Week 16

Welcome to week sixteen! This week’s theme is: Pearl Harbor Week!

Thank you to all the parents who came to Parent Teacher Conference night, and thanks to all who weren’t able to make it but wanted to :) 

 

Our next field trip will be to the Thanksgiving Point Dinosaur Museum.  We will be gone from the school during lunch. The school will provide school sack lunches (at the normal price) for each student.  If you do not want your child to receive a school sack lunch on the 18^th, please email your child’s teacher by next Monday the 10th .  If we do not receive an email from you, a sack lunch will be charged to your account.

We are in need of supply donations!  We are in need of fine point dry erase markers to use during our handwriting time and boxes of tissue.  If you willing to donate supplies please send them to school with your student.  We also are going to start an adopt a hall program and You may donate magic erasers, spray bottles, and rags.  Thank you in advance.

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.

ASL:  We will continue learning colors in the context of learning food words.

Dance:  Movement maps

Health: Say “No” to drugs.

Math: Students will begin studying money.

Music: Rhythm and bells, lyrics and so me notes, Christmas Songs, and playing instruments to a reading of The Night Before Christmas.

PE: Students are working on their Presidential Fitness by running or walking laps of our school. Second Grade has already run 100 miles this school year! We hope to make it to 200 miles by Thanksgiving.  As the weather gets bad we will have indoor recess whenever it is snowing or raining or freezing.  Please have your children dressed for weather as we will go out in the cold, clear, crisp air this winter!  We are working on the 50 yard dash and the broad jump.

Reading: Large Group Phonics: r- Controlled a, Small Group Phonics: “R” Controlled Vowels: air, are, Shared Reading: Around Town “Chinatown,” Guided Reading by leveled groups, Centers (SSR, iPods, Computers, Partner reading)

Science: Students will continue to study plants.

Social Studies: Students will continue their study of the continents and the animals that live on them.

Spanish: Students will begin studying the  Spanish vocabulary for fruits.

Writing:

• Writing: Hand writing with Mrs. P: Students will be learning the penmanship of lowercase “m,n.” 
• Composition with Mrs. P: During composition time students will be working on writing animal reports. 
• 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.  This week students will play word board games.
• 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. Students are taking off working at their own pace!