Class News

November 29, 2014

First, for those of you who celebrate, I hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving. The cold weather is a good excuse to enjoy cooking, reading, and enjoying family indoors!

On Wednesday the students enjoyed our very special tradition of baking bread for our families.  They read the recipe, used math to measure and count out ingredients, and cooperated with their group to make some delicious loaves. I hope you enjoyed them at home! Here is a link to a cool Slide Show of the activity.

A huge thank you goes out to our room parents, Cinin Syed and Erin Gibbons (Erin provided ALL of the ingredients for 24 mini-loaves!), as well as the parent volunteers: Neha Chaudhry, Eric Bennett, Seta Abrahamian, Kelley Loughran, Christine Roberts and Carla Stafford. I hope you all had as much fun as we did!

We have some very special news... we have officially become a GOLD STAR CLASSROOM! What does this mean? It means we have worked very hard, since September, to build a respectful classroom community where we work hard, make good use of time, and show kindness to one another and the world. The star will be on display outside of our classroom.  We will have to continue this effort in order to keep it!!

Finally, a few other interesting facts about our school life:  We are wrapping up our Personal Narrative writing by publishing our stories (making Final Drafts) and we are sharing them with our class. We will begin a unit on Opinion Writing in December!  We are also beginning a new unit in Math: Fractions and Time , and in Social Studies we have begun our unit on Maps.  Show your child any of the maps you use, in driving, getting around a mall, or looking at the world around us.

Class Update

November 17

I hope you all stayed warm this weekend! As we approach the winter months, please make sure you are sending your child in with all of the outerwear for staying outside 15-20 minutes, twice per day.  Also please label it so we can identify things that appear in the hallway.  We know how expensive this clothing can be!

Speaking of outdoors, we just completed our study of weather, but we will be tracking it all year.  Ask your child about clouds and what kind of weather they bring; talk about the water cycle and why we conserve water, and watch weather forecasts - particularly when storms are approaching.  They love this!

We also just completed our study of Place Value in Math.  I will be posting some good Math Games on our site to help reinforce these skills.  Ask your child to help you count change and add hundreds, tens and ones to keep practicing.

A HUGE thank you goes out to Annie and Liz McQuilkin, and Arpi and Seta Abrahamian, for helping to “put our gardens to bed” this past Thursday.  We rolled up the fencing, pulled up all the plants (including some HUGE carrots!) and put them into the composter, cleared and raked the soil, covered them with shower curtain liners to keep the snow and salt out, and said goodbye and thank you for another year of great harvest.  Watch for notices in the spring of seed planting and LOTS of volunteer opportunities to do with your children!

OTHER VOLUNTEER OPPORTUNITIES:

• November 26: You have probably heard that we will be continuing a wonderful second grade activity, baking bread.  We need lots of help- 6 volunteers in the classroom, and many others to collect and send ingredients.  Please sign up on the document that Erin Gibbons sent out if you possibly can help. It is great fun!

• Ongoing:  Math Stations:  We have a wonderful system of meeting the needs of all learners through small group instruction.  I have assistant teachers who help out twice per week, but I need one parent on Tuesdays and one on Thursdays, every week.  If you can volunteer please contact our room parents:  

• Cinin Syed (Amu’s mom) <aamersyed319@gmail.com> and
• Erin Gibbons (Taylor’s mom) <engibbons3@gmail.com>

Class Update

Greetings!

This past week was a busy one for sure!  I hope you enjoyed your Friday Letters.  Please remember they are not edited, so if there are ever any questions please let me know.

We have begun our “Math Shuffle” where students are grouped with others across the grade and meet with their group for 6-8 weeks to focus on a topic.  This session our focus is on math facts to 20… hoping that students use strategies to get better at solving quickly and easily.

On Friday we met with our Buddies (Ms. Aronian’s class) and read our small moment stories to them.  We also played a game called “Buzz”.  It is so much fun for me to see my students from two years ago, and the progress they have made!  We love having buddies.  I will be posting a couple of pictures from the day!

Speaking of our Small Moment stories, they are just about done and ready to edit!  Soon they will be published, read to the class, and will be hanging on the wall in our classroom.  Feel free to help your child continue to think of other “Personal Narrative” stories and put their ideas in their “tiny writers’ notebooks”.  Keep writing, at home and at school!

We are wrapping up our study of Weather, and I have included a couple of links here on the website.  It is fun to watch the weather all year round.  

VOLUNTEER OPPORTUNITIES!!  

• First, this Thursday we will be putting the Happy Hollow gardens to bed for the winter.  It is a great way to enjoy the outdoors AND help your child to see the wonder and cycle of backyard gardening. Such a healthy alternative!!  Please check out the Volunteerspot site that the Room Parents have created, or email me with any questions. You could also just show up on November 13 at 3:30. Thank you!!
  

  

• November 26, 8:30 am: You have probably heard that we will be continuing a wonderful second grade activity, baking bread for Thanksgiving.  We need lots of help- 6 volunteers in the classroom, and many others to collect and send ingredients.  Watch for an email from our Room Parents!

Please do not hesitate to contact me anytime with questions. This is truly a wonderful profession and I feel blessed to teach these children!!

Field Trip Summary

We finally made it to the Blue Hills Weather Observatory! That shows what Perseverance can do! We had a great day:

• First we hiked up Blue Hill, starting at the Trailside Museum, where we learned about many animals that live there. On the way our guide told us some facts about the rocks and trees of the Great Blue Hill.  (Ask your child what kind of pine tree we saw, and how they can tell what kind it is!)
• When we got to the top we had a quick lunch, then toured the inside and outside of the Observatory.  The anemometers on the tower we spinning like crazy! We also saw a "Weather Cam" that you can view online!  Here is the link: 
• http://bluehill.org/observatory/webcams/
• Last our class sat in a small room and put together nice strong kites, with the help of our Blue Hills Guide and our Parent Chaperones.  We can't wait to fly them this week!

We will be writing a "Friday Letter" together this week so you can hear about all of the other wonderful things we are doing in Second Grade.