Happy Holidays!!! December Updates

It's that time of year! We are almost ready for our winter break and have a lot going on to prepare for the holidays!

This Week's Homework:
In place of reading homework this week the students are asked to complete a Holiday Scrapbook describing their winter holiday traditions. It went home today and will be due on Friday. We look forward to sharing about our holidays!

Each spelling group in Ms. Shucosky's class will be studying contractions this week. We learned about these words today and the special role of the apostrophe. Please help your child study their words this week. It would also be helpful to have them practice spelling other contractions. They will be working with all kinds of contractions this week.
Example: do not = don't (The apostrophe replaces the "o" in not)

Here are some online games to practice contractions!
Contractions Match Game
Write the Contraction

Spelling Bee
Also coming up this Friday are our classroom spelling bees! Help your child prepare by practicing the words that went home in last week's Wednesday folder.

An Invitation...
We know our families at Phelps Lucks celebrate so many wonderful holiday traditions that have been passed down through your families. In addition to the scrapbooks which we will share with one another to learn about our special traditions, we sent home a letter inviting parents to come in and share their traditions as well. We look forward to learning about these special traditions. If you would like to come in and share and have not returned the form or misplaced it, please send me an e-mail.

Behavior Chart
Your child came home with a behavior chart this week. As a second grade team, we decided to use these charts to keep track of your child's successes and struggles throughout the school day. We want to celebrate the positive learning behaviors your child exhibits every day as well as recognize the times they may have struggled or displayed behaviors that are not conducive to learning. We ask that you sign the chart each day and go over the chart with your child. Please see the letter that went home in the homework folder to learn more about the chart and e-mail or call me with any questions.

Flat Stanley
We are still working on our letters! We are almost finished and will have them sent out by the end of this week. Please send in an address of an out of state friend or relative if you have one that we can send your child's letters to. We almost have an address for everyone. We are so excited to send them!

Math
This week in math we are learning about symmetry. We are still practicing facts that add 8 or 9.
Example: We solve 8 + 6 = 14 by making the 8 a 10 and taking 2 away from the 6 -> 10 + 4 = 14.

Social Studies
First we learned about natural resources and our environment. Then we learned about how we use our environment to make the things we need. Next we will focus on goods, services and the factors of production (human resources, capital resources and natural resources). We will also learn about how we get our materials from different places all over the world to make our products and the transportation needed to get it to us. This is a very fun and interactive unit!

Classroom Snapshot
Today in class we were the "Clown Maze Factory". We formed assembly lines in teams to make our products: a clown maze. Each child had a job (human resource) and special tools (capital resources) to get their job done. We even had a Factory Manager who supervised our workers. Thank you to Mr. (Duncan) Ash, for being an excellent manager!

Thanks for all you do at home to support our learning at school. I know that this is a busy time of year for everyone. Please contact me at any time via phone or e-mail with any questions about our learning or how you can help at home or at school! I hope everyone has a safe, restful and happy break with your families.

Warmest holiday wishes-
Ms. Shucosky

Moon Phase Website

Here is a website that will show what the Moon currently looks like! This is a great tool to use in conjunction with your observations!

http://aa.usno.navy.mil/idltemp/current_moon.php

Enjoy!

:)

*My apologizes for publishing this post as "Moon Phase Webite"
Sometimes those typos sneak by me!

Classroom Updates

Science:
We will continue to learn about the Moon when we return from break by investigating how craters are made. We will also use models to investigate how the position of the Sun, Moon and Earth result in the phases of the Moon we see. Please continue to help your children make their observations of the Moon for the next couple of weeks!

We viewed a video in class of the Apollo 11 mission after reading about it. Here is a link to the video on the NASA webstie. Find the icon at the top to take you to the Apollo 11 video.

Writing:
We have been practicing writing friendly letters. This coming week we will integrate our knowledge of the Moon into a writing activity in which the students will imagine they are an astronaut stepping onto the Moon. Students will use descriptive words to write about what they see and how they feel. We will also use transition words to organize our thoughts.

