Week of August 31

in room 15, we strive to be

focused and relaxed

Weekly Update

for the Week Ending

Friday, August 31

                                                                                                                        

Dear Room 15 Families,

The first complete five-day week was productive, busy and full.  I’m guessing you noticed an exceptionally tired second grader at home.   Hopefully, much of this three-day weekend is spent resting, relaxing and recharging.

I am looking forward to getting the chance to see you all in room 15 on Back to School Night on Thursday, September 13.  If you won’t be able to make it, please let me know as soon as you can.

Every weekend throughout the school year, you will receive a brief weekly update from me.  In these weekly updates, I plan to share with you just a few of (what I consider) the highlights of our week.  This is also the place to look for important notices, reminders, requests and a bit of what’s ahead for us.  You can expect this to land in your email inbox over the weekend.  I will also have all Weekly Updates “archived” in our class website (we will discuss this at Back the School Night.)  Please that here: http://focusedandrelaxed.blogspot.com

Important Information:

•The coveted position of Library Volunteer(s) is still available for our class.  If you should be interested in this, please let me know.  This could shared with one other person.  Our library time is on Thursdays from 2:15 – 3:00.  We will be dismissed directly from the library on Thursdays.

What We Did:

Reading	•We started Readers’ Workshop.  This year, we will be spending time with books that are at our Just Right level.  Students can expect to work hard at the reading we do together and they can expect to grow and continue to develop as readers.  Students will continue to have 20 minutes of nightly reading as their normal homework.  Each reader has a reading log that should be completed each night at home.  One Mondays, please plan to talk to your child about identifying A REALISTIC reading goal for the week.  On Thursdays, please help your child write a little reflection about his/her reading goal. •We went to the library.  It was great to see Ms. Monge again.  As usual, our library time was a very valuable part of our week. •In addition to enjoying many books, we started our first read-aloud book of the year, Poppy by Avi.
Writing	•We completed initial assessments in spelling. •We ended our Second Day of Second Grade books.
Math	•We completed initial assessments in math. •We learned math routines/strategies that we will use throughout the year.  These include Quick Tens, using Ten Frames, counting the “say ten way” and using a Rekenrek.
Science/Social Studies	•We used our Science Notebooks for the first time and created a labeled drawing of our idea of what “a scientist doing science” looks like.
Other stuff	•We developed our use of our Morning Routine.  •We moved forward on our quest to get a class pet.  First, students generated a long list of animals that we thought make a good class pet. Next, volunteers articulated two or three specific reasons why their choice would make the best pet.  Finally, we all voted on our own first choice.  We were left with three candidates for class pet.  So, I’m excited to announce that it looks like we will be hosting a guinea pig, a lizard or a rat.  I will keep you posted.

What’s Coming Up:

•We will begin a Home Reading Log this week.  Students have been recording the reading they have done in class on a very similar At-School Reading Log.  It is important to note that an adult at home should CAREFULLY review and sign the At Home Reading Log for the first several weeks.  We have practicing how to carefully copy the title from the book cover.  Also, we learned that each word of the title begins with a capital letter and the whole title is underlined.  Please help encourage care and attention on the part of your second grade reader.

•We will spend this week learning about the three candidates for class pets.  In groups, we will be working to identify basic facts and habits about the animals, find out what each animal needs in terms of food/water/care and estimate the cost of having this animal as a pet.

•We will enjoy both our first garden class.

•We will start Morning Math.  This is a time where justification of mathematical thinking is key.  We will be spending time learning how to talk about math, how to critically analyze the efficiency of various strategies to a given problem, and how to disagree politely with each other.  The work we do during this time of our day is focused on computation.

in room 15, we strive to be

focused and relaxed