The Weber Weekly

We've had another successful week in second grade!  I'm so proud of the kids and how well they are doing.  I can already tell this is going to be an AMAZING year!!

We've been working really hard on our fluency this week in shared reading.  We read a realistic fiction big book, Don't Forget Fun.  While reading this story, we practiced chunking groups of words, heeding the author's punctuation clues, and reading with intonation.  We continued to learn about action verbs in the past tense as well as the short i sound in phonics.  Every Friday your child will take a short, five question shared reading quiz.  The quiz will consist of strategies we worked on during the week and comprehension questions from the book.  I will do my best to get these graded and sent home on Friday afternoon, but sometimes things come up during my lunch/plan time and I will have to wait to grade them until the weekend.  Please be watching your child's folder ("left at home" side) for these graded quizzes.

One of our second grade math goals is automaticity with addition and subtraction facts (two seconds per problem).  By the end of the year, all students should demonstrate automaticity with subtraction facts 0-9 and addition facts 0-9.  We will progress monitor this goal weekly here at school.  Every Friday the kids will take a timed addition and timed subtraction test.  We will then take the scores of both tests and graph them on individual student graphs.  Your child will be fully responsible for monitoring the progress of his/her facts.  You will see the graded tests come home each week (most likely Monday or Tuesday) and your child's individual growth graph at conferences.  We will be practicing our math facts daily here at school, but it's a good idea to practice at home, too.  Most dollar stores sell flash cards or they can easily be created with paper and a marker.  Let's work together to ensure your child successfully reaches this math goal!

I want to remind you again that homework will be starting next week.  The format is as follows: Monday Math, Totally Sight Word Tuesday, Writing Wednesday, Thinking Thursday (reading response).  I will send home a homework sheet at the start of every week.  One side will have the assignments listed for the week and the other will have daily behavior.  Remember that all homework, except Monday Math, should be completed in your child's homework spiral notebook.  Also, if your child had a yellow or orange day, please sign his/her behavior chart.  In addition to the weekly homework sheet, I will also send an optional monthly homework calendar.  The September calendar will be coming home Tuesday.  The back side of the calendar has the required monthly reading log.  Your child will need to read for twenty minutes a day and record his/her books on the log. 

If you haven't signed up for Remind101 yet, please do so.  This is the easiest way for me to keep you informed.  If you do not want the text messages sent to your phone, you can have the same reminders sent via email instead.  For text messages, please text @weber02 to the number 814.201.5236.  For email reminders, send an email to weber02@mail.remind101.com and leave the subject and body blank.  Of our 31 students, only 18 families have signed up.  I don't want you to miss out on any important reminders!    

I will be sending home a copy of our class directory today.  Please keep this as a reference to use throughout the school year.  Per the handbook, birthday invitations cannot be handed out at school unless you have one for each member of the class.  Instead, I encourage you to use the class directory and mail the invitations.  You can also use the directory phone numbers to make arrangements for play dates.  PLEASE, do not use the directory for business or advertising purposes.          

Our PTO sent home information yesterday regarding the upcoming Halloween party.  We need four volunteers to help out in the classroom and several families to provide donations.  If you're able to volunteer or donate, please complete the white Halloween form and return back to school in your child's folder.

I hope you will all mark your calendars for our upcoming Ice Cream Social.  This fun, family event will take place on Friday, September 13th from 5:30-7:30 in our school gym.  This will be a night you won't want to miss! 

I want to say a BIG THANK YOU to everyone who completed the yellow Highlights order form.  I can't believe how many responsible second graders were able to get their families to complete the form!  :)  Highlights will be sending our classroom FREE supplies just for returning the completed slips.  I love free stickers and other school supplies, so thank you!

I also wanted to thank those of you who donated supplies to our classroom pantry.  We can never have enough plastic silverware, paper towels, Clorox wipes, or hand sanitizer.  The kids were pretty excited about the mega pack of construction paper and the fun patterned Duct tape, too!  I'm so thankful for your generous donations.

I can't believe it's already Labor Day Weekend...hello September!  I hope you all enjoy the holiday and the extra time with your family.  Mr. Weber and I will be busy running through the sprinkler, playing at the park, and snuggling our precious baby boy, Keaton.  In between all that excitement, I will be checking emails; feel free to contact me if you have any questions or concerns.

The Weber Weekly

Busy, busy, busy!  What a busy week we had in second grade!!  Please bear with me; I'm sure this will be a very long post...

In shared reading, the kids learned the characteristics of a folktale while reading Table for Two.  We reviewed the short a sound and practiced writing words with that spelling pattern.  We also learned a really fun dance about verbs; ask your child to teach it to you!

In writing, we've been working hard on creating class books.  The books will be put into a basket and can be read during centers throughout the school year.  At the end of second grade, we will have hopefully written 31 books so that each child will be able to take one home as a keepsake.