Math:
In our geometry unit we are learning about 2-dimensional and 3-dimensional shapes. We learned that a rectangle is a special quadrilateral (polygon with 4 sides). A rectangle has 4 strait sides and 4 right angles unlike a rhombus or trapezoid which does not have 4 right angles. Other topics include:
*Naming 2-dimensional shapes and their attributes (circle, square, hexagon, octagon, triangle)
*Naming 3-dimensional shapes and their attributes (rectangular prism, cone, triangular prism, sphere, cube)
*area
*congruent shapes
*slides, flips and turns


We are excited to send out our Flat Stanley letters! Please send in an address of a family member or friend in another state if you have not already!
Visit http://www.flatstanley.com/ to learn more about the Flat Stanley project.

Have a safe, happy and restful holiday with your loved ones!

Field Trip Pictures

Here are some great pictures of the community we built on our field trip to the National Building Museum. Thank you Mrs. Davis!

American Education Week

This week is American Education Week! Parents are invited to the classroom on Monday to see what it's like to be a second grader. If you can't make it on Monday feel free to come another day!

I look forward to seeing you this week and next week for our scheduled conferences.

Classroom updates to be posted soon!

:)

Fall Festival/ Halloween Parade

An orange letter went home today about our fall/Halloween celebrations to be held on Friday, October 30. Here is some information from the letter about what our day will look like:

In the morning the students will be rotating to each teacher's classroom for a special fall-themed lesson. The students enjoy sharing their learning with each second grade teacher and get a chance to visit their classrooms! After our Recess, Lunch and Related Arts, the students will be preparing for the Phelps Luck Halloween Parade! (Students who wish to wear their costumes may bring them to school in a bag labeled with their name. We will be changing into them before the parade). The parade will be at 2:00 and, of course, parents are welcome! After the parade we will be enjoying some treats in our homeroom. If you would like to donate a food item to our celebration, return the bottom portion of the orange letter to your child's teacher. Students who do not celebrate Halloween will enjoy a fun Fall Festival in our Media Center :)


Classroom Updates:

Writing: The students just finished vivid sensory poems about fall. We focused on using adjectives to describe the sights, sounds, smells, tastes, and feelings of fall. Tomorrow (Tuesday) we will be typing our poems to make a class book!

Reading: Last week we read all about fire safety and firefighters to help us get ready for our visit from a firefighter! Students enjoyed walking through a "fire safety house" that was brought to us by the fire department to learn about fire safety on Thursday.

Social Studies: Last week we learned about the continents and oceans. Then we learned about the earth's geography by examining different types of landforms. We made 3-D models out of clay of different landforms! This week we are learning about the characteristics of Coastal, Mountain and Plains Regions.

Home-School Connection: Here is a fun on-line game to review the continents! GeoSpy

Math: We have been solving story problems.
We came up with these steps for solving story problems:

1.) Read the problem. Visualize (picture) what is happening in your head.
2.) Start a number sentence to show what is happening. (+ or -). Ex: 24 - 7 = ___
3.) Solve the problem. Use your strategies and tools! (100 Chart, Number Line, Cubes, Picture, Tens and Ones)
**4.) Show your work and explain your strategy.
5.) Check your work!

**An important part of math class is being able to explain our thinking orally and in words. This can be tough for kids especially if they are able to solve a problem "in their head." Ask your child probing questions to help them express their math thinking: "How did you solve this problem? Did you start with this number? What did you do next? Did you break this number apart?" etc. Through speaking and writing students are often able to go deeper into their thinking as they reach new understandings and think further into the strategies they are exploring.

We have also been learning our basic facts: +/- 10.
*Last week a Math Log went home with flashcards to practice these facts. I asked the students to work with their families to complete at least 1 of the activities in the log. Please sign the log when you complete an activity. Another log will be coming home soon!
Students will be tested on these facts twice. Their first test will be Wednesday 10/28.

Home-School Connection: Online flash cards for extra review of new and previously learned facts: Math Fact Cafe



As always, your questions and comments are welcome!

Our First Field Trip!

On Wednesday, October 14th the second grade traveled to the National Building Museum in Washington D.C.!

