WeLcOmE bAcK!

I hope you all had a wonderful February vacation!!  It sounds like some of you took some fantastic vacations and others spent the time getting healthy! Whatever you did, I hope you had some good quality family time! 

Persuasive Letters
Did you get an interesting letter over vacation? What did you think? Please take a few minutes to complete the poll at the top of this blog - telling whether or not you were persuaded by your child's amazing writing ability!

Junior Achievement

We started the Junior Achievement program this Thursday.  Our Junior Achievement instructor is Mrs. Whelan.  Every Thursday for the next few weeks, Mrs. Whelan will come in and teach the children about various aspects of a community – including information about local businesses, government, voting, taxes, production and much more! 

Science Fair
Please encourage your child to work on his/her science fair project over the next few days! (Reinforce good time-management!) It is sometimes difficult to find time during the week, so it might be helpful to set aside some time to work on it this weekend!! Good luck and have fun!

Coins for Cures

As many of you already know (through discussions with your child and/or the presentation at the last Meeting of the Eagles, Elmwood School is working to raise money for Boston Children’s Hospital.  From what I have heard, many of you have visited there yourselves and you know what wonderful care this hospital provides to children.  

With your permission, students are encouraged to clean the car/couch cushions, do little chores around the house, keep an eye out for loose change at the soccer field…and maybe donate some of that money to help other children. This fundraiser will go on for 6 weeks and each classroom has been asked to set a goal for the total that they think they can collect.  The children in Room 13 think that they can collect $100.  Do you think we can do it?

Our Week in Review:
READING
This week, we read Goose’s Story, by Cari Best. This story falls under the genre of realistic fiction (it’s not real, but it could be) and tells about a goose who overcomes a physical disability to lead a normal goose life.

Through this story, we revisited/reinforced several reading skills and strategies this week. Specifically, students worked on asking questions to clarify/monitor comprehension and identifying cause/effect.

SPELLING
This week’s spelling rule focused on the other “Bossy R” vowels. These r-controlled vowels (-er, -ir, -ur) all make the same sound - rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr (as in herd, shirt, and curl). Since they all make the same sound, it made this week’s spelling list hard to work with. With repeated exposure and practice with these words however, they will become easier to recognize and remember!

GRAMMAR
This week, we took an in-depth look at "undercover" verbs. Undercover verbs - AKA linking verbs, helping verbs, being verbs - are tricky because they aren’t obvious, like ACTION verbs! These verbs show "being" and/or "help" action verbs.  
               For example:    I am 8 years old.  (am is a being verb)   
                                     We have met before.  (have helps the verb met)


Earlier in the week, your child took home a copy of the Undercover Verb song (sung to the tune of London Bridge).  Sing it with your child - but be careful, it's a bit of a tongue-twister!  Have fun!

UNDERCOVER VERBS

be  am  is  are  was  were  been

has  have  had

do  does  did

can  could  shall  should  will  would  may

might

must 

being

Encourage your child to keep an eye out for "undercover" verbs. If possible, ask him/her to identify them in various sentences as they read. Good luck – they can be tricky!


WRITING
This week, we have been taking a closer look at the structure of a paragraph. Students should now understand that a "Second Grade Paragraph" consists of (at least) 5 sentences:
1. Topic Sentence - tells what the WHOLE paragraph is going to be about.
2. Detail #1 - supports the main idea.
3. Detail #2 - supports the main idea.
4. Detail #3 - supports the main idea.
5. Conclusion Sentence - wraps up the WHOLE paragraph; restates the topic sentence in a new way BUT does not include any new information or details!!


MATH

We began Unit 7 this week, which focuses on patterns and rules.  This past week, we have worked on:

a) becoming more aware of and confident in finding “easy 10’s” or complements of 10

            e.g.     10 + 0   0 + 10

                        9 + 1    1 + 9

                        8 + 2    2 + 8

                        7 + 3    3 + 7

                        6 + 4    4 + 6

                        5 + 5

b)   counting by 2’s, 5’s and 10’s (starting at any number:  3, 8, 13, 18, etc.)

c) describing patterns

d)   identifying missing addends for the next complement of 10

e.g.       16  +  ____  =  30

    ____ + 23    =  40

In addition (no pun intended!), students put their math knowledge to good use playing various math games, like Hit the Target, Array Bingo, and Basketball Addition.

On Wednesday, we combined reading and math with the story about the “Wubbles” – funny little creatures that double every night!  We had fun determining how many Wubbles we would have at the end of 2 days, 3 days, and 1 whole week!  We then learned that Wubbles will “halve” when you give them half a blink (a wink) and students worked to figure out how many winks we would need to get back to one Wubble!  

