Another Crazy Week!

Wow!  This Missouri weather has made it super difficult to get a full week of school in. 

Yesterday, teachers were supposed to meet after school to schedule sibling conferences.  Since yesterday was a snow/ice day, this did not happen until this afternoon.  Mrs. Ross is emailing families about a conference time, and we will also be sending home a hard copy of the date/time on Monday.

There have been some situations about students becoming annoyed with peers and not using respectful tones to express their feelings.  Today, we had a class meeting of remembering the importance of being kind to all students.  Mr. Smith, our counselor at RBE, helped lead this class meeting.

Upcoming Events

• February 14 - Valentine's Day Party at 1:45
• There are few slots still open on the party SignUp Genius...so if you haven't had a chance to sign up you are in luck! Click here to sign up.
• February 15 - No School (Teacher Work Day)
• February 18 - No School (President's Day)
• February 20 - Fuzzy's RBE Eat Out 5-8

• February 20-28 - Moss Team P/T Conference Weeks
• February 26 - Special Family & Friend's Day
• You are invited to come and visit your child during specials (1:35-2:25) for Special Family & Friend's Day! 
• Ms. Mottaz students will start in P.E. and then travel to Music.
• Mrs. Ross students will start in Art and then travel to Media. 
• The Book Fair will be open on this day.  If you would like to come early or stay late to take your kiddo this would be a great opportunity.  
• We understand that 2:25 is really close to the end of the day.  If you would like to pick up your child early we understand.  However, if someone, other than parent, will be picking up your child early, you will need to write a note giving permission.
• March 1 - No School (P/T Conference)
• March 4-8 - RBE Read Week
• March 4-8 is Read Week!  This is a week dedicated to celebrating the love of reading and sharing our love of reading with the students.  We always invite parents, grandparents, family members and family friends to come read to the students.  If you would like to bring in a snack related to your book as well, the students always love snacks.  :)  
• If you would like to read to the class there are still openings available.  Please click here to sign up for a time using SignUp Genius.    
• March 7 - Field Trip to Daniel Boone Regional Library
• On this field trip, we do not need parent chaperones.  We will depart from school at 8:00 and return by 9:45.  
• A yellow DBRL Library Card Application is in your child's Friday Folder.  If your student does not already have a library card and you would like to sign him/her up for one, please fill out the application and return to school by Friday, February 22.  If your child already has a library card or you are not interested in getting one, then you do not need to return the form
• March 7 - Kindergarten Enrollment Night
• If your family has child who will be enrolled in kindergarten next year, or if you know of another family, please come to Kindergarten Enrollment Night!
• This is 4:00-7:00 at RBE.  You can contact the school office for more information.

Lots of Learning is Happening

• Math
• We are finishing up unit 6 next week.  We have learned about different ways to collect and represent data, and being able to add 3-digit plus 3-digit numbers.  One of the strategies that we teach the students is using partial sums.  You can checkout the picture below to see the two ways we have taught partial sums.

• Writing
• We have been working really hard on researching two topics for our Which is Better project.  Last weekend, your child should have told you what two topics s/he was researching.  This weekend, have your child share some facts that they learned about their topic.
• Next week, we will start talking about opinion writing.  Our first opinion writing will be with Hershey Kisses.  We will taste test Hershey Kisses and then write about which flavor is our favorite.  Yum! Yum!
• Fundations
• We are continuing to work on spelling words with er, ir & ur in it.  We will be testing over this unit next week.
• Reading
• This week, we finished up comparing texts.  We did this through fractured fairy tales.  The students compared characters, setting and events between the different stories.
• Next week, we are starting an author study on Steve Jenkins.  We will be finding and describing sensory details in the text.  As a reader, understanding these sensory details is important and we will talk about how to incorporate these details into our Which is Better project writing.
• Social Studies
• We are continuing to be cartographers and learning about the continents on the world map.  We have discovered where Africa, Europe and Asia are on the map and learned about a few different famous destinations on each continent.  
• Next week, we will be continuing to learn about the other four continents and adding these to our personal world map.
• Nutrition
• We started our Nutrition Class through the University of Missouri Extension.  Mrs. Zapata will be coming out for the next five Wednesdays to teach us about nutrition.  This week we learned about the importance of cleaning both food and our hands while cooking, keeping food separate, making sure to cook food to the correct temperature, and remember to chill food by putting it back in the refrigerator when finished.  We also reviewed My Plate and the importance of eating a variety of healthy food.

