10/25-10/27

Upcoming Events:

• 10/25 Red Ribbon Week: Wear your favorite sweats or team apparel

• 10/26 Red Ribbon Week: Wear Red, White, and Blue!

• 10/27 Wear Costume or Orange/Black Dress Up Day

• 10/28-10/29: No School

• 11/3 Wear Red, White and Blue for Veteran’s Day Recording

• 11/11 Veteran’s Day Program posted on Facebook

• 11/11 and 11/16 Parent Teacher Conferences (Sign Up and Survey coming soon)

• 11/18 Early Release

• 11/24-11/26 No School

Veterans Day Concert Information:

On November 3rd students will be recording a concert for our Veterans Day program this year.

On November 3rd, please have students dress in red, white, or blue for the recording.

The concert will be shared on November 11th through our School and District Facebook pages.

Spelling Words This Week:

• has
• as
• eat
• or
• out

Leader In Me: Take Initiative

Last week we learned about being proactive by taking initiative.  Taking initiative is doing something without being asked.  This is an important skill to recognize and practice at home.  We spent some time generating ideas about how we can take initiative at home: doing homework without being asked, putting clothes away, helping with dishes, picking up messes, and much more.  

See if you can find a time or two to recognize your child for taking initiative!!  

Reading/Writing:

 Last week we had started our new units in both reading and writing. We are doing all things nonfiction! This week we are going to work on ways to elevate our writing all while thinking about our audience and the best ways to teach them. In reading we will focus on keywords and the strategies that we need to figure out the meaning of those words.

Math: 

In math we started a new unit that revolves around place value. We are going to start studying 2 digit numbers this week: comparing them and starting to add them together.

Sorry math homework has been a little sporadic! I will usually send it home Tuesday or Wednesday, students can return it at any time if they would like to. It is also not an expectation for it to be sent back to school, it's a way to see things that we are working on here at school!

Photos from a science experiment at school

(any experiment where you get to stand on a chair seems to be a crowd pleaser)

Ask your child about it :)

10/18-10/22

Hello,

Ms. Quinn our administrative assistant is updating an NDLC blog as well! Here is the link if you want more information on things that are happening for the whole school: https://newdirectionsconnections.blogspot.com/

Upcoming Dates:

• 10/12: Family Night 5-6
• 10/22: Book Orders Due, you can also order online at: https://clubs.scholastic.com/ Our class code is QJMYM
• 10/27: Costume or Orange/Black Dress Up Day
• 10/28-10/29: No School

Math Tests:

On Friday I sent home our first math tests. A few things to know, anything circled in blue was initially incorrect but we learn that in math mistakes show that we are trying. We went over the test and they may have changed it after, because we wanted to learn from it. Also, some of their work was on separate sheets, so if their test had some empty parts it is because they completed it on an extra sheet. Let me know if you have any questions! They did great!

Leader In Me:

This week’s Leader in Me lessons were focused around tattling versus reporting.  I think this is a great concept to talk about at home.  Tattling is when the individual is trying to get someone in trouble.  Reporting is when someone is in trouble and it needs to be reported.  

An example of tattling would be: when their siblings take a toy from them.  Instead of running to tell mom we want them to problem solve by:

--use their words, their I statements.  I feel ___ when you___.  

--Walking away

--Thinking about what is in their circle of control.  

This doesn’t come easy for students.  We will need to coach them over and over again. One thing I say when a student is tattling to me is, “What would you like me to do?” Something else I often do is whisper in their ear as they are talking through things with their peers.  This gives them the words but allows them to practice. 

Family Night:

Thanks for popping into your students' classroom.  They were delighted to show you their hard work! I was impressed with their leadership abilities!

10/11 - 10/15

Upcoming Dates:

• 10/12: Family Night 5-6
• 10/22: Book Orders Due, you can also order online at: https://clubs.scholastic.com/ Our class code is QJMYM
• 10/28-10/29: No School

iReady:

This week we will be sending home the results of our Fall iReady exams. It is a test that we use throughout the year to observe students' progress and to differentiate our teaching to meet each student's needs. This is just one data point about your child and doesn’t encompass who they are as a learner. If you have any questions about the results, please let me know.

Be Proactive: Choosing Our Weather

This week we will focus on being proactive with lessons around choosing our weather/mood.  We will make analogies to how our moods are like specific types of weather.  For example: when we are happy, we are sunny. When we are sad, we are rainy. The main idea around these lessons is that even when we are feeling stormy we can choose to help ourselves calm down and work through that weather/mood.  Or when other people take out their storm on us, we can respond in a positive way.  Be Proactive--I am in charge of me!

Math

In math we continue our work on story problems.  This week we worked a lot with comparison story problems, story problems that have too much information, and story problems with not enough information. 

Some key questions we want students to ask themselves when solving these problems are:

--What do I know?

---What do I want to find out?

Family Night

Just a reminder that Family Night is Tuesday night from 5:00-6:00.  This night will be about your student showing you around their classroom and anything they want you to know/see!  

Writing:

Last week we celebrated the end of our narrative writing unit. This unit was all about revising to make our writing stronger and stronger. We wanted to celebrate their hard work! We met with the other 2nd grade class to read our stories to each other and enjoy some prepackaged treats. Here are a few photos:

10/4-10/8

Happy October,

Thank your for all of your generous donations to the Spread the Love food drive. On Tuesday we had already collected 400 jars, we will be calculating what the grand total is soon. St. Joseph's has been very grateful for our help with this!

Upcoming Dates:

• 10/4: NDLC store closes: https://newdirections21.itemorder.com/sale
• 10/6: Picture Retake: Please email me if you would like pictures to be retaken
• 10/12: NEW DATE: Family Night (Sheet was sent home last week)
• 10/28-10/29: No School

Spelling Words this Week:

• will
• all
• day
• him
• her

Pokémon Club:

Pokémon club will be starting back up this year. It is open to all kindergarten, first grade, and second graders during our lunch recess. It will be held each Friday. A few new rules that were put in place is that students must bring their own cards and that there will be no trading. In the past the trades tended to be unfair. It will be a time where students can play the game or show their collection. If your student is interested they can bring cards each Friday.

Number Corner:

A new month has started with our new math program Number Corner. Each month that corner of our room switches to new concepts. The month of September focused on odd and even numbers, combinations of 20, and time. This new month is still a mystery to students! When we have more school days in October, patterns will start to reveal themselves and some powerful learning happens. It’s a short time of our day but impactful!

 

Leader in Me:

During the month of October we are going to focus on Habit 1: Be Proactive. This habit revolves around students learning about their circle of control. Which means that we need to focus on things that we are in control of, not things outside of our control. It’s a habit that encourages students to take care of themselves. More information to come as we start this month!

Shared Reading:

Shared reading is a time of our day where we practice reading a book together for a week. Each day that we read it, has a different focus. On the last day with the book we try to do something fun! This week we were inspired to write a poem:

Something to ask your child about...