Almost Fall!

Happy Friday!  I cannot believe that tomorrow is the first day of fall!

We have had a wonderful week!  Make sure that you check out Twitter for pictures or look at the sidebar to the left of the blog.

Flu Clinic

• The student flu shot clinic is October 2.  Flu clinic forms went home last week, if you would like your student to get the flu shot at school, we need the form back by next Wednesday, September 26.

No School on Monday-September 24

Friday Folders

• Unit 3 Fundations Information
• We started Fundations Unit 3 this week.  In the Friday folder is the parent letter as well as some activities for the students if they choose to complete them.  They do not have to do these activities, but they can be used on their homework bingo.  We send them home so parents have an idea of what they are working on in Fundations.  

• Zones of Regulation Sort
• We have been reviewing the Zones of Regulation this month.  This is a program we started teaching last year.  It allows students to monitor their emotions and identify which zone they are in and how to get back to the green zone.  This week, they did a sort with different actions and emotions and put them in the correct zone.  I recommend going over this sort with your child and having them explain the zones to you.  

• School Eat Out Night
• September 25 is the first RBE Eat Out Night at Chipotle from 4 p.m.-8 p.m..  This is a great excuse to not cook dinner and also support RBE.  33% of the profits from the night come directly back to RBE and our PTA uses the money to support the school in a variety of ways.

Chicken BBQ

• Chicken BBQ is October 13 from 4:00 p.m.-8:00 p.m.
• Pre-sale ticket information went home last Friday.  If you would like to order meal tickets or game tickets in advance, you can send in the order form and payment and we will send the tickets home with your student.
• This is PTA's fundraiser for the entire year.  We are very lucky to have such a wonderful and supportive PTA, so please come out and support them at the BBQ.
• Mrs. Ross and I will be working at the drive thru from 4:00 p.m.-6:00 p.m.  Be sure to stop by!

Next Week's Learning

Math

• This week, we worked on different addition strategies.   They learned about doubles facts (both addends are the same; 4 + 4 = 8), combinations of 10 (the two numbers add up to 10; 4 + 6 = 10), making 10 (break apart one number to make a 10 with the other number; 9 + 4 = 9 + 1 + 3 = 13) and helper facts (finding doubles facts near the problem to help solve it; 9 + 8, you can use 9 + 9 = 18 - 1= 17, 9 + 8 = 17).

• Next week, we will learn about the Turn Around Rule or the Commutative Property of Addition.  This property says that you can switch the addends around in an addition problem and still get the same answer.  The students will then have an opportunity to test if the turn around rule works with subtraction.  This lesson will be the two day re-engagement lesson.  This allows for students to go back and correct their work after a discussion.

Reading

• This week, we learned about making predictions.  The students learned that when making a prediction, you need to support it with information from the book (we focused on the cover this week) as well as information you already know about things you see on the cover or that you know from reading other similar books.  We also talked about the importance of your support matching your prediction.  We then read the books they made predictions about and told them that even if their prediction wasn't correct, that doesn't mean it was bad.  It is a good prediction as long as it is supported.
• Next week, we will focus on characters.  We will discuss the difference between main characters and supporting characters.  Then we will learn about character traits and how we use the character's actions to identify the traits.  We will make a list of positive and negative characters traits.  

Writing

• This week, we focused on the setting of our personal narrative.  On Tuesday, the students wrote their setting and had a partner draw a picture of their setting.  They learned it is very important to have good details in your setting because the pictures their partners drew didn't match the setting the students thought they were describing.  We went back and added more details to their setting.  On Tuesday, students will have an opportunity to pair up again and draw each other's settings.  These pictures should match the setting much better because they worked hard to add extra details.  
• Next week, after we finish their setting, we will focus on the characters.  We will be discussing the character traits the students want to show in their personal narrative and find actions that match the character traits.  
• The students have really been enjoying their free write notebooks lately also.  Be sure to ask your student what they have been writing about in their free write notebook.

Science/Social Studies

• This week, we introduced proficiency scales.  This is a chart (pictured below) for students to know and understand the learning objectives for the unit.  It has it broken into different levels of understanding.  The teaching will mainly be in the level 2 and students apply this knowledge in activities to be a level 3.  A level 4 is going above and beyond what is expected of a 2nd grader in this unit.  Students were reintroduced to states of matter this week.  They turned their bodies into each state of matter (see twitter for pictures).  They also were introduced to vocabulary that will be used in the properties of matter unit.  This week, they wrote what they think the words mean and will make corrections throughout the unit.
• Next week, students will continue learning about states of matter.  Students will learn that matter has state, volume and mass.  They will be testing out different objects to determine their state.

Intervention

• We will start Reading Intervention next week.  We are doing grade level wide intervention this year.  Students will be going to one of the four 2nd grade teachers to work on specific reading skills.  We will have intervention for 25 minutes each day.  Next week, we will practice traveling to different classrooms (all 4 2nd grade classrooms will be used) and reviewing expectations.  We will start the reading intervention instruction on Monday, October 1.  Be sure to ask your student next Wednesday which teacher they have for intervention.  

Have a fabulous weekend!