I hope that you have a wonderful weekend and stay warm!

Fingers Crossed For Good February Weather!

January has been a whirlwind of snow days, late starts, and an early release thrown in there too.  We have our fingers crossed for good February Weather so that we can start to get back into the routine of things!

Upcoming Events

• February 4 - Parent/Teacher Conference Request form due
• If you have not already sent back in your request for the best times for your P/T Conference please do so on Monday.  We will be scheduling conferences & sending home dates in your child's Friday Folder next week.
• February 8 - Decades Day
• February 14 - Valentine's Day Party at 1:45
• February 15 - No School (Teacher Work Day)
• February 18 - No School (President's Day)
• February 20 - Fuzzy's RBE Eat Out 5-8

• February 20-28 - Moss Team P/T Conference Weeks
• February 26 - Special Family & Friend's Day
• You are invited to come and visit your child during specials (1:35-2:25) for Special Family & Friend's Day!  The Book Fair will be open on this day.  If you would like to come early or stay late to take your kiddo this would be a great opportunity.  We understand that 2:25 is really close to the end of the day.  If you would like to pick up your child early we understand.  However, if someone, other than parent, will be picking up your child early, you will need to write a note giving permission.
• More information will be coming out closer, but we wanted to make sure that you had the date! :)
• March 1 - No School (P/T Conference)
• March 4-8 - RBE Read Week
• March 4-8 is Read Week!  This is a week dedicated to celebrating the love of reading and sharing our love of reading with the students.  We always invite parents, grandparents, family members and family friends to come read to the students.  If you would like to bring in a snack related to your book as well, the students always love snacks.  :)  
• If you would like to read to the class, please click here to sign up for a time using SignUpGenius.  
• In the past, we have heard some childhood favorites from our readers or stories that are near and dear to their heart.  

What's Happening in Moss World

• Math
• We are continuing to work on solving word problems.  Our goal is to be able to solve 2-step word problems.  This week we learned about making ballpark estimates when solving 2- and 3-digit addition problems.  Coming up with an estimate allows us to check to make sure that our actual answer makes sense.  When solving the problem, we also practiced a strategy called partial sums.  Ask your child how they can use partial sums to solve the problem 54 + 29 or 389 + 462.
• Writing
• This week, the students had an opportunity to do some fun writing about "Our Teachers Are Missing" and also "What Will You Do When You Are 102".  The students had fun with these writing assignments.
• We also continued to finish publishing our informational book on the animal we researched and write a speech for our book trailer that we are making.  Next week, we will start recording our book trailer.  As I have been listening to their speeches, I have been super impressed with their expression that they are using.  They have been working INCREDIBLY hard with making sure that their speech has their voice in and they are succeeding!
• Next week,
• Fundations
• We are continuing to talk about r-control vowels.  We are now focusing on er, ir, and ur.  These are tricky because they each make the same sound.  We have learned that it is okay to try our each pattern to see which looks familiar, and we also have a section in our Fundations's Monster Book that has different "Spelling Options."  The students are doing a great job utilizing this resource in their writing!
• Reading
• We are continuing to work on comparing fiction texts.  We will be reading fractured fairy tales and comparing those stories to the original fairy tale.  The fairy tales we will be focusing on are "The Three Little Pigs" and " Goldilocks and the Three Bears".  
• Social Studies
• We started to introduce maps this week.  Students learned that a cartographer is a person who draws and studies maps.  We have learned that there are seven continents on Earth.  We introduced Africa last week and located it on a world map.  
• Next week, we will talk about Asia, Australia and Antarctica. 

I am looking forward to enjoying the beautiful weather this weekend...only in Missouri can we go from a polar vortex on Wednesday to 64 degrees on Sunday!  Enjoy your weekend and we are all looking forward to a 5 day school week next week!

Happy Friday!

Happy Friday!  We have had a great week!

Important Information

• Both Mrs. Ross and myself will be gone to the Powerful Learning Conference on Monday and Tuesday next week.  Ms. Easter will be here, along with two familiar substitutes to the students.  
• If there are any changes to how your child is getting home on Monday & Tuesday, please contact the office (214-3290).
• 102nd Day of 2nd Grade is Wednesday!  

