Newsletter 2-22-15

Our language arts story this week was The Night the Moon Fell.  It has beautiful watercolor illustrations, and we tried making some of our own on Friday.  We practiced identifying the plot and theme of stories, and we learned about adverbs.  We continued our informational writing about soil.

We finished our math unit on two-digit subtraction.  Although the unit is over, we will continue to practice two-digit addition and subtraction.  We started place value to 1,000.

We have been learning about plants and rocks in science.  We also learned about fairness in character education, and we put on a great assembly for the school.    

We had an awesome Valentine's Day party!  We played games, decorated cookies, made heart crafts, and handed out valentines.  Thank you to Mrs. Felsing, Mrs. Allen, Mr. Lambert, and Mrs. James for making it such a fun day!

Please remember to sign your child's planner each night.  Homework is always due on the last day of the week.  Reading calendars will be due on Monday, March 2.

Please let me know if you have any questions or concerns.  I love having your children in my class!

Newsletter 1-22-15

We’ve had a great couple of weeks since winter break!  We jumped right back into two-digit addition with regrouping, and I was impressed with how well our class did.  Now we are beginning two-digit subtraction with regrouping.  We’re moving slowly to make sure we really understand the concept.

We are on our review week in Reading Street.  In this unit we practiced verbs, prefixes, compound words, antonyms, author’s purpose, fact and opinion, and many other skills.  We made verb super heroes to show action words!  

Although there was not a homework packet this week, students are still expected to read and practice math facts each day.

We wrote our New Year's goals, including books we want to read and foods we want to try.  We learned about Martin Luther King Jr. and wrote about his life.

We enjoyed seeing "You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown" at Alta High School.  Our class was very polite and well behaved.

We had a fabulous time at our Hawaiian Luau!  It was fun wearing tropical clothing in the middle of winter.  We ate pineapple, mango, and bananas, and we danced to Hawaiian music.  We did a geography lesson, learned a new song, and tried out some musical instruments.  We also studied volcanoes, which goes with our rock unit.

We’re looking forward to our field trip to the Natural History Museum on Wednesday.  If you signed up for your child to bring home lunch, please make sure you send it that day.

If you haven’t yet signed up for SEP conferences, please do so as soon as possible.  I look forward to meeting with all of you!

Please contact me if you have any questions or concerns.  Thanks for all you do.  Your children are wonderful!

Kristen Adams

kristen.adams@canyonsdistrict.org

Newsletter 12-18-14

Parents, 

We’ve been busy during this time before winter break.  We started unit three in Reading Street: "What does it mean to be creative?"  Our first two stories were Pearl and Wagner and Dear Juno.  Our comprehension focus has been on author’s purpose and drawing conclusions.  Our language focus has been on verbs. 

We are learning opinion writing in this unit.  We practiced when we wrote our friendly letters to Santa.  We told him that we had been nice this year and gave him three points of evidence.  We also wrote our opinion about our Anansi story this week. 

Since we learned about faraway places in our language unit, Jack and his mom spoke to our class about living in Cambodia.  We learned so much about the culture as we heard stories, looked at pictures, and touched real objects.  What a great experience! 

We also had a guest speaker teach us sign language, another form of communication.  She taught us the history of sign language, and we learned several signs.  We learned the alphabet, and the students will get a page to bring home tomorrow so they can practice their names over the break. 

We finished our unit on mental subtraction and have moved on to addition with regrouping.  Please have your child continue to use Reflex Math over the break.
 
It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas in our room!  We have done some fun writing activities, centers and art projects to help us enjoy the holidays.

We appreciate all the kids who brought in change for Quarters for Christmas.  Our school earned over $800!  If you can give your child some opportunities to count money over the break, it will help so much when we get to that math unit later in the year. 

It has been so much fun to see students present their tradition reports this week.  They have done a fabulous job!  Thank you for helping your child with this.  All of the students need to present to the class by Friday to get a grade.  Remember, their reports can be about any tradition you do as a family.  They do not have to be a holiday. 

Today your child brought home a book order page with a free book coupon.  If you would like to redeem the coupon, you may order online by December 30.  You will be able to choose from Lucky, 2^nd Graders, or any other book orders.  You can also search for favorite books. 

Thank you so much for the gifts.  Also, thank you to our fabulous volunteers who have helped us so far this year.  Have a wonderful winter break! 

Kristen Adams
kristen.adams@canyonsdistrict.org                  

Newsletter 11-19-14

Parents,

We’ve been having a great time in second grade!  We finished unit two in language arts and have been reviewing this week.  We liked reading and acting out The Bremen Town Musicians.  What a great way to practice fluency and accuracy!  We read the fable One Good Turn Deserves Another, and we compared and contrasted it with other fables.  We wrote narratives about what we are thankful for and used our sequence words.  We also made some fun Thanksgiving turkeys.  Ask your child about Abraham Lincoln granting a pardon to Jack the Turkey!

We finished our place value unit in math.  We learned a fun even/odd game that you can play anywhere, Miss Even & Mr. Odd.  We are working on our mental addition unit, which means we are solving two-digit problems in our heads.  We are learning different strategies such as breaking apart numbers, using ten-frames, and working with hundred charts.

We had a fabulous Halloween party, thanks to our terrific room mothers.  We played Halloween Bingo, made up spooky stories, played pumpkin bowling, made mummies and ghosts, and ate doughnuts.  It was fun to see so many of you at the parade!

We’ve had a fantastic SOAR week!  We reviewed school rules, dressed up, and had extra raffles.  Our “S” leaders, Ellie and Trinity, did a great job representing our class in September and October.  Our “O” leaders, Jack and Reagan, will cover November and December.  Josh earned the award in our class for trustworthiness and got a special certificate at an assembly.  We all dressed in red, and the school choir sang.  It’s fun to see so many of our second graders in the choir!

I am sending home two book orders today.  Remember that you can go online using the code GYPDT and have a much larger selection of books.  If you would like to order books as Christmas presents, just let me know.  We can make arrangements so I can get them to you without your child seeing.  Don’t forget to use the free book coupon I sent on Halloween. 

Although there was not a homework packet this week, please remember to have your child read and practice math facts every day.  Reflex Math is a great tool for practicing math facts.  There are also many links to educational websites on my blog: http://mrsadams2.blogspot.com. 

Thanks for all your help at home, and please contact me with any questions or concerns.  Have a wonderful Thanksgiving break!

Kristen Adams

kristen.adams@canyonsdistrict.org