dress for the weather and bring a disposable sack lunch.  We leave at 8:30.

Parent Teacher Conferences  Oct. 6, 3:15-6:45pm

American Red Cross Blood Drive – Oct. 24, 12-6pm

October lunch calendar

Click below for the
October lunch calendar

Parent Teacher Conferences

Sign up forms for conference times went home Tuesday.  Please return them as soon as possible so I can get the best time scheduled for you.  Not every child brought a paper home.  If you did not receive one I will plan on meeting with you on the next conference day, March 1.  If at any time you feel the need for a conference outside of the scheduled days, please contact me and I would be happy to set one up.  Thanks!

Happy Birthday, Breanna!

8 years old!

Johnny Appleseed Day Photo Show

     What a great afternoon!  The weather was gorgeous and we had lots of fun activities planned for the entire second grade.   Each class rotated around to different classrooms for different apple activities.  In Mrs. Shofner's room, students got to taste different foods made from apples.  An apple memory game was played on the SmartBoard in Mr. Lucas' room.  Students got to paint pictures of apple trees in Mrs. Dawes' room.  Mrs. Hays had a special guest in the outdoor classroom for her station - Johnny Appleseed!  He talked about what life was like over 200 years ago, back in the time period when Johnny lived.  We discussed food preservation and how vinegar was important for that, since that was one of the major ways food was preserved back then.  Then came the fun part - we got to make apple cider on a vintage, century old cider press!  Johnny did the cranking (much harder work than it looks) and the kids go to throw the apples in the top of the press.  After the apples get crunched up they get pressed to squeeze all the juice out.  We learned that it is a lot of work to make cider and it takes a lot of apples to make just one gallon of cider.  We used nearly a bushel of apples to make just 1 gallon of cider. Many thanks go out to all the teachers, parents, and other dedicated helpers whose hard work made the afternoon fantastic! Click below to see the video slideshow of our class enjoying the afternoon.

Newsletter 9-23-11

          We are still collecting $1.00 for Johnny Appleseed Day and $2.00 and permission slips for the field trip to Koinonia on Oct. 4.  Please send those in as soon as possible.

     Our snack cabinet is getting low!  Please send in some healthy snacks for our class to share if you are able.  The students really appreciate a snack during the long wait until lunch.

     In writing workshop this week we have learned that we can use carets and spider legs to add in more words when we run out of space and have more to say.  Ask your child about it!

     We had a great afternoon with Johnny Appleseed!  Ask your child to tell you about the fun activities they participated in.  With Mrs. Shofner they tasted apple foods.  They played a game with Mr. Lucas.  Mrs. Dawes had an apple craft.  Mrs. Hays had a special guest with her in the outdoor classroom.
 
     Some of us still do not have gym shoes here at school.  We need them to help reduce wear to our gym floor and to prevent damage from wearing street shoes that might have rocks stuck in them.  They do not need to be new, just washed and clean.  Thanks for your help to keep our gym floor nice!

spelling words for next week:
cast, quit, rent, stock, trust, teeth
wheel, white, fish, chick,
then, those, who, shook

Upcoming events:
Field trip to Koinonia on October 4.
Picture day Sept. 29
Parent teacher conferences October 6, 3:15-7:00 pm

Spider Legs

We can add spider legs to our writing  when we think of more words to add.

Field trip to Koinonia

     Our first field trip of the year will be on Tuesday, October 4. We will be going to Koinonia Environmental and Retreat Center south of Pierceton. We will spend the whole day there and have a picnic lunch (you will bring your own disposable lunch) and roast marshmallows (I will provide these). We will spend a majority of the day outside learning about nature and doing some hiking as well.  Please send an note or email me if you wish to come along.  Parents, grandparents or other adult family members are welcome to join us. Please let me know as soon as possible if you can join us for the day.  Some chaperones may need to drive due to limited seating space on the buses. Student cost is $2, adults are free.  Permission slips for this trip came home Friday.  Please return these as soon as possible.

Newsletter

This week we have continued working on listening to our thinking voice when we have been reading.  We have been making connections with the text to help our learning.
We finished our addition strategies topic in math and took a test on it.  We did a fabulous job!  I am so proud of their hard work!
We have been working more on what to do when you don't know how to spell a word in writing.  We have several strategies to use and places to look when we need help.

