Heading Uptown

What a great time the second graders had walking uptown and visiting the public buildings. The children chatted, strolled, and soaked up the sunshine. It was fabulous weather and great day was had by all. Thank you to the parents who joined us. It made for a very pleasant day.

The children did a really nice job writing thank you notes to the Chief of Police, Fire Chief, Town Administrator and RCTV. These letters will all be sent this week.

The children have been researching a community worker over the past couple of weeks. In the library, this week, they will create a word document and type a report on their research. They did read and discuss their community helper with a peer. The discussions were great and engaging. Reports will be printed and compiled into a classbook to share.

Finally, at the end of the week I will be assessing the kiddos on what they have learned about communities. They need to know the different kinds of communities, what is different about them, what is needed in a community, the difference between rules and laws, important helpers and buildings in a community. Soon after, your kiddos will be bringing home a portfolio of their community work. All of the second graders seemed to enjoy the unit thoroughly.

Stay tuned for our next unit which is mapping. Students will review the continents, learn important oceans, rivers and mountain ranges. If you have a good children's atlas, please send it in. There will be more research to follow.

I hope everyone is staying and safe and dry during Hurricane Sandy. I enjoyed the day catching up on paperwork. My next post will be later this week after our Halloween celebration. Thank you to Mrs. Aguja and Ms Serrao for helping to organize our centers. Thank you to the moms who are coming into assist. Please remember to send in those small pumpkins. Happy Halloween everyone!

Moving Along In Our Community

The Room 14 community is moving along and continues to be very busy learning new things. Beginning Monday, second graders will move to their new reading classes for guided groups and Daily CAFE strategies at their level. It has been exciting watching and listening to all the reading discussions and recommendations that transpire amongst the kiddos each day. All are enjoying their reading successes. Please continue to encourage your kiddos to read at home. I will be sending home a reading log this week. It should have the book read, minutes read and parent initials logged in. Please keep the log sheet in their homework folder and I will check it on Fridays. Your child should be reading "good fit" books or listening to higher level text. Ask your child questions while they are reading and not just at the end. They too, should be asking themselves good questions while they are reading. This helps them check for understanding and comprehension. Your child should continue to practice spelling words whenever possible. Put them on index cards and on a ring so that they can review them often. Also, Fundations words should be practiced and reviewed. New glued sounds of: ost, old, ild, ind and olt have already been introduced. Next week we will review two syllables words and continue to explore vowel teams. Vowel teams (ai, ay, ea, ee)at this junture are only for reading. New vowel teams are oi and oy in words like spoil, boil, boy and toy. Unit 4 also focused on suffixes; s, es and er and est when comparing things. The children worked on a great class book about comparisons after listening to a couple of read alouds on the subject. Unit 5 will introduce suffixes like: _ness, _less, _ment, _ful, _able, _ish and _en. Some words for building and learning are: kindness, limitless, thankful, shipment, childish, expandable, and freshen. These will include multisyllabic (expandable, commitment)words which can be very challenging.

Thank you for sending in the permission slips for the community field trip in a timely manner. All parents who signed the chaperone sheet can come. It will be great to have so many parents along the route.

On Tuesday, October 23, we are walking up Charles Street to the fire station, then to the police station, town hall and finally the cable station. Some of you may know that the town manager is retiring after this year so it will be the last time he will e speaking to our Killam second graders. Please remember to send your kidos with a disposable nut/tree nut free lunch that day.

This week the children will be researching a community helper along with a partner. The children will read and discuss the community helper with partners and record three learned facts from their reading. Next, they will type their work in a project in the computer lab. We will print them out (publish) and compile them into a book.

Finally, in math, fact strategies through 20 remains the focus. Math Fever has taken over the class and there is no cure! Remember any math practice counts. You can retrieve more slips on EDLINE. Also, math homework will be given by math teachers on Thursday nights and will be given to math teachers on Friday. All teachers are covering the material and common core standards. Friday we will assess this unit and move on to place value.

Halloween will be fast approaching. Room parents should be contacting you for supplies very soon. We will be celebrating with special activities on Wednesday, October 31 from 8:30-10. In order to help activities run smoothly, I would like to have 5 volunteers. Thank you in advance for your support. Have fun celebrating at home as well. Happy Haunting!