Happy Fall Harvest Party!

Happy Fall Harvest Party!  Today was a great day!  A HUGE thank you to all the parents who donated food/materials and were able to help at the party - it was a success & the kiddos had a blast.  These parties would not be able to happen without all your help!  Check out a few pictures from the party here.

Fall Pumpkin Book Projects

WOW!!!!  We were so excited to see the end product of all the pumpkin book characters - they turned out super cute!  We had pumpkin book character show case this afternoon and had a chance to look at all the pumpkins in 2nd grade.  Click here for pictures.

Conferences, No School & No Homework

Coming home is your child's Friday Folder is a yellow sheet that has a date/time for your child's Parent/Teacher Conference.  Please make sure that the bottom portion of this sheet is returned by next Wednesday, November 1.  I cannot believe that these start next week - this trimester has flown by!

Just as reminder, on Monday, October 30 we will have no school due to a Teacher Work Day to prepare for conferences.

Due to us not having school on Monday and Halloween is Tuesday, we will not be giving out homework next week.  We will start with homework the following week, November 6.

Brrr...this week was cold, warm and cold again

Please remember to send your child with winter coat and jacket next week.  Even when the high is supposed to be in the 50's when we got out for morning recess it is still cold.  Your child might want a winter coat at morning recess but only a sweatshirt or jacket at second recess.  Please help your child be prepared for the day - thanks!

Special Visitors

On Thursday, Ben's grandfather, mom and two younger brothers came in as a special treat for Ben's birthday.  Ben's grandfather read Tacky the Penguin (and used some great voices!).  Then, we celebrated Ben's birthday by enjoying a brownie.  It was a great afternoon!

Mrs. Neale also came in today and read to our kids.  She read two books that had a similar theme.  Ask your kiddo what was similar about the two books.

What's Been Happening in 2nd Grade?

• Math: This week, we talked about story problems (word problems) that include subtraction.  There are two different types of subtraction story problems: change to less and comparison.  
• A change to less story problem starts out with a number and then some get taken away - you are solving for what is left.  
• There were 10 bears in a cave.  3 bears leave.  How many bears are left?
• A comparison story problem starts with comparing two different items and solving for the difference.
• Mrs. Ross has 10 pieces of candy.  Ms. Mottaz has 3 pieces of candy.  How many more pieces of candy does Mrs. Ross have than Ms. Mottaz?

• Writing: This week, the student created their own utensil writing to add to the series that we read last week Spoon, Chopsticks, and Spork by Amy Crouse Rosenthal.  We also started our second personal narrative.  The student chose a topic and then selected the three BIG events of their story.  Next week, we will be continuing to work on our narratives.  This narrative will have less teacher input, so we can have a better idea of what your child's independent narrative writing ability is.
• Reading: This week, we will talked about seven different reading decoding strategies to solve unknown words.  We practiced using these strategies in our reading small groups in a variety of texts.  Below is a chart of the strategies we worked on.  Next week, we will be focusing on using context clues to figure out words.
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• Social Studies:  We discussed what living in an urban city and rural area would be like.  We also discussed the similarities and difference between living in Columbia to living in one of these places.  Next week, will be finishing up our geography and culture unit by talking about culture.  We will learn that culture is the values, beliefs and customs of a group of people.  We will then talk about these values, beliefs and customs of people who chose to live in an urban city, a rural or suburban city.

• Word Study: We will continue to work on short and long vowel word patterns next week.  Next week we will focus on short u and long u words.  Next week's words are: shut, huge, truck, put, plus, June, rude, tune, flute, & huge.

I hope that you have a wonderful weekend!

Mrs. Ross