Spelling words for next week:
chart, sky, I, truck, graph, phone, thick, 
drill, bride, our, tree, trash, sister, smile

Upcoming events:

Friday, Sept. 23 is Johnny Appleseed Day.  Please send in $1 to help defray expenses.

Sept. 25 PTO meeting at 5:30

Sept. 29 Individual pictures.  The form came home earlier this week.  Please return anytime and I'll hang on to it until picture day.

Apples, part 2

     Today we finished the last apple picture, cut and stapled our books, then had an apple tasting party!  We voted for our favorites, made a graph showing the tabulated votes, and talked about the data.

Finishing our pictures

Stapling our books

Tasting

Apples, part 1

     We did a fun apple activity today in preparation for Johnny Appleseed Day next week.  We carefully observed and colored pictures of six different varieties of apples.  We carefully blended our colors to try to make them look as much like the real apple as possible.  We finished 5 pictures today.  Tomorrow we will finish the sixth apple picture and staple them together to make a book. Then we get a taste of each!  We worked really hard on these!  Our six varieties of apples are: Red Delicious, Golden Delicious, Fuji, Gala, Braeburn, and Granny Smith.

Readers have a thinking voice.

     Readers have a thinking voice and a reading voice.  Your reading voice reads the words from the book.  Your thinking voice is your brain thinking about what you are reading.  Sometimes your brain wonders about things in the book.  Sometimes your brain makes connections between the reading and things you already know.  Readers often write down their thoughts to better understand their reading.  We are recording our thinking on sticky notes or in our reading notebook.

9-9-11 Newsletter

Last week we added a dictation sentence to the back of our spelling test.  It was just for practice the first week, but from now on it will be part of our language grade.  I will read a sentence aloud and the students will write it.  It will contain a few spelling words and some other simple words.  Students will be responsible for correctly spelling the spelling words in the sentence and for using a capital at the beginning of the sentence and the proper end mark at the end (period, exclamation mark, or question mark.)  Thanks so much for helping your children practice their spelling words each week!


In math this week we have worked on addition fact strategies.  We have learned about how adding 0, 1, 2, doubles facts, near doubles facts, and turnaround facts can help us learn our math facts quicker and easier!


In reading we have been paying attention to the thinking voice in our head when we read.  Our thinking voice helps us think and relate to the text so we can better understand what we are reading.  We have been recording our thinking on sticky notes and in our reading notebook. We also took the NWEA reading test in the computer lab.


Spelling words for next week are:
boat, coat, float, long, along, belong, paw, fawn, tall, wall


Upcoming events
PTO meeting - Sept. 27 at 5:30 p.m.
Individual pictures - Sept. 29
Book fair - Sept. 8-15

Open House on Thursday

Open House is Thursday, September 8, from 6-7:30 p.m.  The book fair will also be open at that time.  Please stop by and let your child show off the classroom and their work.  I'm really looking forward to meeting you.

Mrs. Hays :)

The title is football by Dominic

Me and my brother Dylan are going to be in flag football.

And then my brother scores and then everyone says, "Yeah! Yeah!"
Then after that I score and the people went wild
and the game was over and our mom took us to
McDonald's after the

game.  The end.

New Dictation Sentence on Spelling Test

     Last week we added a dictation sentence to the back of our spelling test.  It was just for practice the first week, but from now on it will be part of our language grade.  I will read a sentence aloud and the students will write it.  It will contain a few spelling words and some other simple words.  Students will be responsible for correctly spelling the spelling words in the sentence and for using a capital at the beginning of the sentence and the proper end mark at the end (period, exclamation mark, or question mark.)  Thanks so much for helping your children practice their spelling words each week!

More Drawing with details

9-2-11 Newsletter

        This week we: talked about our reading voice and our thinking voice.  We learned about fake reading and what to do when you realize you are doing it.  We also made reading salad.
We took the Star reading test and the NWEA math test.
Writers write to an audience.  We talked about who our audience might be.  We learned how to draw characters , sketch clothes on them, and add details to them.  We told stories about times in our life.  We made a list and will be writing about some of them.
We started a new math unit focusing on addition strategies.

We had our fundraiser kickoff on Wednesday.  Those order forms came home Wednesday also.

Spelling words for next week:
less, tell, well, will, still, off, letter, little, silly, happy

No school on Monday due to Labor Day.  Enjoy the three day weekend!

Open house is Thursday, Sept. 8 from 6-7:30.  I look forward to meeting you!  The book fair will also be open.