A Fall-tastic Week!

Happy Fall Harvest Party!  Today was a great day!  A HUGE thank you to all the parents who donated food/materials and were able to help at the party - it was a success & the kiddos had a blast.  These parties would not be able to happen without all your help!  Check out a few pictures from the party here.

Fall Pumpkin Book Projects

WOW!!!!  We were so excited to see the end product of all the pumpkin book characters - they turned out super cute!  We had pumpkin book character show case this afternoon and had a chance to look at all the pumpkins in 2nd grade.  You can click here to see all the pumpkins book characters!

Conferences, No School & No Homework

Coming home is your child's Friday Folder is a yellow sheet that has a date/time for your child's Parent/Teacher Conference.  Please make sure that the bottom portion of this sheet is returned by next Wednesday, November 1.  I cannot believe that these start next week - this trimester has flown by!

Just as reminder, on Monday, October 30 we will have no school due to a Teacher Work Day to prepare for conferences.

Due to us not having school on Monday and Halloween is Tuesday, we will not be giving out homework next week.  We will start with homework the following week, November 6.

Brrr...this week was cold, warm and cold again

Please remember to send your child with winter coat and jacket next week.  Even when the high is supposed to be in the 50's when we got out for morning recess it is still cold.  Your child might want a winter coat at morning recess but only a sweatshirt or jacket at second recess.  Please help your child be prepared for the day - thanks!

Special Visitors

On Thursday, Ben's grandfather, mom and two younger brothers came in as a special treat for Ben's birthday.  Ben's grandfather read Tacky the Penguin (and used some great voices!).  Then, we celebrated Ben's birthday by enjoying a brownie.  It was a great afternoon!

Mrs. Neale also came in today and read to our kids.  She read two books that had a similar theme.  Ask your kiddo what was similar about the two books.

What's Been Happening in 2nd Grade?

• Math: This week, we talked about story problems (word problems) that include subtraction.  There are two different types of subtraction story problems: change to less and comparison.  

• A change to less story problem starts out with a number and then some get taken away - you are solving for what is left.  
• There were 10 bears in a cave.  3 bears leave.  How many bears are left?
• A comparison story problem starts with comparing two different items and solving for the difference.
• Mrs. Ross has 10 pieces of candy.  Ms. Mottaz has 3 pieces of candy.  How many more pieces of candy does Mrs. Ross have than Ms. Mottaz?
• Writing: This week, the student created their own utensil writing to add to the series that we read last week Spoon, Chopsticks, and Spork by Amy Crouse Rosenthal.  We also started our second personal narrative.  The student chose a topic and then selected the three BIG events of their story.  Next week, we will be continuing to work on our narratives.  This narrative will have less teacher input, so we can have a better idea of what your child's independent narrative writing ability is.
• Reading: This week, we will talked about seven different reading decoding strategies to solve unknown words.  We practiced using these strategies in our reading small groups in a variety of texts.  Below is a chart of the strategies we worked on.  Next week, we will be focusing on using context clues to figure out words.

• Social Studies:  We discussed what living in an urban city and rural area would be like.  We also discussed the similarities and difference between living in Columbia to living in one of these places.  Next week, will be finishing up our geography and culture unit by talking about culture.  We will learn that culture is the values, beliefs and customs of a group of people.  We will then talk about these values, beliefs and customs of people who chose to live in an urban city, a rural or suburban city.
• Word Study: We will continue to work on short and long vowel word patterns next week.  Next week we will focus on short u and long u words.  Next week's words are: shut, huge, truck, put, plus, June, rude, tune, flute, & huge.

I hope that you have a wonderful weekend!

Black & Gold Friday!

Everyone looked SO great in their black & gold today!  I hope that all of our spirit can cheer MU on to a win tomorrow.

Fall Pumpkin Book Project

Just a reminder that your child's fall pumpkin book project is due this Tuesday, October 24.  We have received quite a few pumpkins already & they look amazing!  We have sent home a paper pumpkin and extra book project papers for students who said that they needed them.  If you have any questions please ask!

