Keeping Focused

This time of year it is hard for all to remain focused whether at school, work or shopping for last minute gifts. We all know what we need to do but find ourselves chatting too long in line, spending too much time online or paying too much for a gift we know we could get cheaper somewhere else. Your children are finding it hard as well! They sing, hum and dance through there day at this time of year. Their feet barely touch the ground. It is a fun time of year for all. Enjoy your holidays with family and friends and try to stay focused unless you too, sing, hum and dance through your day! Awesome!

To celebrate the holiday season, the second graders will participate in a Winter White Celebration. Room parents will be calling for goodies to send in for the celebration. Part of the festivities include a SNOWBALL SWAP! Please have you child bring in school supplies to swap. Suggestions will be sent home in a letter on Monday. The swap item should be wrapped in white or silver paper to represent a snowball. We all look forward to a fun time.



Our Natvie Americans Unit will begin with a check of what your kiddos already know. To activate their prior knowledge, I will give the children a KWL chart. Students will write about what they know, what they want to know and then at the end of the unit, tell about what they learned. A portfolio will be compiled of all their work and sent home at the end of the unit. There will be home projects and enrichment activities. Please stay tuned for more information.

In Fundations we will begin Unit 8. The emphasis is on R-controlled vowels. Please refer to the unit 8 newsletter on EDLINE and to the list of Fundations words on my page. R-controlled vowel words could include but are not limited to: car, cart, fern, bird, first, turn, turnip, fort, orbit.

In math, we will finish unit 4 and assess this week. Good luck with the practice of those partial sums. We fell behind a little so the actual introduction will be Monday. Math games would be a great gift this holiday season.

Your children have been learning about writing a paragraph. A paragraph has an opening sentence and a clincher or closing sentence. It also has at least 3 supporting sentences with details about the topic. They are also using transitional words in their writing. Our grammar lessons are about recognizing verbs (actions words) in sentences. As your children make connections in their writing, they should realize that they can should use adjectives to describe their topics as well. Ask your child about these rules. A diary or journal would be a great gift. This would allow your children the opportunities to practice these skills and feel important.

Thank you to Gianna for great week as Star Student! We look forward to grat things from Sarah this week. That will be it until after the holiday break.

Have a wonderful week. This will be the last post until after the break. May you all find peace, the best of health and good fortune in the new year!

Whistle While You Work

Another week has come and gone and we are moving closer to that magical time of year. Your youngsters are beginning to whistle and hum those merry tunes. There is magic and joy in the air. It is a special time for all. Molly shared her Menorah with us to signal the beginning of Hanukah. She was so excited to sing us the festival song. Happy Holidays to all!

Grade two will continue to work in Unit 4 of the Everyday Math program. The major skill introduced in this unit is partial sums. View this Youtube clip that explains partial sums. It is simple and will help you when working with your kiddos on homework.

In Fundations, continue to practice syllables with your child; closed, opened, V-E and V-E expections. The children are doing a great job tapping and marking up these challenging words: define, music, basic, and traffic. Students practice these words during Fundations time each day and during Word Work when working with their reading teachers. Ask your child what WORD WORK looks like in their reading room. Refer to a more detailed list of words on EDLINE.

This week we will begin our Social Studies Unit on Native Americans. Your youngsters are very excited and are looking forward to learning about all the american tribes and how their cultures are different. See the map below for some areas we will research.


Bundle up and enjoy the week ahead!

December Days

Well now that the dust has cleared from the Thanksgiving holiday, conferences and report cards, I am back and reporting updates weekly. I hope you all had a fabulous Thanksgiving and that you are looking forward to the frolic ahead.

It was a pleasure to meet with all of you during conference time. Thank you for all your kind words. I just love working with your kiddos and it is a joy coming to school each day. Thank you too, for your support with homework and school projects. You are all a fine tribute to the Killam community.

Grade two is wrapping up its unit on mapping this week. The students have reviewed and can identify the seven continents. They know the three countries in North America. They learned the five oceans of the world and their locations, the five major rivers of the world and their locations and will end with the important mountain ranges. Ask your child about their discoveries. What is the longest river in the world? What is the ocean off the west coast of the United States? The highest mountain is in what mountain range? You just might be impressed! Our next unit in Socials Studies will be an extensive study of Native Americans.

We have begun Unit 7 in Fundations and Unit 4 in Math. Please refer to the letters in EDLINE for details on skills that will be covered. I will also post a list of Fundations words and trick words separately. Keep your child practicing whenever possible. Use old worksheets from the Fundations program as these words cou;d show up on a dictation at the end of the unit.

