Excitment at The Peabody Museum

The Second Graders had a wonderful day at the Peabody Museum at Harvard University. There was so much to see and explore. The exhibits are wonderfully done and the instructors informative. Thank you to all who volunteered to chaperon that day. I hope you enjoyed the day and the museum. It is a fabulous place and a great place for a family visit in the future. Here are a few pictures from the day:

The Native American Projects are due Monday. I hope you had a great time working on them. I can't wait to see and hear about them. Everyone has been so excited. Thank you for your understanding with the delay. I will try to get as many completed tomorrow and the rest will present on Tuesday. Second graders will be assessed on the Native American unit this week. Our next big topic will be Weights and Balancing our first Science unit.

 

Don't forget Tuesday is Super Speller Slipper Day. New trick words will be introduced that day. Unit 10 begins our study of vowel teams. The first being ai and ay in words like day, play, spray, sway, pain, train and grain.In math, we continue to focus on mental math strategies of addition and subtraction.

Report cards for term 2 will be released soon. Grades close this Friday and report cards will be released the following Friday. Your children are hard workers and preserve which is a wonderful trait. Encourage them to continue showing "grit" and putting their best foot forward at all times. They can do it.

Have a great week! It will be great to have longer days! I am looking forward to driving home in daylight!

Back To Business!

I hope everyone had a pleasant week off. The weather was up and down but hopefully the kiddos got out to get some fresh air. I can't wait for the temperature to stay above freezing so we can get back to outdoor recess. It looks this week we are back into the chill. It is New England friends. We do the best we can. At least the sun will be up longer and we spring ahead in a couple of weeks.

Second graders will begin working on Chapter 10 in the InFocus program. It's focus is on mental math strategies and real world problems. Please keep the kiddos practicing math facts and playing math games whenever possible. Use questioning to help them solve real life problems and figure out how many, how much, in all, less etc.. Math is all around us!

We will conclude our Native American unit over these next two weeks. On Monday, information will go home about their special project. It will be do on Wednesday, March 5. These projects will be presented orally to the class. Please refer to the rubric that is attached for guidelines on what we are looking for. This is an exciting project for all. On Thursday, we will celebrate our conclusion with our field trip to The Museum of Natural History at Harvard. Remember, many chaperones are needed.

I am looking forward to seeing all my little smiling faces tomorrow. We will be setting new goals upon return. Students will be working on being a good SPORT over the coming weeks. You may notice "token" slips coming home as incentives. Being a good SPORT is to:

Speak appropriately to all

Prepared and ready to learn

On task at all times

Respect myself and others

Try my best at all times

 

I just want to remind you that report cards will be released a week later originally planned due to the snow days.  February can get by us fast enough....bring on spring!



Got Grit

As I write my mom has just entered surgery for knee replacement. Her second one in seven years. Though 87, she is fiesty and smart, wanting to get back to her bridge playing which at times is up to four times a week. My mom has "grit". She perserveres in all she does.Mom has taught me a lot about family and hanging tough. I admire her spunk, determination and love for family. Please keep her in your thoughts as she heals and rehabs. She went into surgery with a virus but they didn't seem concerned even though she had a fever of 101. Mom is a fighter so I hope in a few weeks she'll be on her way to gaining her independence back and showing that "grit" in her rehabilitation.

This week will be busy with spelling assessments, math assessments, an assembly, 100th Day and our Valentine's Day celebration. Please remember we can not have any food brought into school for celebrations so I am asking that each family send in a special treat for your own child. I will send home a special bag with a note later in the week.

Please keep studying those first and second grade trick words. I will assess Tuesday, Thursday and Friday. Math assessments for Chapter 7 will be done Thursday or Friday depending on the math groups. Chapter was on metric measure (meters and centimeters). Please encourage your child to show some "grit" as they practice and work on these skills. Math especially can be challeging for some. With perserverence and good effort, kiddos can make big strides in their accomplishments.

I hope everyone has a wonderful vacation. It's a great time to rest, relax and spend time with family and friends. If you are traveling, I wish you safe and fun filled adventures.

