March 5, 2017

I hope you all enjoyed the week off from school for February vacation and got to spend some quality time with your families and friends. It’s always nice to have a little extra time at home to refresh, especially when the temperatures allow for some outside time! I want to make sure to thank Debbie Porthouse for planning and running the parties this year for our class. The 3 parties were lots of fun! Thank you also to all of the other parents who came to help out and/or provided snacks or paper goods. We certainly couldn't have these celebrations without your support!

Here is a look at what we accomplished this last week in school...

Our rehearsals began this week for the upcoming second grade show entitled "Colors". We had 3 practices this week, and the actual performance will be on Wednesday, March 22nd for the school and Friday, March 24th for parents. The kids were excited to learn what parts they would play in the performance, and I’m sure you’re already hearing the songs being sung at home!

During reading time this week we finished up some loose ends from before vacation. I also met with a few remaining kids to assess their reading progress in preparation for our upcoming conferences. We continue to practice comprehension strategies during our groups, including summarizing, discussing problem and solution, visualizing, and making connections.


In math we taught the Partial-Sums Addition Method to combine two and three digit numbers together. This method should look very familiar, as it is most like the traditional way of adding multiple-digit numbers together. We began the week trying this out with base ten blocks to provide a physical model of what happens when we combine 100's, 10's, and 1's to add two and three digit numbers together. We then transitioned to trying this out without the base ten blocks to help us. For some kids, this is a difficult concept. We will provide much more practice in this area in the coming weeks.

Our travels around the world brought us to the continent of Australia this week! We spent some time learning more about this beautiful continent, and next week we’ll be doing a fun project to explore the incredible Great Barrier Reef!

During our spelling time next week we'll be checking on the spelling of the 100 High Frequency Words. The list of words is in your child's take home folder. It's always helpful to be reviewing these words with your child.

On Wednesday of next week our class will be visiting the Living Lab at the Day School. We already have signed permission slips from all of you from the beginning of the year, so the kids are all set to ride the bus over. Please check the weather and make sure your child has appropriate clothing and footwear for some outside time by the brook.


Coming soon...

Monday, March 13th- Online Conference Sign-Up Begins
Friday, March 24th- Parent Portal Opens to View Progress Reports
Wednesday, March 29th- 2 Hour Delay, Conferences 9:00-11:00
Thursday, March 30th- No School; Conferences 2:00-8:00