Finally, I would like to share photos of the GARAGE SALE that was held last week. I am sure you heard great things about it. Most kiddo thought it was the "best day of their lives"! This experience provided the children the opportunity to interact with classmates buying and selling merchandise, supply and demand, counting and making change or saving not squandering money. It was an enjoyable learning experience for all!

Report Cards and Conferences

It's that time of year where students are settled in and true learning has begun. Not that learning wasn't happening early on, that was about building classroom relationships, learning new routines, bonding with their teacher and establishing their place in the scheme of new placement. Now, learning new math, grammar, spelling, writing, social studies and science is well underway. Some students are jumping through hoops, some pacing themselves and some still keeping their heads just above water. Most importantly, all need to feel safe and secure knowing they are doing their best and there is a "coach/cheerleader" willing to help whenever needed.

I am looking forward to meeting with you all to discuss your child's progress. Conferences will be held from November 17-19 as scheduled. Report cards will be sent home on Tuesday, November 16 giving you time to view your child's progress and come to the conferences with any questions you may have. Please remember that all children develop and bloom academically at different times. Your children are working very hard trying to focus on new skills as well as review strategies or rules that were previously taught and might apply. The most important factor at this age is the effort they are putting forth and are they behaving as a respectful, responsible classmate.

Fundations unit lessons are becoming move involved and some of you have asked for a list of practice words. I was under the impression the newsletters offered these words as they did in first grade. Having said that, I have added a list on EDLINE that you can access at the beginning of each unit. I hope this will be helpful in increasing your students dictation scores. While we work on multisyllabic words, we are also working on compounds words. The practice of compound words will be celebrated on COMPOUND WORD DAY, Wednesday, November 17. Your child can come to school dressed with compound word attire and accompanying artifacts. A letter with more information will come home this Wednesday with more detaiils.

In grammar we will continue looking at nouns and proper nouns this week. Nouns name people, places and things. Proper nouns give a special name to these people, pets, and places.

Your children are so excited about Math Fever. This practice should add to the automaticity of their facts for other skills they need. The math lessons this week will be reading bar graphs, review of frames, arrows and function machines. It will also look at how to make change when shopping. Making change is a very challenging task. Allow your child to make change whenever possible. When shopping, have you child pay and predict what the change may be. This will be highlighted with a GARAGE SALE on Wednesday, Nov. 24. More information will follow soon.

This week in social studies we will begin mapping. We will review what was learned last year and add to the development with a focus on waterways and mountain ranges. The children will compile a book of maps and will be able to locate the continents learned last year, mountain ranges, major oceans and rivers both on a map and the globe.

This week Killam will participate in a practice "lockdown" on Wednesday, Nov. 10. Our class will view the "lockdown" video on Monday. Please discuss this with your child Monday or Tuesday in prepartion for the practice on Wednesday morning.

Finally, there will be a Pillars Assembly on Wednesday in honor of Veteran's Day hosted by the fifth grade. Please have your child wear the second grade Pillars color of yellow or their Pillars shirt that day.

Have a fabulous week. I look forward to seeing you at conferences. This will be the last post until after Thanksgiving.

November Already

It was another busy week in Room 14. Time is marching along and we are already into November...WOW! Hopefully you all survived Halloween. We had a wonderful celebration thanks to the organization of our room parents. The children created fun black cats, cut and assembled a spooky bingo board, shared paragraphs about their Halloween costumes and ate some great treats. It was a spooktacular time!







This week we will begin Unit 3 in our Everyday Math program. The focus will be on telling time and place value. Please keep your children practicing FACT POWER! Math Fever begins this week. The Math Fever letter will go home on Monday so be on the look out. Your children will design a protrait to be diplayed all year until a cure is found. This is one disease that I hope will be very contagious!

In writing, students are learning about writing a paragraph. They are writing with an opening/topic sentence and writing at least 3 sentences with supporting details to explain their topic. Finally they write their closing or clincher to wrap up their writing piece. Students must also remember to use capitals and punctuation. Grammar skills are also being taught teaching complete sentences, different types of sentences (telling, questioning and exclamatory), and nouns (proper) and verbs (action words). Your children are working very hard developing these skills and love to share their writing ideas with classmates.

Two syllable words and suffix endings continue to be the emphasis in FUNDATIONS this week. This is Unit 5 of the Fundations program and the spelling words will remain the same. Students learn to clap words to determine how many syllables are in a word then they can "tap-out" one syllable at a time. Ask your child to clap and tap the words mascot, habit and catnip (compound word). All are becoming quite proficient at it. Yeah!