The trip was a huge success! The students enjoyed synthesizing their learning in our Social Studies unit by designing a model city.
*First we reviewed the different types of buildings that make a community: residential, commercial, industrial, institutional and open space.
*Next, each student built their own model of a building.
*Then we placed them together on a map in the right land use category to create a model of a city.

Thank you to all the wonderful volunteers who could make the trip with us. It wouldn't have been a success without you! :)

Fall is Here!

Fun things are happening in 2nd grade this Fall!

We celebrated Johnny Appleseed's birthday on September 25th by eating delicious homemade applesauce. What a great way to jump start the fall season! In math we tasted and voted on our favorite apples (Granny Smith was the favorite). In Science we made apple observations and in Language Arts we learned about Johnny Appleseed's contributions to America.

On October 14th we are going on our first field trip of the year! We will be visiting the National Building Museum in Washington D.C to engage in a fun activity to learn about communities. Permission slip and and field trip information were sent home in the Homework folders today!

Classroom Updates:

Math:
We have been practicing many of our math skills from counting and identifying coins to comparing numbers and using counting and problem-solving strategies. Our "Investigations" math program is a hands-on approach to learning math that builds on previously learned skills and includes daily routines that reinforce math skills in many areas. The hands-on approach involves students in using math manipulatives or tools to explore math concepts. Next week we will be learning basic math facts that add and subtract 10 and focus on strategies to solve addition and subtraction story problems.

Science:
We just completed an exciting unit on Soil and Erosion. We completed investigations to explore the properties of soil and the "parent" materials that make up soil and its layers. We also investigated soil erosion by observing erosion models made from shoe boxes!

Social Studies:
We began our first social studies unit called "My Community." We learned that a community is a place where people live, work and play together. We will be creating and designing communities as well as learning about rural, urban and suburban communities.

Home-School Connection: While driving in the car with your child, help them point out places in our community where people live, work, and play!

Reading:
This week's reading skill is summarizing. We will be summarizing non-fiction texts by using the strategy of identifying the main idea and details.

Writing:
We learned about the writing trait; organization. We learned how to use "order" or "transition" words in our writing such as first, next, then, also and last.

Word Study Homework

This week your child started their Word Study Homework. Our Word Study program, called Words Their Way is how we teach spelling in second grade. This program focuses on learning spelling by identifying patterns found in words. The program introduces and builds on patterns as children learn to read and write them at their developmental level. The children learn how to spell their words by identifying the patterns and sorting the words into categories based on their patterns.

Here is an example:

This sort is for a child who has learned short vowels and is beginning to distinguish between long vowel sounds and patterns.

pig (short i)......... kite (long i).......... oddball

.........skip..................... nice....................... give
.........still..................... knife
........kick....................... dice

The students should notice that each of the long i words follows the pattern CVCe (consonant, vowel, consonant, e). The students recognize this pattern as "magic e". This is one pattern that makes the long i sound. They will learn others in later sorts such as "oa" and "ow". The oddball is for words that in some way don't fit the pattern. In this example the word give has the short i vowel sound but follows the CVCe pattern. We learn these patterns in class on Mondays.

Homework:

Mondays: Students will sort their words and copy the words in their categoeis into their journal (as shown in the above example).

Tuesdays: Students will sort their words as fast as they can ("speed sort"). Then they will choose 5 words and write each in a sentence. I expect the students to write complete sentences with correct capitals and punctuation. I also encourage them to number their sentences and skip lines after each sentence.

Wednesdays: Students will complete a "blind sort". This is to be done with an adult. For this sort the students don't see their words. The adult reads a word. The child listens for the pattern and points to the category it belongs to. The students will then choose 5 words and write them in alphabetical or a,b,c order.

Thursdays: Students will sort their words one last time then glue the words neatly into their journals in their correct categories.

Assessment:
On Fridays the students will be tested on their words. Students will be asked to spell 10 of the words. 2 points are given for each word spelled correctly. 1 point is given if only the pattern is spelled correctly.

Example:
For a pattern identifying the long o pattern "oa":
2 points: coach 1 point: koatch

Week 3 Updates

Thank you to all who attended back to school night on Tuesday! If you were not able to make it and have any questions regarding homework or second grade policies please e-mail me.

