Newsletter 9-25-17

Here is the schedule for parent teacher conferences.  I look forward to seeing everyone.  I will send home reminder notes on Monday.

If you did not have a chance to sign up for parent teacher conferences, I assigned you a time.  If that time does not work, please look at the schedule above, and email me a time that will work.  I will put you in that new time slot and send a reminder on Monday.

We learned about the desert this week in language arts.  We also practiced inflected endings, main idea, and declarative and interrogative sentences.

We are working on repeated addition in math.  We learned about even and odd numbers, rows and columns, and how to make an array.  We will have our test this week.

Reflex Math

Our goal is to have all second-grade students 100% fluent in their math facts by October 31.  We will have a fun party for children who meet this goal.  Right now our class, as a whole, is only 32% fluent.  If your child does not have a way to practice at home, the computer lab is open at 8:00 every morning.  Children can also use the computers at the public library, if they have a library card.  It only needs to be 15-20 minutes per day, but it should be consistant.  See the information below about getting to the green light.  Please try to have your child get on Reflex Math every day!   

Get the Green Light

Reflex is not only a lot of fun for students; it's also high-quality learning time. In each session of Reflex, students work towards their "Daily Usage Requirement," which means they have answered enough facts to give them a good day of practice. The Green Light in the upper right corner of the screen indicates when a student has achieved this milestone. Continued Green Light usage allows students to gain tokens that can be used in the Reflex Store, grow a Progress Tree, and unlock new games.

Although the Daily Usage Requirement is based on students' responses rather than elapsed time, on average it should take about 15-20 minutes to get to the Green Light.

If a student has to end a session before the Green Light turns on, note that all gains to that point will be preserved, including all newly-fluent facts and awarded tokens. The only impact will be seen in Reflex's reports, where the Usage Detail graph will not have a dot at the base of the bar for that session, and the session will not be counted in usage-related statistics such as "Days per Week." Students who log in again later in the day can complete the session and turn on the Green Light.

Of course, students can continue playing after they get the Green Light. But keep in mind that a few, longer sessions are not as valuable as regular, short sessions. Students who use Reflex for 15 minutes every day will likely become fluent more quickly than those who have long, but infrequent, sessions.

Please remind your child to bring back his or her homework on the last day of every week.  It needs to be completed to earn a sticker on our chart.  Homework completion will be reflected in the citizenship section of the report card.  There will not be homework every sixth week when it is a review week.   

I have a classroom project posted on DonorsChoose.org.  I am trying to get two iPads and cases for our students to use.  I am hoping that students can extended their learning by making and filming presentations of concepts we are learning in class.  They can also use the apps to practice reading and math skills. 

I'm asking for donations of any size to help my kids. For the next 4 days, any donation you make to my project will be doubled (up to $50). If you know anyone who is passionate about education, please pass this along. Your donation will brighten my students' school year, and you'll get photos and thank you notes from our class.

Check out the exciting things we're up to in my classroom:

iPads for MiniLearners

To have your donation matched dollar for dollar, enter the promo code LIFTOFF during checkout. This awesome match offer lasts through Wednesday, September 27.

If you are not able to contribute at this time, I will have a DonorsChoose.org project soon to try to get headphones for our students.

Please let me know if you have any questions or concerns.  Have a great week!

Newsletter 9-17-17

We read Henry and Mudge and the Starry Night this week.  We worked on character and setting, predicates, and complete sentences.  We wrote about camping.

We had a great read-a-thon on Friday.  Thank you to everyone who contributed to radKIDS.

We are excited to have a brand new reading program called Raz-Kids.  The instructions for getting started are below, and I will send home a log-in card with the password for your child on Monday.  Replace Lexia with this as part of the daily work in the planner.  I hope you will take advantage of this terrific program! 

Kids A-Z Login Instructions

Step 1: Go to www.kidsa-z.com


Step 2: Enter or choose the teacher's username, kadams125

Step 3: Your child finds his or her username on the class chart

Step 4: Your child enters his or her password,

We finished topic one in math, and tests will go home on Monday. This was a difficult test that required higher-level thinking, and I’m proud of our kids for working so hard.  We want them to be challenged! 

Here is an explanation of what the different scores on the test mean:

1  The students take the test on the computer and record their answers on both the computer and paper copy.  The paper copy is sent home.

2  When they are finished, students bring the test to me, and we submit the test online together.  I write down their score and cross out any problems they got wrong.

3  Students then have an opportunity to go back and see if they can find their mistakes.  This helps me know whether they just made a small mistake and they still know the concept or if they truly don’t understand.  I have them use a red pen to indicate their revised answers.

4  They bring the test back to me, and I see if they were able to find the mistakes.  If they fix an answer, then I write corrected.  If they don’t fix it then I write the correct answer for them.

5  I then grade the test again and circle the corrected score.  If they were unable to fix any of the questions they receive the same score they had before.

This test was difficult for many students and I have already pulled several of them back in small groups to do reteaching.  I will continue to work with students who do not reach a score of 80% or above. Please remember that this is the beginning of the year, and students will have more opportunities to learn and master the skills that they may not have mastered yet.  The best way for you to help your children, at this point, is to help them get on Reflex math every day until they get a green light.  Being able to add and subtract fluently will help free up their thinking for more detailed and complex problem solving skills.  Thank you, and please email me if you have any questions.

If you haven’t signed up yet for parent-teacher conferences, please do so as soon as possible.  I look forward to meeting with you and your child.

Book orders went home on Friday.  If you go to the website, you will see many more books than the ones in the flier.  Our class code is GYPDT.

Have a good week.  Please contact me with any questions or concerns.

   

Newsletter 9-9-17

·       Our ELA story this week was A Day in the Life of an Astronaut.  We practiced long vowel words, finding the subject of a sentence, and looking for the main idea and details.

·      We worked on addition and subtraction strategies in math.  We made fact family houses and recorded our doubles rap.  Here's part of it:

    

   We continued to work on communities in social studies. 

·      We started getting donations this week for the radKIDS program and earned a school-wide paper airplane contest.  Lucy was our class winner!  We also earned a read-a-thon and are trying to bring in more money to earn the bubble gum contest.  Please continue to donate to this important program. 

·       It was great to see how many students brought back their completed homework packets in their homework folder on Friday.  That folder can stay at school and will go home on Monday with the new homework and the graded papers from the previous week.

·      Most of our class said they want to enter the Reflections contest this year.  They need to make sure they get the paperwork from the office for their category.

·      Sign-ups for parent teacher conferences will begin this Monday.  Instructions will be sent home.  I look forward to meeting with you and your child.  

·       It is important that students read and do Reflex Math every day.  We will be launching a new online reading program soon, so I will be sending that information when I have it.  Thank you for signing your child’s planner each day. 

Please contact me if you have any questions or concerns.  Have a great week!