• Your child can bring: 102 project, a 102 piece snack & decorate a shirt.

What Are We Learning?

• Math
• This week, we started a new math unit on collecting and using data.  The students learned how to turn data collected into a bar and a pictograph (picture graph).  We've also been solving word problems based on the information in graphs and charts.
• The questions "How many more ____ than ____?" or "How much shorter is ____ than ____?" have been challenging for students
• Next week, we will continue to work on solving number stories and will also be learning about ballpark estimates.  A ballpark estimate is the idea of rounding numbers to the closest 10, or for some students the nearest 5, so that they can quickly estimate the answer.  The numbers that we are working on adding are 2-digit numbers, so we are going to continue to talk about strategies to solve these numbers.
• Writing
• This week, we have worked incredibly hard on publishing our first informational book!  The students identified the best text feature to go with each chapter (page) in their book.  These are turning out really great!
• We have started writing a speech for a book trailer for our book.  We will be working on this next week also, and will be using the iPads and a green screen during the week of February 4 to make our videos.
• Fundations
• This week, we finished up Unit 8.  This unit introduced writing the r-controlled vowels of ar and or/ore.  We took a test over Unit 8 yesterday and this test is coming home in your child's backpack today.
• Today we started Unit 9 and this unit continues to work on r-controlled vowels.  We now will be focusing on er, ir and ur.  These are tricky because they all make the same sound.  We learned about a section in our Monster Book called "Spelling Options" - this section has an alphabetical list of words that can not be tapped out.  We practiced using this today.
• Reading
• We are continuing to work on comparing texts.  This week we read four different books about Martin Luther King, Jr. and compared information within the books.  We also discovered that the author makes a difference also because we learned different stories about his childhood from the book My Brother Martin written by Christine King Farris.
• Next week, we are going to compare fairy tales and folk tales from different points of view.
• Social Studies
• We are going to be cartographers for the next month and studying maps.  We will be learning about the continents and oceans on the world map and land forms and smaller bodies of water on the Missouri map.

I hope that you have a wonderful weekend and stay warm!

Happy Friday!

A Few Important Things

• Tuesday will be a C Day.  The district is adjusting the ABCD calendar has been adjusted by a day.  Ross kids will have PE on Thursday and Mottaz kids on Friday.  
• No School on Monday: Martin Luther King, Jr. Day

Friday Folder

• HomeLinks for Unit 6 in math: this unit covers graphing and more word problem work.  We will start this unit on Tuesday.
• Unit 9 Fundations information:  Unit 8 is a short unit, so we will be finishing it next week and starting on Unit 9.
• Chat and Chew: information is in the Friday folder, this is an optional activity for students to participate in if they would like.  Students will read the assigned book and then discuss it with a parent volunteer over lunch.

Our Learning for Next Week

• Reading
• Students have been comparing information found in articles about a topic.
• Next week, students will identify facts that are in just one article and facts that are in both articles and creating a poster to show the facts.
• Writing
• We started publishing our informational piece about an animal this week.
• Next week, we will continue publishing and start adding text features to their writing.
• Math
• We took our Unit 5 test today.  It will be coming home next week.
• On Tuesday, we will start Unit 6.  This unit starts with creating bar graphs and analyzing the data.  This is a fun unit for students because they get an opportunity to ask classmates questions and find things they have in common.
• Fundations
• We will wrap up Unit 8 next week.  This unit covers AR and OR words.  The students are expected to be able to read and write words containing these r-controlled vowels.  They have also learned how to mark up the words.
• We will start Unit 9 next week.  This unit works on ER, IR and UR words as r-controlled vowels.  This one can be more difficult because all three spelling patterns make the same sound.  
• Science/Social Studies
• This week students showed their knowledge of weathering, erosion and deposition.  
• Next week, we will start to discuss landforms that are created through weathering, erosion and deposition.

Happy Friday!

Happy Friday!! Today was an amazing day.  The students really enjoyed Forts and Flashlights!  Make sure to check out Twitter for pictures.  Remember, if you don't have Twitter, you can always checkout the sidebar on the right of this blog!

Check Our What's In Your Child's Friday Folder!