We wrapped up the week collecting data.  Working in groups of 4 and 5, students measured each other's arm spans and standing jumps (how far they can jump from a standing position). They will use and analyze this data next week!

SOCIAL STUDIES

It’s back to Social Studies in Room 13.  Now that we have wrapped up Fossils, we are revisiting Maps and Globes (Part 2).  In this unit we will be learning more about the world in which we live.  Specifically, students will learn to identify their street, town, state, country, continent, and planet - and understand the relationship between them all.  Students will also learn about the 7 continents (and their important landforms) and the 4 major oceans. 

This week, the unit was simply introduced, along with the concept of a boundary.  Ask your child what a boundary is.  They should tell you that it is a real or imaginary line that separates two or more places.  Can s/he give examples? 

MYSTERY READER

This week, our Mystery Reader was Mrs. Parsons!  Donning a red-and-white striped hat, Mrs. Parsons read 3 stories by Dr. Seuss (in honor of his birthday on March 2).  She read Yertle the Turtle, The Big Brag, and Gertrude McFuzz! Thank you so much for coming in to visit, Mrs. Parsons!!

VACATION!

V-A-C-A-T-I-O-N!  Woo-Hoo!  I hope you all have something fun and exciting planned for vacation next week! You deserve it!  As for me, I plan on spending lots of time with my little man - and catching up on some R&R so I am ready for the upcoming 7-week stretch through March!  I can’t wait to hear all about your wonderful adventures next week!  Stay healthy!

Paleontology Presentations!

WOW - Students were awesome yesterday!  I was SO impressed with their presentations!!  Not only did each student create an organized, beautiful, and informative board about his/her special dinosaur, but they were all so confident in presenting/sharing their knowledge to an audience!  It was obvious that students worked extremely hard on these projects and I want to thank you (parents/families) for helping them prepare for this special event!  I am so glad that so many of you were able to make it in yesterday - I know that it requires some tricky schedule changes.  I hope you enjoyed the presentations as much as I did!

 

 

 

 

 

Science Fair

Just a quick reminder:  Students in Room 13 will be presenting their Science Fair projects on Thursday, March 8 from 8:30-9:30am in the Elmwood cafeteria.  Presentations should be a breeze after the Dinosaur Presentations - right? :)

Persuasive Letters
Keep your eyes out for a very special piece of mail.  :)  After reading, make sure to visit the classroom website and look at the top right to participate in our Parent Poll.  This will all make sense in a few more days...  


Our Week in Review
READING
In reading this week, we began Unit 4 with April Pulley Sayre’s story Splish! Splash! Animal Baths.  This is a wonderful story that clearly illustrates and explains how different animals get clean!  We used this story to help us start thinking about Comparing (describing how things are alike) and Contrasting (describing how things are different) different animals. This will be the next type of writing that we work on and it is an important reading skill in that it helps students focus on important information and details.

SPELLING
This week, our spelling pattern focused on… “BOSSY R!”  Students learned that the letter R is very bossy when it pairs up with vowels.  This week, we looked specifically at the vowels A and O. 

We noticed that when R follows A, it makes A say “argh” – like a pirate! 

Examples: star, part, market    

(We don’t hear the A at all!!)

When R follows O, it makes the O say weird things too…OR!

            Examples: for, thorn, sort

We better watch out for that R!! He doesn’t sound like someone we would want to be friends with!

WRITING

Students worked very hard to finish up their Persuasive Letters this week.  I'm not giving away any secrets...but you should keep an eye out to see their finished work!

MATH
Earlier in the week, students were introduced to the concepts of multiplication and division! These concepts are taught through stories and pictures - and most students were able to solve problems accurately and independently. Later in the week, students were assessed on their knowledge of the concepts presented in Unit 6 – including comparison number stories, multi-digit subtraction (Trade-First), and early multiplication and division concepts.  I look forward to taking a look at these assessments over vacation - I anticipate good results!

Valentine's Day
Tuesday was Valentine's Day and our wonderful Room Parents - Mrs. Kasper and Mrs. Whelan - came in to do a special math activity! Students estimated and counted the number of candy hearts in a box and then graphed the different colors - creating both a bar graph and a pie chart! The parents did a great job and the students had a "love"ly time! Take a peek:

SCIENCE
We finished up our Fossils Science Unit this week!  The Paleontology Presentations were the culmnating activity, as well as the small assessment on Friday.  I think students would agree that we all had a wonderful time learning about fossils!!  I'm so impressed with all that they know! :)