Classroom updates:

Math:
This week the students switched classes for math and started working with their new math teacher. A letter went home in the Homework Folder on Tuesday that states whom your child's math teacher is. Math homework will be given in math class every day from Monday-Thursday.

Reading:
The students began meeting in their small reading groups with me this week. We have 4 reading groups in our homeroom grouped by instructional reading level. This week we have been focusing on analyzing story structure by charting the plot of a story from beginning, middle to end. For questions regarding levels or assessments please contact me. A packet will be sent home each Monday for homework to be completed by Friday. I suggest you have your child reread the story each night and work on one page in the packet.

Home-School Connection *You can build on our reading group strategy by asking your child to identify the main characters, setting, problem and solution in a story read at home.

Writing:
We have been learning how to come up with good ideas in writing. We learned that a good idea or topic is clear, specific and interesting!

Health:
Germs, germs, germs! We learned all about germs this week from where they hide (everywhere!) to how they enter your body and how they can make you sick. We also learned how to stay safe and healthy from germs. We talked about eating right, exercising, and of course, the importance of washing our hands and bodies with soap and water!

Science:
We have just begun our unit in Science in which we will investigate the properties of soil. A letter was sent home in the Wednesday Folder asking each child to bring in a small sample of soil and 2 small rocks that we will use in our investigations in class.

Thanks for your help and support!

We Are Kicking Off Week 2!

Here are some highlights from week 2:

Math
-Students will complete a pretest in math covering skills they will learn in quarters 1 and 2
**Students will begin their new math placements on Monday! A letter will be sent home to inform parents of whom their child's math teacher will be.

Health (Content)
-We are learning all about germs! We talked about different types of illnesses and we will learn what we can do to stay healthy and prevent the spread of diseases.
**Ask your child what communicable and non-communicable illnesses are! :)

Writing
-We finished writing exciting sentences about our favorite summer memory. We wrote first drafts, revised them and created a beautiful sun display out of our completed sentences. Look for them in the hallway at Back-To-School Night! (Tuesday Sept. 15th)
-This week we are focusing on the writing trait: Ideas. We are learning how to narrow down our ideas and choose a clear writing topic.

Reading
-Students began their reading journals by writing a response to a book we read in class. Students described their favorite part, or explained why they didn't have a favorite part!
-We are beginning to meet in our reading groups and practice our reading "rotation" routine.
**Our reading block is structured so that students meet in small groups with the teacher and rotate through independent work centers.

We moved our seats into table groups this week! Students will be completing activities to learn how to work cooperatively with their group members.

Look out for week 3 updates, including Back-To-School Night information to be posted soon!

A Successful First Day of School!

The first day of school was great! We have 23 amazing students in our class. Today we learned and practiced important classroom and school routines. We also learned a fun chant to help us remember our class rules! Your child brought home 2 folders tonight. Please review the information in both folders and return them back to school tomorrow. The Wednesday Folder contains important information from the school. Your child will bring this home every Wednesday with school updates and graded work. The Homework Folder is a blue folder that goes home every day. Inside the Homework folder you will find your child's homework chart for the week. Please sign the chart when you review your child's homework each day. Tonight you will find your child's Related Arts or "Specials" class schedule. This can stay at home for your reference. Please contact me if you have any questions!

Open House

Thank you to all who were able to make it to the Open House. It was wonderful to meet so many of my students and their families!

Reminders:
* If you have not done so, please return the 2 emergency cards to school as soon as possible.
* Parents, please take your time to complete the questionnaire about your child that was attached to the welcome letter and return it to school this coming week.

Thank you :)

Welcome!

Welcome to Ms. Shucosky's Classroom
Communication Blog!

Hello parents, students and families! I am so excited about this upcoming 2009-2010 school year! I can't wait to meet each and every one of my new students and their families. My goal for this blog is to provide instant communication to each student's family about what's going on in the classroom. In this blog you will find information about what we are learning, important dates, homework information, webpages to use at home and more. Please feel free to contact me and participate in our blog. Together, we will have an outstanding school year! I look forward to seeing you all soon!

Ms. Shucosky