Week 18

Welcome to week eighteen! This week’s theme is: Happy Holidays!

Our next field trip will be to the Thanksgiving Point Dinosaur Museum.  We will leave the school at 10:00 and return to the school at 1:00.  We will eat lunch at the school when we return.  If you would like your child to have a small snack at the museum, please send it to school in a baggie with your child’s name on it.

On Wednesday the second grade has earned the privilege of watching a movie because they had over ten days of perfect attendance. We will watch The Velvateen Rabbit, and we will be reading the book before we watch it.  It is rated G and is a Feature Film For Family movie with parent/teacher guided discussion questions at the end about courage and what it means to be real.

The last day of school before Christmas Break is Wednesday, December 19^th.  School will resume on Thursday, January 3^rd.  Enjoy your break!

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:  foods

Dance:  Students will continue to study shape relationships i.e. far/ away, over/ under.

Health: How to cope with stress.

Math: Students will continue studying patterns.

Music: Rhythm and bells, lyrics and so me notes

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!  Please have your child wear or keep a pair of tennis shoes in his/her backpack.

Reading: Large Group Phonics: r- Controlled  e , i, u, Small Group Phonics: Vowel Combinations: ie, ui, Shared Reading: Around Town “Big Bushy Mustache,  “ Guided Reading by leveled groups, Centers (SSR, iPods, Computers, Partner reading

Science: Students will study animals and their habitats.

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

Spanish: Students will begin studying the vocabulary for vegetables.

Writing:

• Writing: Hand writing with Mrs. P: Students will be learning the penmanship of lowercase “f,q” 
• Composition with Mrs. P: During composition time students will work on missing work and review the parts of speech through mad libs. 
• 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:  We finished applying those skills to identify the subjects and verbs in the sentences.  Now we are writing our own sentences using the SV formula and words from our subject noun and verb word banks.