Fall Harvest Party

The Fall Harvest Party is next Friday, October 27 from 1:45-2:30.  Kristy Rysdam, has developed a Sign Up Genius for materials that are need for the party.  Please check out the Sign Up Genius by clicking here.  If you are able to come the day of the party we would love to have you!

Parent/Teacher Conferences

Earlier this week, we sent home a Parent/Teacher Conference request sheet.  This sheet is to help us be able to schedule a good time to meet with your family.  It is our goal at RBE that we meet with 100% of our families.  Mrs. Ross & I have extended our conferences over two weeks to help ensure that we can meet with all of our families.  If you have not sent back in your request sheet (we sent home a new sheet in Friday Folders for kiddos we did not receive one from this week), please do so by Monday.  Thanks!  A confirmation date will be coming home in next week's Friday Folder.

Just as reminder, on Monday, October 30 we will have no school due to a Teacher Work Day to prepare for conferences.

This week was warmer...next week will be cooler

We just wanted to share again with you what our expectations are for students at RBE to wear outside at what temperature.  This week was warmer, but please remember that we have our morning recess at 9:50 - it was still in the 50's.  Next week, the temperature is supposed to drop and be cooler.  Please remember to send your kiddo with a jacket or sweatshirt every day!

Special Visitors

As you read about last week, October is Bilingual Child Month, Tommy's family sent in egg rolls for us to have as a special snack on Thursday.  Mrs. Richardson came in and talked about Vietnamese culture.  We also learned about Mexican culture from Yareli, the culture of Nicaragua from Valentina and the culture in Burundi from Felix. 

Tristan's dad came in as special visitor yesterday.  He told us about being a diesel mechanic in the Navy.  He also read us a book The Night Before Thanksgiving.

A Tasty Math Lesson!

Today, we had a taste testing math lesson that the kiddos loved!  We invited Mrs. Reynolds and Ms. Ragsdale's classes to our classroom.  We had 6 different types of candy corn and the students had the opportunity to taste each type and then choose their favorite one.  After taste testing, we turned our votes into a tally mark chart.  We then used this data to make a double bar graph.  Make sure the next time that you are at RBE that you check out our chart and graph in the hallway outside our classroom!

Maker Space Monday

The students enjoyed Maker Space Monday.  This week they had a chance to explore Ozobots.  They made a different paths for the Ozobots to make their way through.  Some students worked together to make a giant path.  We also explored the patterns to make the Ozobots go rapid fast or super slow.  They had fun! :)

What's Been Happening in 2nd Grade?

• Math: We finished up our second math unit on addition strategies this week and took our assessment.  Today, we started unit 3.  The focus of this unit is teaching the students strategies to solve subtraction problems.
• Writing: This week, we started publishing our small moment stories!  We are so excited about how these are turning out!  Next week, we will continue to work on publishing our stories.  We have also read three books that are connected (Spoon, Chopsticks, and Spork).  The student will be creating their own utensil book to add to this series.  Our plan is turn them into a book and send them to Amy Crouse Rosenthal.

    

• Reading: This week, we finished up talking about story elements of a story.  In second grade, when we talk about story elements we talk about characters (and their traits), setting (when & where), problem and a solution that solves the problem.  The kiddos made a Story Element Tree of a book that we have read together or a book that they had read on their own.  These trees are hung up in the hallway across from our classroom.  Make sure to check out our Story Element Forest the next time you are at RBE! :) Next week, we will start to discuss how we can use context clues as a strategy to solve unknown words.
• Social Studies:  We will continue to discuss and talk about rural, urban and suburban and how the culture of these environments can be different.
• Word Study: This week we continued to focus on vowel patterns.  We learned that "e" is a magic letter that turns a short vowel into a long vowel sound.  Over the past two week we have focused on short and long a and o words Next week we will focus on short i and long i words.  Next week's words are: stick, gift, rich, swim, thin, five, life, nine, prize, & drive.

I hope that you have a wonderful weekend!