Week 25!

I hope you had a great 3-day weekend with your families! I spent mine doing boring housework, including painting the garage (insert eye roll here) - glamorous I know..

We had so much fun this past week! We learned CURSIVE and the kiddos were PUMPED! They did an amazing job! We also had a blast during Great Hearts Day, and worked together so well!

The next book we will be reading is Sarah. Plain and Tall. Please send it in with your sweet student by Monday February 27th. 

Here is a look at our learning this week:

Language arts: In ELA this week we will read a tall tale and discuss the components of a tall tale, and how that differs from a fairy tale. We will continue to diagram sentences in grammar, we are doing SUCH a great job with this, and can diagram sentences with TWO prepositions! We have finished up Cricket in Times Square and will be starting our next book; Sarah Plain and Tall next week!

Math: We are learning about MONEY! Coins, dollars, change, oh my! We will work on reviewing coin value, adding two prices together, as well as attacking word problems. When purchasing something talk to your child about the cost, and ask what the cost would be if the item were 10 cents, or 2 dollars more. Mental math is still a strategy we are working to strengthen!

Science: We are moving from learning about how our human body work as a machine to learning about simple machines! Can your scholar identify simple machines at  home or around their community? We are excited to embark on this hands-on unit!

History: We will continue looking at The Constitution, paying close attention to The Bill of Rights this week. We are working to memorize The Preamble, how much an you history buff recite (sing) to you? 

Week 24!

Wow! What a week! I feel like the students are growing and maturing before my very eyes!
We celebrated the end of our Greek Unit by making Laurel Wreaths, and we had to work together to create our own countries. The theme for the week was COMPROMISE!

Updates and Announcements:

Great Hearts Day: On Tuesday we will be celebrating friendship all day for Great Hearts Day! We will have a virtue award assembly in the morning, and a celebration in the classroom from 2:00-2:30. While I don't need help for the celebration, you are more than welcome to come in and feel the joy of friendship!

Field day: We are Persia and our color is BLUE! Students can decorate shirts, and are allowed to wear athletic clothing. Please email me if you are able to donate a cooler, ice, snacks, or mini water bottles.

Here is a look at our coming week:

Language Arts: In Spalding next week we will learn CURSIVE! The students are SO excited to start on this adventure! We will not have spelling words next week, and Spalding homework will be to practice cursive letter formation. A packet will be coming home Monday night for parental reference as well. As we move forward, students will choose whether they want to write in cursive or manuscript, but Mrs. Smith and I will switch to writing in cursive. In third grade students will have a cursive refresher at the beginning of the year, but will be expected to be able to read cursive from the get-go! In literature we will finish Cricket in Times Square! It has been so wonderful to watch the students fall in love with the characters. In grammar we will continue to diagram sentences and work on writing paragraphs.

Math: We will finish up our unit on multiplication and division with a test on Thursday. Wednesday math centers and Wednesday night homework will provide great review and practice for Thursday's test. On Friday the students will be introduced to our new unit, MONEY through review of coins and their value!

Science: Next week we will take our test over the Human Body on Thursday! Please help you scholar review their study guide at home and ask them to tell you how much they remember about each body system, healthy eating, cells, tissues, and organs! We will be playing a "Jeopardy" style game in class!

History: We will continue to study the Constitution, and learn about our Founding Fathers. We will discuss the Anti-Federalists and what they stood for!

Happy Friday!
Announcements:
Great Hearts Day is coming up on Tuesday February 14th! We will be focusing on friendship that day, doing activity to promote teamwork, and having a fun celebration. Please sign up here to donate to our activities!

This week we celebrated the 100th day of school! We wrote about all the things we will and won't do when we turn 100, the things we will know, and what we will look like! As usual we had a super fun week full of learning, growing, and laughing! Here are some pictures of what we'd look like at 100!

Here is a look at our learning for the upcoming week:

Language arts: Next week we will look at direct and indirect quotations in the story The Hare that Ran Away. In Grammar we will also continue studying pronouns and subject pronouns, as well as classifying parts of speech in sentences. The students are doing a wonderful job classifying sentences, and can go through the question and answer flow of a sentence independently and confidently! Stay tuned for video evidence! :] In literature we will read chapters 10-13 in Cricket in Times Square and continue to follow the adventure of Chester Cricket, Tucker Mouse, and Harry Cat! Ask your super scholar what happened to the Bellini's newsstand!

