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!