The kids have been learning some really BIG words in math this week.  We learned all about mathematicians, perseverance, stamina, and manipulatives.  Everyone now understands the difference between a math tool and a toy, which will be really helpful as we will be using the tools throughout the year.      

In social studies, we are learning how to be good citizens of our classroom.  We are discussing each rule in great detail, modeling the rules, and creating our own rule books.  It's important to spend a lot of time in the beginning of the school year establishing a positive learning environment with clear expectations in order to ensure a successful second grade experience for all. 

The kids are working really hard to earn polka dots for their clips on our behavior chart.  We already have several students with a red clip!  Once your child fills up his/her clip, it will be sent home and the next colored clip will go on the chart.  Don't forget to check your child's calendar each night to see what color they were on.  If he/she has a yellow or orange day, please sign the box indicating you discussed the behavior.  Let's work together to ensure a successful school year!

Have you signed up for Remind101 yet?  If so, thank you!  If not, what are you waiting for?!  If you'd rather not receive the reminders via text, you can still sign up through email.  I don't want you to miss anything!  To sign up, text the message @weber02 to 814.201.5236 or email a blank subject line and blank message to weber02@mail.remind101.com.  I'm looking forward to keeping your informed with Remind101!

The Mystery Reader schedule has been posted here on the Blog.  If you'd like to sign up, please email me your date of choice and I will add you to the calendar.

Even though it has been nice and hot outside, our classroom has been rather chilly.  Please consider sending a hoodie or lightweight jacket to keep at school.  I hate to see all the nice shirts getting stretched out each day with arms inside trying to stay warm.   

Don't forget that our first Scholastic Book Order is due Wednesday.  You can either send your order to school or place an order online.  The link for online ordering is www.scholastic.com/bookclubs. 
On the parent page, click the "Don't have a User Name and Password?" link, and then register for your own username and password. When prompted, enter the one-time Class Activation Code, which is GQGGP. This code ensures that your order is sent to me.  Our books will arrive about a week after all orders have been placed.  

I wanted to thank all of you who were able to join us for Curriculum Night on Tuesday.  We had a very nice turnout.  I'm excited to get to know all of you better as we work together this school year.

The Grand Prairie Ice Cream Social will be on Friday, September 13th.  You can RSVP in advance by sending back the ordering sheet that your child brought home on Thursday.  

If you haven't turned in your permission slips yet, please do so as soon as possible.  I will be able to create the directory, post pictures to the Blog, and send home the Snazzy Snack shoppers list once I have all permission slips for every student.  Our classroom aide, Mrs. Joseph, will be sending home another copy if we are missing something from you.  Be on the lookout in your child's Take-Home Folder.

I hope all of you enjoy the weekend with your kiddos.  If you need to reach me for any reason, I will be checking email.  I can't wait to see everyone back to school on Monday!!  

   

Our First Day was AMAZING!!

Even with a large class of 31, everything went off without a hitch!  I'm so excited about what we have in store for this school year.  It's going to be a year full of learning, fun, and friends.  The kiddos were so eager to be back today; I loved the positive, upbeat energy! 

Ask your child to tell you about the story of the monster who came to school.  It was a very naughty monster that didn't know how to behave at school.  With the help of its teacher and classmates, the monster promised to learn to follow the rules and begged to stay in school.  We used this story to start our class discussion about rules and why they are important.  Everyone then had a chance to create their own monster and write a rule that will go into our very first class book.

We also read a book called First Day Jitters.  This story is about a girl named Sarah who is very nervous for her first day of school.  I didn't show the pictures while I was reading the book; instead, the kids had to visualize what was happening and do a quick sketch during different parts of the book.  The story ends with a twist - - Sarah, who we all think is a young girl throughout the story, actually turns out to be the new teacher!  It's a great lesson on how everyone, even the teachers, have jitters on the first day of school.  We finished off the lesson with a small cup of "Jitter Juice" to help ease the butterflies in our tummy.         

I hope your child enjoys his/her homework tonight!  I'm really looking forward to another awesome day tomorrow celebrating the "Second Day of Second Grade".  I can't wait to see all of my little friends and their wonderful visors in the morning!!  :)

What a super sweet Meet and Greet!

I'm so excited for my new class!  What an amazing turnout we had today at Meet and Greet!  Thank you for taking the time out of your busy day to come check out your child's new classroom.  I hope your son/daughter is looking forward to the new school year as much as I am.  We have an EXTRA large class this year (thirty-one!), but I hear this is the year to do it.  All of the first grade teachers, as well as specialists throughout the building, RAVE about this incoming group of kids.  I couldn't be more excited to start this new journey with them.  I can't wait to see everyone in the morning!!!