Enjoy these pictures of Dan Crips, our Native American visitor from last week. I hope you heard great things about him. Information will be coming home soon about our field trip to the Museum at Harvard University on Thursday, March 6. We will need lots of chaperones so clear your calendar.

Keep warm!
Deb Dellovo

A New Year To Grow and Learn

Hello Families and Happy Martin Luther King Weekend. My husband and I are enjoying a quiet weekend at home in our cozy little apartment. We finalized our plans on our new townhouse and can now relax for awhile. The relaxation will be short lived as my mom is having knee replacement in about a month or so and will be needing some care. That remains to be seen and only time will tell what will happen, how long she'll be in rehab and what she'll need for assistance at home. So, having said all that we'll take it one day at a time.

Your children might have told you that we started our unit on Native Americans. It's so exciting and engaging for them. Each second grade teacher is responsible for a region of North America and every Wednesday the students will rotate to the other classes to learn about; climate, terrain, animals, resources, tools, weapons, food, clothing and shelter of each of the regions. So far, our lessons have covered terrain, climate and animals. On January 28, we will have a visit from a real Native American, Dan Krips. On March 6, we will visit the Peabody Museum at Harvard. Clear your calendars because chaperones will be needed. It is a wonderful museum if you've never been there.

We are also finishing up our mapping unit with a final assesment which was given on Friday. The children learned a lot about the continents, major mountain ranges, oceans and rivers of the world.
Their Mapping portfolios should be coming home in the next week or so.

In Fundation's, we are working on the R-controlled syllable type (R controlled vowels), Unit 8 of the Fundation program. We will work on this unit this week and next having Dictation on the 28. If you are looking for words to study, practice spelling trick words that went home last week and all Fundation's worksheets that go home over the next two weeks. Fundation's words that we'll cover are: part, cart, bird, her, port, burn, turn and words that are in these word families. Also words such as; partner, carport, sport, hurt, manner, partnership. Refer to Edline for more information.

Second grade will be finishing up Chpater 4 of InFocus Math. We will all be reviewing bar models and assessing the chapter on Friday. It was a very difficult chapter but all the students should "GRIT" and stayed with it.

Finally, there has been much talk about the anticipated safety drill called ALICE. I will begin to talk about this drill with the kiddos on Tuesday. Some students have already heard information from parents and who are beginning to discuss it with their children. There have been a public meetings about the new safety procedures. Mrs. Giles will have an assembly on Wednesday morning, January 29 the day of the safety drill ALICE. All classrooms in the school will be at the assembly and will have had a preview of the procedures for their teachers. These new procedures are to be put into place when there is danger or an "intruder" in the building. An "intruder" is someone who is not suppose to be in the building. I will do my best to answer all the questions the children may have. Please know, all the people in the Killam SchoolCommunity, will work to provide a calm, safe and informative drill with all the students and faculty in the building. (The Barrows School had a very safe and successful evacation this week due to high levels of carbon monoxide.) Our school psychologist has put together a photo story to assist us with an appropriate explanation of the ALICE plan. Please take the time to discuss it with your child over the next couple of weeks.

Enjoy the rest of the weekend. Stay warm!
Deb Dellovo

Happy New Year! Welcome 2014

Hi Friends, I've missed you all and I hope you all had a fabulous holiday break. Due to my pending move I was very happy to have an extra few days off. I will be closing (hopefully) on my old house on Tuesday, January 7. We are temporarily moving to an apartment in Burlington making some decisions of permant residency shortly after that. It was a quite hectic last couple of weeks. We had a huge estate sale, purged, donated, cleaned, dumped and cleaned all 11 rooms. We are down to a few boxes, clothes and a small dumpster load before the closing. It has all been an eye-opening experience. My husband and I have had our moments but we look forward to our new adventure in 2014. May you all find happiness and new adventures too!

So, looking ahead, we have many exciting things in store. First of all I have added a few new websites for math and reading to this blog. I hope everyone spent sometime reading and practicing some math facts over the vacation. Please keep your kiddos reading, writing and working on math daily.

Informative writing continues to be our focus in January. The children will be informing their audience on many topics and reporting on their favorites as well. As soon as we get back, all second graders will be setting goals for themselves for 2014. This will be be their first writing assignment for the new year.