• Student Teacher:
• We will have a student teacher this semester.  Her name is Sam Easter.  There is a letter in your child's backpack with more information.  We are super excited to have her!
• Six Flags Read to Succeed:
• When does 6 hours of reading = a ticket to Six Flags?  Six Flags Read to Succeed!  Coming home on a golden sheet of paper is a  book log.  Once your child has read six hours and has filled in the book log, the paper will be turned into Mrs. McKinzie by February 27. 
• Information on Fundations & Math:
• We finished up Unit 7 in Fundations today and will be finishing up Unit 5 in math next week.  Coming home in your child's Friday Folder is information about both of our next units in Fundations & math.
• Published Personal Narrative:
• There is a published personal narrative in your child's Friday Folder.  This is the story that we made into an electronic book.  Make sure to keep this piece of writing!  On the back of the story is a QR Code.  If you have not had a chance to listen to your child's story, this would be something perfect to do on a snowy weekend!  
• The QR Code will be active for a while, but if this is something that you would like to ensure that you have in the future - I would download it.  Please let me know if you have any questions about this.
• Lots of Other Student Work!
• Make sure to check out everything that we have been doing! :)

Upcoming Events!

• January 18 - Hat Day (children can wear any hat of their choosing)
• January 21 - No School (MLK Jr Day)
• February 8 - Decade Day (children can dress up from any decade of their choosing)

What's Been Happening in Moss World!

• Math
• We have been focusing on different strategies to help us solve word problems.  We will continue to work on this next week, and our plan is to test over this unit on Friday.
• Writing
• This week, we worked on editing and revising our first informational writing.  We also came up with creative headings for each of our paragraphs, and decided which text feature would be best for each of our paragraphs. 
• Next week, we will start publishing this story. 
• Fundations
• In Unit 7, we learned about open syllable words (when the vowel makes a long sound at the end of the syllable like hi or remote - re in the open syllable).  We have also learned about the suffixes -y, -ly and -ty.
• In Unit 8, we will be learning about the r-controlled vowels of ar and or.
• Reading
• This week, we started learning about the importance of comparing nonfiction texts as we researched.  We learned that some facts can be found in multiple sources and others might only be in one.
• Next week, we will continue to focus on comparing nonfiction texts.
• Science
• Before Winter Break, we had been talking about things that cause quick changes to the Earth's surface (example: volcanoes or earthquakes).  This week, we started learning about a slower process that can change the Earth's surface - weathering, erosion and deposition.  The students learned a song with hand motions to help them know what each means.  We tweeted them singing the song out on Wednesday - check it out if you haven't already!
• Next week, we will finish up the unit on Earth's changes.

I hope that you have a safe and warm weekend!

Only 4 More School Days in December?!?!

Happy Ugly Sweater Friday!

Wow!  We were quite impressed with the holiday sweaters and outfits today.  It's amazing how kids can make ugly sweaters look cute.  :)

It's crazy to think that next Thursday is our last day of school before Winter Break.  There is information below about special activities planned for next week as well as our learning for after break.

We will not send home Friday folders next week.  Sometimes they get lost over long breaks.  :)

Important Upcoming Dates

• Wednesday, December 19: Grinch Day

• Students may dress as their favorite Grinch character.

• We have fun Grinchy activities planned.

• Thursday, December 20

• Library Check Out (please make sure students have their library books)

• PJs for Positives Day

• Students may wear PJs to celebrate our first 100 positive office referrals before the 100th day of school.

• Please make sure they have shoes for recess and their pajamas will keep them warm.  

• Winter Party at 1:45 p.m.

• https://www.signupgenius.com/go/30e0b4fa5ac2eab9-winter

• Friday, December 21-January 2: Winter Break

• Thursday, January 3: School Resumes

Student Bragging

• Our goal is for 80% of the students to get 80% or better when we give an assessment.  We don't expect all students to get 100% as we all have off days or need some clarification on a topic.

• We took the STAR Reading winter benchmark this week and ALL the students' scores have gone up since the beginning of the year!  We know the students are growing as reader and it is always nice to see that carry over.

• On the Mid Year Assessment in math which covers all the topics from 2nd grade so far (it's long and covers a lot), 85% of the students received an 80% or better.  

