Newsletter 1/19

In Reading Workshop this week, we learned how to play a reading game with our partners called "Guess What Comes Next".  This game is played with books that have patterns of words.  We have to be careful, because as books get harder, the patterns break!  We read a ton of bear books this week, too.  We read fiction and nonfiction bear books, and bear poems.  We even read TO our bears!  See the photos below.

As a group, we have learned a lot of sight words.  See the photo below to know which ones we've learned together.  Everyone also has their individual sight word rings as well.

We sharpened our editing skills in Writing Workshop this week.  Check out a morning message that we had to edit in the photos below.  We edited our narrative pieces and then celebrated by sharing our work with Mrs. Battersby's second graders!

We continue to measure in math, using wooden sticks as units of measurement this week.  We measured hidden lines all over the room.  We played a new game called "Double Compare" with a partner.  Each student pulled two cards from the deck, added them together to get the total and then compared the totals.  We also did another Exemplar.  If I am making six gingerbread men, and using raisins for eyes, how many raisins will I need for them all?

On Teddy Bear Day, we sang and read to our bears.  We wrote about our bears, too.  We read the classic book, Corduroy and then made our own bears to decorate the room.  Now we have bears hanging from the ceiling!  Last, we tucked them in and said "Goodnight", but they didn't go to sleep!  See the photos below to see what they did!

We did one of my favorite lessons in Second Steps this week- we learned about empathy.  Empathy is looking at someone and being able to understand how s/he feels.  Please use the word "empathy" at home when appropriate.

News and Notes:

• Book sleeves due Monday.
• Valentines Show (everyone's invited!) on 2/14 at 9:30 am
• Please send back your smocks by next Tuesday.
• Has your child logged on to Raz-Kids at home?  Don't forget!  I have made an individualized reading account for your child.  Check it out.  

Measuring with sticks

Can you find the 6 errors?

Our new Reading Workshop partners!

Our shared sight word wall

Look at how we found our bears on Friday morning!

Our publishing party!

Celebrating with second graders

Newsletter 1/11/18

We are beginning a new unit in Reading Workshop called "Bigger Books, Bigger Reading Muscles!".  We are all growing as readers and strengthening our super powers!  We examined different level books this week and noticed the attributes of harder texts.  If we are going to read harder books, we need to be on the lookout!  We also need to increase our reading stamina.  To do so, it helps to have a reading plan.  So, after reading a great Elephant and Piggie book called We Are In A Book!, everyone received a reading mat to help them make a reading plan for every day.  Ask your child about how the mat works and see the photos below.

We read Ezra Jack Keats' story Peter's Chair this week, and really dug deep into understanding his character.  Many students made meaningful connections with this great book.

 We learned how to "tap" in our phonics lessons this week.  "Tapping" is a kinesthetic approach for sounding out words.  We learned how to touch our fingers and say each sound in words like mat, map, mad, sad, etc.  Tapping will strengthen reading and writing skills.  Ask your child to show you how to tap one of those words.  We just did one lesson on this, but will continue all year.

We are getting ready to publish our narrative writing pieces!  We chose a piece to publish and, just like real authors, we are using an "editor" (writing partner) to help us improve it!  In this unit we focused on cleaning up our writing and telling a story in more detail.  

We did two Exemplars recently, each about counting pairs.  We are using different strategies to solve problems: diagrams, ten frames and number lines.  See some of our problem solving in the photos below.

We also worked on measuring with cubes this week.  We had a blast measuring everyone's foot outline, recording the data, and then putting them all in order from shortest to longest!  Check out the photos below.

Why don't we have school on Monday?  Who was Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.?  This is my favorite time of year as I get to introduce the students to many historical figures for the first time!  What an honor.  We learned about Dr. Martin Luther King's ideas and how he helped change unfair laws.

Everyone became more familiar with the Raz-Kids website this week and students can now access their own reading libraries at home!  

News and Notes:

• Book Sleeves are due on TUESDAY.  Enjoy the long weekend!
• Scholastic orders must be placed by 3:45 pm on Thursday, 1/18.  Late orders will not be processed until next month.
• Send back your child's Rough Draft Folder if you have not done so already.
• Ox Ridgers are going to a SOUND TIGERS hockey game and their mascot Storm came to school!  Check out the Hoot for info on how to get tickets.  The more friends, the more fun!

Our feet in order of length

Measuring math fun!

One of our Exemplars. This student successfully used a diagram.

Successful use of a ten frame used in the "pair-wise" position

Successful use of a ten frame and a number line

Conferencing with our "editors" in Writing Workshop

Choosing a piece to publish

Our reading mats

Our set up reading mats help us to read more texts for longer amounts of time

Storm is coming!  Getting ready for his visit!

Here he is!

Guatemalan photos

Dear Parents,

I had a wonderful, albeit quick, visit in Guatemala!  Thank you for helping to make it happen.  My host mother was so surprised that I was able to be there and I had a chance to visit many beloved friends, whom I hadn't seen in 15 years!  Please enjoy these photos.  I have shared some, but not all, of these with the class today.

Fondly,
Sandy Henry

Volcanoes near the capital

Driving through Guatemala City

Vendors selling produce in my town of Guastatoya

My host mother

Giving her first pastoral benediction

Meeting new "family" members

A clown juggles as he begs for money at a red light

Pastors, elders and deacons pray for my host mom

My Guatemalan "family"

The baby Sandy, who was named after me, is now 15 years old!

