January 3, 2017

Happy New Year!  

I hope you had a relaxing and joyful vacation with family and friends.  One of the high points for me was visiting my son in Burlington, VT.  The only gift he wanted for the holiday was a plane ticket to visit his twin sister in Colorado!  I thought that might give you hope, if your children don’t always show their kindest selves to one another :)

Save the Date:

Our class will be reading some thoughts about Peace and showing a video that celebrates Peace around the world, this coming Monday, January 9.  Since I will be helping to manage the presentation, I would greatly appreciate it if someone could volunteer to videotape it, and I’ll put it on my blog for you all.  Please let me know asap if that is possible for you!

Other Volunteer Opportunities:

As you may know, we use the Math Station format for most of our Math work.  Some days I do not have a 2nd teacher in the room, and I would LOVE to have a volunteer for 1 hour just to help students at our “Problem Solving” station.  If you can help on one of these days each week, or even once in awhile, please let me know asap:

• Monday or Tuesday 10-11
• Friday 1:30-2:30

Also, if anyone has time to sort our number cards, they are in need to some attention!  Let me know and I’ll explain further- it shouldn’t take more than about 30 minutes and your child can help!

Homework

I have received some feedback about managing the homework in Second Grade.  If you have any concerns please feel free to email me.  I want this to be a useful activity and not a burden. It is so important for students to build regular, enjoyable reading routines.

In case the Spelling Menu of activities has been misplaced, I have included a link to it here with some management ideas.

A huge Thank You!

I want to shout out a huge thank you to Steven Hage, who donated many wonderful books to our classroom through his work with Houghton Mifflin.  The children are enjoying learning about science, and building their fluency and comprehension skills in “Readers’ Theater” groups.  My sincere appreciation on behalf of all of the students in this class and for years to come!!!!! It truly takes a village to raise such thoughtful, amazing children as these!! My thanks go out to all of you for your support and kindness in this great work.