• We bragged earlier this week, but will brag again over 80% of the students received an 80% or above on their Unit 4 math assessment over time, measurement and place value.  ALL the students showed huge growth in this unit.  It is amazing to be writing the pre and post test scores on the cover sheet and see their huge improvement.

Our Learning After Break

Math

• We will be continuing with Unit 5.  This unit reviews money and introduces making change.  It also covers word problems and various strategies and models to solve the problems.  The students ROCKED the pretest over Unit 5 so we will be pushing them even more with explanations and variety of ways to solve a problem.  One thing to continue to work on at home is basic addition and subtraction facts.  As we get into harder addition and subtraction problems, we don't want them to get hung up on the basic facts.

• The students all did very well on our time unit, but this is not a skill that we will hit much more this year.  We will continue touching on it here and there, but please continue practicing telling time at home.  It can be something as simple as randomly having your student look at the clock and tell you the time.

Writing

• We started writing our informational piece this week.  The goal is to have the rough draft written before break.  It all depends on scheduling as to whether this happens.  :)

• When we return from break, we will pick up where we left off.  They will finish writing if needed, then edit and revise their writing and then publish.  With their informational writing, they will also be including text features in their books.  This will help their reader understand more about the topic.

Fundations

• We are in the middle of Unit 7 which introduces open syllable words.  We are continuing to review all syllable types as we introduce new ones.

• We will wrap up Unit 7 after break and start Unit 8.  Unit 8 covers r controlled vowels.  

• Please continue practicing the trick words at home.  These are words the students just have to memorize.

Science & Social Studies

• The students became an expert on volcanoes, floods or earthquakes this week and were able to teach classmates about their topic.  We will also be learning about landslides before break.

• After break, we will switch back to social studies.  We will be focusing on geography for the month of January.  They will be identifying landforms and creating maps to show the landforms.

Reading

• We finished learning about text features this week.  They will use these text features in the publishing of their informational writing.

• When we get back from break, we will briefly review the concepts we have covered in the first half of the year.  Then we will move on to making connections between different books as well as between books and events occurring in the world.  

I hope that you have a wonderful weekend!

Happy Friday

Happy Friday!

We have had a wonderful week!  Check out what we will be working on next week, as well as important information for the next few weeks.

Important Upcoming Events/Information

• Please remember to send in snacks with your student each day.  We have snack each day at 9:55 a.m.
• Ugly Sweater Day: December 14
• Grinch Day: December 19
• We will have "Grinchy" activities all day.  Students may dress up for Grinch Day if they would like.
• Winter Party: December 20 at 1:35 p.m.
• The All School Sing Along will be before the parties so parents can set up for the party.  Due to the size of our gym and number of students we have at RBE, we do not have room for parents to attend the Sing Along.  
• Winter Break: December 21-January 2

Box Tops

• We are doing another school wide Box Top collection this month.  Please cut out your box tops and send them in with your student.  There is a sheet in your student's Friday folder where you can tape/glue the Box Tops.  Our goal is 200 box tops for the entire Team Moss class.  

Homework Bingo

• We have had our first 2 Homework Bingo Black Outs!  If your student wants to eat lunch with us, they simply have to bring in their Bingo Board with a Bingo.  We check daily and we eat lunch with them most Fridays (we let the students know if it is a different day than Friday).

Math

• Unit 4 Test on Tuesday (covers time, measurement, place value)
• We will start Unit 5 next week.  This unit covers adding 10 and 100 to numbers.  It also reviews counting money and introduces finding change.

Reading

• We learned about table of contents, heading, photographs, captions, diagrams, labels and types of print this week.  The students are getting an opportunity to learn about the text features and create their own.  We will use these text features in their informational books that they will write.  
• Next week, we will continue working on text features.  As you're reading at home, encourage students to read informational or nonfiction books and ask them to locate text features and how they help them as a reader.  

Writing

• This week, we worked on researching our topic.  We talked about the importance of putting the information in our own words.  They can use the information, but cannot use someone else's words.
• Next week, we will wrap up our research and then start using the information to write an informational book about their animal.  

Science

• This week, students researched about volcanoes, earthquakes and floods.  They learned what causes them and how they change the earth's surface.  
• Next week, they will take the information they learned and create a poster.  They will use the poster to teach other students about their natural disaster.  

Have a wonderful weekend!