As readers, your children are continuing to build stamina as they "read to self" and "read to someone". Your readers are practicing the strategies of the CAFE which you can view for more information by clicking on The DAILYCAFE website. All second graders will switch for reading this week and continue learning and practicing new reading strategies while exploring "listening to reading and word work". We are well on our way to developing strong strategic readers. Your children are very proud of their accomplishments and with making strides with their take home reading! Kuddos!

Finally, we had a wonderful time learning about Ashley as our Star Student of the week last week. Her dad came to read to the class and she shared her favorite trophy, photos and trinket box. Ashley also had the opportunity to sit at our special Star Student desk (see photo below). We look forward to hearing about Joelle this week.

Happy Haunting

This week will be a long one for your children as they anxiously await Halloween. It is an exciting time for all with the anticipation of ghosts and witches appearing "by the light, by the light, by the silvery light ofthe Halloween moon". That was a repeated catchy phrase from a a story I read last week. Our class will celebrate on Friday afternoon with a special Halloween craft and treats provided by the lucky recipients of a call from our room parents. Thank you in advance for your contributions.

The field trip down town on Tuesday was a huge success. The children were so well behaved and asked the best questions. The day was delightful and the weather really cooperated. A special thanks to all the moms who came along. It was a fun filled day for all (even when I was locked up!). We will be wrapping up our communities unit this week. Your children will bring home a portfolio filled with their final activities.







Beginning on Monday, November 1, your children will be infected with Math Fever. It is a very contagious disease but one they all want to contract. When your child has practiced math facts for fifteen minutes, you must send in a signed note. These notes will be sent home next Monday and can be accessed on EDLINE. More information will be sent home next week. A cure will not be found until June.

Please refer to EDLINE for Fundations' rules, lessons and information. The children should be practicing the spelling of Fundations words each night as well as their trick words. The lesson for this week is on two syllable words and new suffix endings; -ment, -ly, -able. Trick words are introduced at the beginning of each unit. We are currently working on Unit 5.

Happy Haunting!

Weekly update

Hi everyone! I hope everyone had a pleasant weekend after the storm of Thursday and Friday. This week will be busy and packed with lots of learning experiences.

First, on Monday morning all Killam students will be seeing a presentation on bullying. As you all know, this is a hot topic and our students need to be made aware of the clear differences between annoying behavior and bullying. They also need to know when they are witnessing this behavior and when to come forward. It is a serious issue and there many concerns that face students each day. Ask your child about the presentation and what they learned.

Tuesday will be our field trip to Reading Center. We will be visiting the fire and police stations, as well as the town hall and post office. Don't forget the bagged peanut free lunch and drink. Parents who are chaperoning need to be at school by 8:30.

The rest of the week we will be involved in writing thank you notes and finishing up community projects. I will put together a photostory of our projects and display it here next week. Here is a sneak peak;





Please keep up the great work helping your children with FACT POWER. They are getting better everyday. Finally, second grade reading assessments should be completed this week. Your children are reading daily as part of the DAILY CAFE. Ask your child about their reading strategies when listening to them read. I will be sending home a parent pipeline to explain reading strategies as needed.

Have a fabulous week!

Working Hard

Your children have been working very hard over the last several weeks. Your second graders have been reading, writing, spelling, adding, subtracting, and exploring what a community is all about. They are writing and solving number stories, tapping and building words with new glued sounds and vowel teams, reading "good fit texts" to themselves or reading to someone, memorizing and using new spelling words, discovering rhyming words and patterns in poetry, exploring number patterns on number grids and fact tables, writing in complete sentences with skills being taught and reinforced through our new grammar program, and learning what important part service workers and volunteers make in a community. These are very full days in a second graders life! All this and children need to make friends, ward off bullies and remember how to be a TRRFCC student. You should be very proud of their accomplishments. We are making great progress.

Don't forget next Tuesday, October 19 is our field trip downtown. Parents who are joining us should be at school by 8:30. Please remember all students need a PEANUT FREE lunch with a throw way bag and drink. It will be a very informative day thanks to the community workers; police, fire, town hall and post office. We are all looking forward to this event. This week our focus in social studies will be on these service workers.

Remember to keep your child reading each night. The research tells us they should be practicing their reading strategies often. Ask them about what reading strategies they know. Telling you is a great teaching tool. Also, practice math facts regularly. While riding to soccer practice , or school...great time to drill those simple facts.

I wish you all a fabulous week. Please refer to EDLINE for newsletters on curriculum needs. This week in Fundations we continue to develop the skill of using suffix endings. In Math we continue to pratice Fact Power.