A typical Guatemalan breakfast: eggs, bacon, black beans and fresh cheese- with tortillas and coffee, of course!

Helping to take down Christmas decorations

Newsletter 12/22

We had so many special activities this week and we were very busy making treats for loved ones!

We attended the school holiday concert on Tuesday and the school-wide sing on Friday morning.  We finished making our gifts for our families, our own wrapping paper, and cards, too!  Our buddies visited to make holiday place mats and then we played with them outside.

We generated ideas on how to celebrate having collected the most pajamas for our PJ drive.  Then we took a vote and EXTRA RECESS won by a small margin!  We'll be having that fun in the new year.

We read our next Peter adventure, A Whistle for Willie and we learned more about Peter's character.  We saw that he shares some of the same character traits from The Snowy Day, but is growing up a bit.

We collected December's weather data and examined the temperature.  We are finally having "blue" days- and SNOW!   Happy winter, Everyone!

Wishing you and yours a blessed holiday and a fun vacation!

News and Notes:

• We will be filling our book sleeves again on FRIDAY 1/5.  Students may keep those books until 1/15.
• Shh... it's a secret, but when we return, the Darien Nature Center will come in to teach us about animals in winter!
• Back to school on Wednesday, 1/3

Buddy fun!

Our Music teacher band rocking out!

Our all school sing!

Newsletter and Polar Express Day!

We are having so much fun in school these days!  Many exciting things are going on!

We graduated from the Super Reader unit this week, and we met Super Reader himself!  We went to the Common Room for a ceremony to celebrate and he gave us certificates!  See photos below.  This week, we learned that partners, AND PARENTS, give reminders to their reader buddy to use their powers.  If a friend is stuck and the picture will help, we can say "Activate Picture Power!", etc.  Helpful partners give hints and prompts when their peer is stuck, and they tell their peer the tricky word only as a last resort.

We also studied "Jingle Bells" this week.  We had a big discussion about the vocabulary.  What is a one-horse open sleigh? What are bobtails?  What's happening in the poem?  Then, we met the King of ING, who taught out about the "ing" sound.  We searched for words that contain "ing" within the poem, and then listed a few more, too!

We began our study of Ezra Jack Keats' character Peter, who is in many of his books.  We will be reading all of the stories that have Peter in them, watching him grow as a character.  We began with Snowy Day and, on the day of the snowy morning, we made a matching craft.

In Writing Workshop this week we reviewed important parts of a narrative story.  We checked our pieces against a checklist: does my story tell the reader who was there, where we were, what we did and how I felt?  We also wrote a class book to give to Luke as a goodbye present.

We continued our unit on patterns in math.  This week, we played a game called "What Comes Next?" and another called "Break the Train".  We made pattern "trains" with cubes and tried to break them up into "cars" (repeating units).  Then, we recorded our work.

We learned about Hanukkah this week and are lighting our classroom menorah each day.

On Polar Express Day, we made our own versions of the book, painted our own silver bells, then we cuddled up and watched the book being read.  We had fun singing "Jingle Bells" and ringing our silver bells!

Great news!  Our class collected the MOST pajamas for our K donation! Thank you again for your generosity.
News and Notes:

• Book sleeves are due on Monday.  We will NOT be bringing home new books next week.  We are taking inventory and will start fresh in January.  Please be sure to send all book sleeves in before vacation.
• Please let me know if your child will be leaving for vacation early next week.  I want to make sure everyone gets his/her holiday treats!
• Don't forget to send in sneakers on days when your child wears boots to school.  Students must have sneakers to participate in P.E.

Thank you for the play dough, Mrs. Blair!

Reading new sight words in a holiday book

Guess what comes next!

Breaking the "train" into "cars"

Our Reading Graduation Ceremony

Reader Man gave us certificates!

The Snowy Day

Silver Bells

Trains from Mrs. Henry's house!!!!

Cuddling up for The Polar Express

WOW!

Newsletter12/7

We activated Book Talk Power in Reading Workshop this week!  Super Readers don't just read books, they talk about books, too!  We learned how to examine how the pages of a book go together.  Then, we can introduce the book to others before we read it!  Try this with your child at home.  A good model is: "This book is called_____, and on every page ____."   BUT, don't give away the ending!  We also practiced retelling stories across our fingers after we've read them.

We are working so hard to make our writing readable!  Super Reader himself can read our pieces (he comes to school in the evening sometimes and visits Mrs. Henry).  This week, we focused on using capitals to begin a sentence and using punctuation to end a sentence.

In math this week we worked with pairs.  What is a pair?  What pairs do we see in our lives?  Then, we turned a ten-frame on its side and used it "pair wise".  This helps us count by pairs.  We heard various stories about pairs and tried to figure out the total (i.e. "If Mrs. Henry has 3 pairs of mittens, how many mittens does she have?").  This was tough work!  

We read an amazing book this week called Nana in the City.  Check it out at the library if you can.  We noticed more and more as we re-read the story and it lead to very interesting conversations!

News and Notes:

• Scholastic orders for this month must be placed by 3:45 on Friday 12/8
• Book sleeves are due on Monday.
• Pajama Drive ends 12/15
• Please let me know if you would like another copy of our tradition candle to do with your child.
• Next Friday is POLAR EXPRESS DAY!  Celebrate this beloved book (and the end of the PJ drive) by wearing your favorite winter pajamas to school!  No slippers, please.  Also, bring in a small blankie or towel to curl up with as the book is read.
• Please let me know if your child will be leaving for the holiday vacation early