Math: In math next week we will work through division problems and fact families! We will discuss different ways to attack a division problem, including repeated subtraction, drawing pictures, and thinking of the "friend" multiplication problem! Students are loving this unit!

Science: Next week in science we will review the functions of our body systems and learn ways we can help make sure that our body systems continue to run smoothly so we can stay healthy. We will also learn a new word: calories! We will spend time reviewing ALL the concepts we have learned in our Human Body Unit through playing a fun review game. A study guide will be sent home with you school on Thursday night. We encourage you to read through it and ask your scholar to retell some of the things they have learned!

History: In history this week we will not only journey to another place, but a much later time in history to discuss the American Constitution. Challenge your scholar to make connections between the US and Ancient Greek democracies.

This week we are ushering in another new month! I can barely believe it! We have a fun and exciting week coming up!
Announcements:

• This Tuesday and Thursday the students will be taking a computerized test, called the MAP test. We took it at the beginning of the year to get a baseline, and we will be taking it now to see where progress is being made, and where holes may need to be filled in! Students don't need to do anything to prepare other than sleep well and eat a great breakfast!
• Friday, February 3 is the Greek Festival! I will be running the Olympic games in the gym, and Mrs. Smith will be rotating from station to station with the students. If you'd like to volunteer from 1:00-2:30 please send me an email with your preference to travel with the class or help with the Olympics!
• Next Tuesday, February 14th,  we will be celebrating Great Hearts Day! Please remember that students will be making cards for other students in class, and purchased cards will not be permitted.
• Friday, February 17 - Athletic Field Day from 8:30-11. Each year classes are assigned a Greek City state for their team, this year we are Persia and our team color is BLUE! Please have your child wear a blue color t-shirt that day. Students can decorate their shirts with our team name, or the symbol of our Greek City State (pictured below). Students can wear athletic clothing free of pop culture references. Sports teams and brand logos are acceptable on clothing. Athletic shoes are mandatory, and hats and sunglasses may be worn. Sunscreen will need to be applied at home. If you'd like to sign up to help Coach Rubino and Coach Steinmann please click here. I would also like a donation of coolers, mini water bottles, and snacks for field day. I will be sending out a sign up genius for these things next week!

Our past week in snapshots:

Taking Literature time to the floor!

No one believed Mrs. Cook that the small intestine the same length as 7 second graders, so we PROVED it!

We did a DISGUSTING science experiment where we started with a peanut butter sandwich and ending with solid waste!

Math games!

Marshmallow Mouths!

Here is a look at our learning this week:

Language arts: We will read two more chapters in Cricket in Times Square and discuss new vocabulary terms, the students favorite from this last week is eavesdropping! In grammar we will review the writing process, play compound word Pictionary, and continue to classify sentences. Students will be introduced to the pronoun jingle and the subject pronoun jingle!

Our Spalding words for the week are:

• Monday - royal, objection, object, please, pleasure, measure, treasure, navy
• Tuesday - forty, fourteen, four, population, proper, judge, weather, whether, worth, contain, figure
• Wednesday - sudden, instead, throw, threw, personal, everything, rate, chief

Math: We will start a new unit on multiplying and dividing by 4 and 5! If you have a moment in the car, at the grocery store, or cleaning up from dinner have your mathematician practice counting by 4's!

Science: Next week we will learn about nutrients that help keep our bodies healthy and strong. We will create a well balanced meal for breakfast, lunch, and dinner!

History: I hope that the scholars have enjoyed their journey through Ancient Greece. Please help your scholar prepare for the unit test on Friday by studying from the study guide for 5 minutes each evening next week. We are looking forward to the culmination of the exciting unit at Greek Fest on Friday! Thank you for donating items and contributing your time to make this wonderful event possible!

xoxo,

Mrs. Cook

Hello! We had quite the wet Friday! Indoor recess can make for crazy students and teachers, but I am so lucky to have a classroom full of positive thinkers! We made the most of this rainy day!

Announcements:

We are gearing up for a very busy few weeks! Below are a few announcements, sign ups, and "keep in minds"!

