Week 23

Welcome to week twenty-three! This week’s theme is: How much is one hundred?

Our first field trip for February is coming up next Monday!  This will be a special “in house” field trip.  We will be staying here at school and having a visit from a professional storyteller.

Our book fair will be taking place on February 4-8 from 8:00 – 4:00 pm. Look for a flyer with more information about what books will be offered to come home soon.

Parent teacher conferences are coming up on February 6^th-7^th.  From 3:30pm - 6:00pm.  Signups will be available soon on your Compass account.

The second graders made their tube sock snowmen last Friday.  This was a big success and lots of fun.  Thank you all for donating the filling.  They were “Southern Snowmen”- filled with red beans and rice! Each second grade class is working to earn another special activity or event.  To earn this each class had to accumulate thirty line-up points for lining up within a five second countdown.  The goal is at least eight out of ten times per day.  The classes are a little competitive to see which class will earn it first.  We have upped the ante.  Each class must earn sixty line-up points for the next reward.

In addition, we are working on earning another special presentation for checking the box for ten days of perfect attendance.  This could be an educational movie or a guest speaker. Let us know if you would like to present.

We had an earthquake drill last Friday and all the students dropped and covered.  Please reinforce safety procedures at home. 

Here is a look at what we are learning this week:

Art: Students will continue working on their student directed art projects using mediums such as collage, pastels, paper construction, and water color. Both classes have earned a special clay day for cleaning up quickly.

ASL:  Signing time with Alex and Leah, food, cooking, and gardening fun.  If you want to send in any healthy snacks for thirty to learn to sign and eat, please feel free! We have a formative assessment this week on twelve food related ASL words: garden, grow, eat, breakfast, lunch, dinner, may I be excused, kitchen cup, plate, spoon, and fork.

Dance:  Students will continue studying the different types of movement.

Health: Hygiene. 

Math: Students will continue to learn addition strategies.

Music: Drum beats, recognition and names of notes on the staff- Children are learning FACE and Every Good Boy Does Fine mnemonics to help remember names of notes.

PE: Various games in the gym

Reading: Large Group Phonics: 3 – Letter Blends, Small Group Phonics: Vowel Combinations: oi, oy, Shared Reading: Around Town “Barrio: Jose’s Neighborhood,” Guided Reading by leveled groups, Centers (SSR, iPods, Computers, Partner reading).

Science: Students will finish up their study of physical changes and begin studying electricity.

Social Studies: Students will study ancient Egypt. 

Spanish: Students will continue studying the words for bread=pan, milk=leche, juice=jugo, cookie=galleta, ice cream=helado.  

Writing:

• Writing: Hand writing with Mrs. P: This week will be learning the penmanship of cursive “a,d.”

• Composition with Mrs. P: This week we will continue studying the difference between fact and opinion in preparation for beginning opinion writing next week.

• Spelling with Mrs. S: Students are grouped by levels and engage in Words Their Way sorting activities.  Students sort words into categories by sounds patterns according to their present level of functioning.  We finished our MOY (middle of year) assessment. Those who were absent need to make this up while the others continue to work on their new sorts for the week.

• Sentence Fundamentals with Mrs. S:: Students will continue their study of PENSMARK, a self-regulating strategy developed to teach sentence fundamentals: capital letters, end marks, making sense, simple sentence formulas, and subject/ verb identification. PENSMARK is a mnemonic device that stands for Pick a formula, Explore words to fit the formula, Note the words, Search and Check, Mark out the imposters, Ask “Is there a verb?”, Root out the subject, and Key in on the beginning, middle, and end. Everyone has mastered the three requirements of a complete sentence: Capital letter, End mark, and “Makes sense.” We finished the prerequisite skills for identifying subject nouns and verbs:  Now we are applying those skills to identify the subjects and verbs in the sentences.  This is a prerequisite skill for the second grade benchmark skill: I can correctly use adjectives, adverbs and the past tense of irregular verbs.  Since subject-verb identification may be review for some, students will work at their own pace advancing to the next level as soon as they receive a score of 100 on three consecutive trials.  Some of the students are finished writing sentences using the SV formula for present tense verbs with four consecutive 100% in a row.  Update: The students who mastered the SV sentences with action verbs, identifying the subject and verb correctly in three consecutive trials will work in special learning centers on tenses of verbs, plurals, fact and opinion, conclusions, and contractions.   The others will continue to receive individual and group instruction toward mastery.  Hopefully next week we will all start linking verbs.