Enjoy the week!

October Already

I can't believe we are already into the first week of October. Last week was so warm and tropical it was hard to tell we were upon the first of October. However the thermometer certainly told us over the weekend. Hopefully you were outdoors with your family and friends enjoying the lovely crisp weather either apple picking, raking or attending one of the many fairs in New England. I went to the Deerfield Fair in Deerfield, New Hampshire and saw many unusual creatures that I will share with you soon. The skies were blue and the temperature was just right for an afternoon of food and frolic. I hope you all did the same.

This week in Room 14 the students will begin Unit 2 of the Everyday Math Program. A newsletter on the unit will go home Monday to inform you of the skills that will be reviewed, practice and taught. Please have your students practice their math facts as well whenever possible.

Glued sounds continue to be the focus in Fundations and the Unit 4 skill is suffixes. Please see the Fundations newsletter for Unit 4 which is on EDLINE. Every Friday your students will be given a dictation check or test for skills taught in that unit including the trick words. Soon, your child will be invited to participate in spelling (trick word) practice on a website called Spellcity. I will send more information when this will begin but go to the site and check it out.

Thank you all for being so diligent in sending back the permission slips for the Reading field trip. All parents who volunteered are invited to come. Please make sure you have an updated CORE. We will continue our preparations for the trip. This week I will be teaching the students about goods and services in a community and community wants and needs. The students did a fabulous job locating where you live on the town map. They can be an official navigator for you now.

In closing, remember that Thursday is Picture Day and then one more day to a nice long fall weekend...
Enjoy

The First Fifteen Days

Well we made it through the first fifteen days of school. The children are getting very comfortable with each other and the routines of Room 14. They are a terrific class with lots of energy and enthusiasm to help others. I look forward to fabulous things this year.

Killam had a very successful Walk for Character. Here are a few photos from the day. I'm sure you heard all about the walk, obstacle course, relays, playground safety and freeze dancing that parents planned for the day. We had an awesome time. It was so well organized and the children had lots of fun. A special thanks to all families who were responsible for this great day that began with a ribbon cutting of the new playground structure. Way To Go Killam PTO!










This week Room 14 continued with the routines of the Daily5 with READ TO SOMEONE. The children are building stamina while they are checking for understanding as they read with a buddy. Ask your child about EEKK! and the other behaviors of READ TO SOMEONE. Again, to build strong strategic readers the children need to read, read, read. Here are a few students involved in the daily routine:




Homelinks will begin this week as part of Everyday Math homework. Students will be responsible for carefully tearing out the pages and bringing them home. The first assignment will be on Tuesday night so be on the lookout.

Finally, mark your calendars for Tuesday, October 19. This will be the Second Grade field trip to downtown Reading. The fire station, police department, post office and town hall will graciously opened their doors for our classes on that day. A notice will go home soon so stay tuned. All chaperons who have a CORE check will be invited to join us. It will be an exciting day for all.

So, everyone have a fabulous week. Please have your child continue reading each night and remind them that Tuesdays and Fridays are PE days. Also, a gentile reminder that library books are due on Friday as well.

Happy Fall!

Open House and Weekly Update

Well it was another successful open house at the JW Killam Elementary School. I was so happy to see so many old and new faces. Again, let me say I am so thrilled to be working with you and your children. They are all working so hard at learning and bucket filling each day.

To those who missed the evening, have no fear! A folder of goodies is on its way home to you. Take your time filling things out and selecting a conference date. You can check out the power point presentation on EDLINE if you choose and you can find all of the Fundation's unit newsletters there as well.

This week our focus will be on the beginning of our social studies unit on communities. We kicked it off today with a brainstorming word splash about What Words Do I Think Of When I Think About Communities?Ask your child what words we discussed. It was a very bountiful discussion. This unit will conclude with a field trip to down town Reading in October. Arrangements are being made to visit the police and fire stations as well the town hall. Stay tuned for more information on the date of this event.

In math, your students have been reviewing skills taught in grade one of the Everyday Math Program. Most skills are practiced through hands on activities and games. Here are some pictures of some of your children playing math games with their partners.









Finally, this Wednesday is Walk For Character Day. Please have your child wear Yellow that day to represent second grade. We all look forward to a fun filled morning.

Well that's a wrap till next week. Remember to email me if you have any questions. Merel Abruzzese has offered to do our book orders. A very special thank you goes out to her. The orders should go out Tuesday or Wednesday. There was lots of interest so I suspect there will be lots of points for class books...thank you, thank you!