• Wednesday, February 25 - A camera crew will be filming in the classroom from 7:55-8:30. I am under the impression that the majority of the filming will be of me teaching, and the footage will be used internally. If you would prefer to NOT have your student in the class during filming please send me an email, I will have them sit in another second grade classroom, so they are not missing out on learning.
• Friday, February 27 - Excretory System model - We will be making a model of the excretory system in class. Please sign up here to donate some needed materials to make this fun model!
• Friday, February 3rd - Greek festival - Second grade will be celebrating our learning of the Ancient Greeks by having a festival from 1:00-2:30. Students will be rotating between making crafts, eating Greek food, and participating in a few classic Greek games, and having a great time! We will need volunteers as well as materials for this day. Please sign up here to contribute to this grade wide festival!
• Tuesday, February 14th - Great Hearts Day! We reserve this special day each year to focus on the virtue of friendship. The day will include an assembly in the morning, as well as reading a wonderful friendship centered story with 5th graders, and a celebration in the afternoon. We will be sipping on sweet friendship floats, and making a friendship necklace! We will be making friendship cards in class, and students will not be permitted to bring store bought valentines to school.  The class party will take place from 2:00-2:45! Sign up for volunteers and donations coming next week!
• Friday, February 17th - Field day! I am just getting this date on your radar. When I have more information about our team, and teams color I will communicate it out! Students will be permitted to dress in athletic wear, and need to bring a sack lunch. I will be asking for donations of waters, ice chests, and snacks for this day! Sign up will be coming out later.
• Reading groups for Cricket in Times Square will take place on Tuesday's and Friday's from 2:00-2:30. Please sign up here if you are able to help us during that time!
• Math centers take place each Wednesday from 9:15-10:00, if you are able to help during that time you can click here for that sign up as well!

We are having technical difficulties with pictures this week, stay tuned next week for extra, cute pictures!

Here is a look at our learning for next week:

Language arts: In literature next week we will read chapters 4-6 in Cricket in Times Square, answering comprehension questions after each chapter, as well as discussing adults in our lives and the special things they do for us! We will also use context clues to figure out meanings of unknown vocabulary words! In grammar we are revising and editing our paragraphs on our favorite colors.

Math: We will be review mental math strategies from chapter 7! The homework assigned on Thursday night will provide great practice for the test on Friday!

 History: We are excited to present the Great Thinkers of Ancient Greece, and discover the origins of many of our roots in the United States, and especially at Archway Arete. Students will connect our Socratic-style discussion to the man Socrates', himself. Challenge your scholars to differentiate facts between Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, and Alexander the Great.

Science: We will continue learning about the human body by studying the digestive system and excretory system (insert a lot of giggles and laughter from the students)! We will also be making a model of the excretory system using some common items! Please use this link to sign up to donate these items. We appreciate your generosity! Ask you scientist what they remember about cells, tissues, and organs!

Well, we are coming back from a wonderful winter break and heading right into a three day weekend! This schedule sure spoils us sometimes!

Announcements:

Chapter book sand a book report will be sent home with students on Tuesday. Assigned homework will be to read 20 minutes of the chapter book each night, and when the chapter book is completed students are to complete the book report. The book report is to be done by Monday 2/6, but if  your child finishes the book and completes the report they are able to turn it in early. The expectation is that students complete two book reports for the third quarter.

We are starting to run low on Expo Markers, if you have any extra at home, our classroom would really appreciate it! Thank you to those of you who heard your students complaints this week and sent some in!

Some pictures from this week:

Math game! Making 100!

Finding out if our sense of smell is related to our sense of taste!

French!

Here is a look at the upcoming week:

Language arts: This week in literature we will be reading from our new book, The Cricket in Times Square. If you have not already please send the book in with your child. We will discuss what it is like to move from one place to another. We will also have a group discussion about a time we wanted something really badly and our parents wouldn't let us have it. I will be asking the kids if they were able to talk their parents into it, or if they realized why their parents told them no. We will read chapters 1-3 in the book and continue to discuss the characters as they are introduced. Ask your student how Paul the shuttle conductor was nice to Mario! In grammar we will continue to diagram sentences. In writing we will use our prewriting map from last week to write a rough draft of a paragraph on our favorite colors!

Math: Next week we will continue our unit on mental math! The students are doing a wonderful job on this challenging unit! We had a great discussion and came to the conclusion that mistakes and challenges make our brains learn best! Next week we will be working on adding and subtraction two and three digit numbers mentally.

History: This week, we will continue exploring Ancient Greece. The students will learn about famous Greek battles, as well as the golden age of Greece. Ask your child to tell you about the Athenian symposium.

Science: Next week students will learn how all living things are made up of microscopic cells. We will describe the relationship among cells, tissues, organs, and systems. Ask your scientist about the body systems at home!