In Fundations, our kiddos will be learning to tap, read and spell words with the r-controlled syllable type (r-controlled vowels, "bossy R". If you have any questions about rules and words to practice this month in Unit 8 or any other unit you can refer to Edine or check out this Fundations link.

The children will continue to ractice the use of BAR MODELS in Math In Focus for the next few weeks. Bard models are similar to part-part total diagrams for the old Everyday math. Children learn the bar model that equilibrates to a number model. When a part of the bar model is missing, the kiddos learn whether to add or subtract to find the missing number. Refer to In Focus Think Central for video help.

We will be finishing up our Social Studies unit on mapping. In the coming weeks we will begin work on Native Americans. It is a very engaging unit with the kiddos getting very excited about the learning and artifacts. To enrich this unit, we will have a visit from an actual native amenrican, David Krips and we will take a field trip to the Peabody Museum. The Peabody Museum at Harvard has a wonderful display of native american artifacts and educators that will lead us in talks about the regions of America. This field trip will be by bus to culminate the unit. More information will follow as the time approaches.

So stay warm and safe! Give the kiddos a hug from me. I look forward to great things in 2014!

Moving and Math Both Challenges

Hello everyone! I hope you all enjoyed the first major snow fall of the season. I hope it didn't spoil any of your holiday activities. I spent the weekend sorting and packing trying to get ready for an Estate Sale on the 28th and moving by January 10. Christmas shopping here and there and minimal decorating have kept my husband and I in the Christmas spirit. It has been a very stressful time. Thankfully my boys came to help move some boxes and my son Kenny and his wife offered to host Christmas Eve. It will be the first time in almost 30 years I will have to give it up. This year will just be different but I will perserver and keep calm. Oh, did I mention, we have to move to an apartment as we haven't found our new home yet. The challenges of a move....UGH!

Grade Two has begun Chapter 4 of the In Focus program. It is titled: Using Bar Models in Addtition and Subtraction. It is similar to the part-part-total that we used to teach in Everyday Math. Students would represent numbers in part-part-total diagram, providing a pictoral representation of parts making a whole. Comparing these numbers, illustrating the known and unknown parts, helps the children see clearly whether to add or subtract to solve problems. Please refer to the In Focus Think Central website for parent support videos.

This week we also begin to work on informative writing. The children will begin with a How To writing teaching a friend "how to" do something. Over the course of the next several weeks we will continue to perfect narratives while moving onto non-fiction writing. This will tie in nicely as will begin to focus on non-fiction in reading as well. Did you know we read non-fiction very differently then fiction? Students will learn all of the charateristics of non-fiction texts such as: break-aways, diagrams, charts, titles, subtitles, glossaries, and captions. Students really enjoy no-fiction, especially when they can read about something they are seriously interested in. You will find some non-fiction on RazKids as well.

Mapping continues to be our focus in Social Studies. Ask your children if they can tell the longest mountain range in the world or the largest range in the US. After the first of the year we will finish up with important rivers of the world.

Griffin is our Star Student of the Week this week. D'Monye did a fine job last week including singing and went home with a beautiful book with positive thoughts about him from classmates. We look forward to great things from Griff this week.

                                                                                                                                                  

Don't forget to send in "Snowball" gifts Monday. We will have our swap on Friday afternoon. Thank you to all who will be contributing goodies for our Holiday Snack which will be Friday morning.

Merry Christmas to all! I wish you all happiness and good health in the New Year!

Conference Final Thoughts

       

         I just wanted to thank you all for taking the time and effort to come in and discuss your child's progress this week. "It takes a village" and I believe we should work together to continue the successful start to this school year. All are working hard and are special kiddos who brighten my day. I love coming to school and being part of their lives. Thank you for sharing them and sending them well prepared to conquer the day.

         I want to take this time to wish you a wonderful Holiday Season. May you all find happiness and joy in the New Year ahead. May 2014 be year of great prosper, peace and pleasant family adventures. 

          Warm Regards,
           Deb

Please check out this link to see your child's finished Community Media project.