Happy Wednesday!

Happy Chilly Wednesday!

Chicken BBQ
The Chicken BBQ is 3 short days away!  The PTA and the Chicken BBQ committee have been working very hard to get everything organized.  It should be a fabulous event!  Tomorrow the list of all the auction items (over 200+) will be coming home so you can see which items spark your interest.  We have some amazing items.  Also, there will be the class picture and my pizza party in the Teacher Town section of the auction.  Please see the information below about the Grade Level Pictures that are available for purchase at the BBQ or through Tuesday if you aren't able to make the BBQ.

If you haven't purchased tickets and would like to purchase tickets before Saturday, please send in your order form and money with your student.  Adult tickets are $9, youth tickets are $7 and child tickets are $5.  Each meal has chicken, green beans, apple sauce, a roll and pie.  If you don't have the order form, but would like to order, you can simply send in a note with how many tickets are needed and money and we will get the tickets sent home.  I will be working the drive thru from 3:30-6 and then going to the auction and having some delicious chicken after that.  I look forward to seeing everyone there!

STEAM Bus
Craig Adams has graciously donated a Day on the STEAM Bus for the auction at the RBE Chicken BBQ.  The winning student’s entire class will get to spend a day on the STEAM Bus doing fun activities.  If parents in your student’s class would like to pool their money together so they have more to bid, this is completely fine. Here is the website for the STEAM Bus if you would like to learn more about it.  http://www.cpsk12.org/steambus

Grade Level Pictures
If you would like to order a grade level picture and aren’t able to come to the BBQ or weren’t able to get your name added to the list at the Chicken BBQ, please have your child bring $5 (per print) to Mrs. Ross’ classroom by Tuesday, October 18 and you will be added to the order.  The order will be placed Tuesday afternoon, so we can’t accept any late orders.  Prints will be sent home in Friday folders once they have been printed.  This is a great memento to add to your student’s memory box.  Thank you for your support!

Weather Expectations at Recess
Please make sure your student has a jacket with them when they come to school.  Fall has definitely arrived (at least for a few days, even in the forecast does have some warmer weather, good ol' Missouri weather, right?).  As a reminder if the "feels like" temperature is below 60, they are expected to wear a jacket.  It is very breezy on our playground and even when they are running around the kids can get chilly.

RBE Literacy Night
Emily Arrow will be performing at an RBE Literacy Night.  She will be giving a concert for RBE families,  faculty and staff on December 7.  This event will take place at Woodcrest Church to accommodate for all our families.  This event was planned by Mrs. McKinzie, Mrs. Selle and Mrs. Godier for RBE families and sibilings of RBE students so they too can enjoy Emily Arrow.  Due to seating capacity, this event is only open to RBE families.  It is free of charge.  I will let you know what time the concert will take place closer to the event.

Math Posters
The students finished up "working for" the T-Shirt factory by creating a poster to show how they added up the total number of t-shirts.  We had a discussion that they haven't learned how to stack and regroup when adding, so they had to use another strategy.  Some groups used place value blocks, while other groups grouped the hundreds, tens and ones and then added.  The pictures below show them presenting their posters.

Picnic
Even though Bird Day was postponed, we still enjoyed a picnic in the classroom.

Summaries
We have continued to work on summaries this week using the strategy of Somebody, Wanted, But, So, Then.  After your student reads at night, I encourage you to have them summarize what they read.  They may not have all parts depending on how long they read, but they should be able to identify what their character wanted and a problem the character had in the book.  Today, they wrote a summary independently about Three Hens and a Peacock which is a very funny book.  :)  It was interesting to read the different summaries because some students wrote about the Peacock and others wrote about the three hens.

Adjectives
We have been working on adjectives last week and this week.  The students have learned that adjectives describe a noun.  The students identified adjectives of items in the classroom and then created a Word Cloud (http://www.abcya.com/word_clouds.htm) with all the adjectives that describe the items.  In a Word Cloud, words that are used more often appear larger.  We then created a large poster with the Word Clouds and pictures of the items.  The poster is hanging across from our room so if you're in the building, check it out!

Have a wonderful evening!
Mrs. Ross

Happy Friday!

We had a wonderful Friday, but fall is definitely here.  It was CHILLY at recess today!

Lots of important information in this post, please take the time to read it :)

Next Week's Learning
Math

• Next week, we will continue working on skip counting.  We will focus on skip counting by 4, 5, and 10.  The students have done a fabulous job identifying patterns as they skip count.
• We will also continue working on money.  We will work on applying their knowledge of skip counting to money.  If you have change at home, it would be great practice to have your student count it.  
• Please continue to practice basic facts at home.  We have some students that are very close to becoming math wizards.  :)

Reading

• We will start working on summarizing next week.  We will use the strategy of Somebody Wanted But So Then.  The somebody is the character, then what they wanted, but there was a problem, so they solved the problem and then what happened at the end.  This allows students to include the important parts of the story, but not include too many details.  We will discuss that a summary tells what the story is about but isn't a full retell of the story.
• 

Writing

• This week, we identified our 3 main events.  Next week, we will start adding details to each event.  If we get all our details included, we will learn the different types of endings of a story.  The students worked very hard on their beginnings this week.  We are going very slowly with this personal narrative so the students know all the necessary parts.  

Word Study

• Next week, we will work on short and long i words.  These words will follow the same pattern as this weeks words.  The short vowel words are CVC (consonant vowel consonant) words and the long vowel words are CVCe (consonant vowel consonant e) words.
• Short i words are stick, gift, rich, swim, thin
• Long i words are five, life, nine, prize, drive

Social Studies

• We will be comparing two books next week Gloria for President and Duck for President and discussing the requirements to be president.  We will also be discussing how presidents and other government officials are chosen in the United States (through voting).

Bird Day
We have Bird Day on Wednesday!  The students are excited about the exhibits and activities that will be at Bird Day.  Please make sure your student wear tennis shoes on Wednesday because we will be walking around the Audubon Park.  Also, they will probably want a jacket because we will be outside for a couple hours and the temperatures aren't forecasted to be very warm.

Please remember your student needs to bring a lunch from home (unless you requested a lunch from school).  Please remember everything in the lunch (including the bag) will be thrown away at the park.  Please put their lunch in a Ziploc bag with their name on it.  If you don't have a bag, I have some at school.  Also, please no glass containers.  We will have our snack in the afternoon on Wednesday, so if they want a snack, they need to keep it in their backpack so we can have them in the afternoon.

Bird Beak Lab
In preparation for Bird Day, we did a bird beak lab today.  The students tested out different "beaks" on different types of bird seed.  They learned that a straw is similar to the beak of a hummingbird,  tongs are similar to beaks that are used to crack open seeds, slotted spoons are similar to a duck's bill because they scoop up water and plants and the water seeps out and they eat the plants, then tweezers are similar to beaks of birds that pull insects out of trees.  The students enjoyed getting to "be birds" this morning as they learned about beaks.   Here are some pictures.  :)

Adjectives and Adjective Parade
This week the students learned about adjectives and learned that they describe a noun.  They brought in objects today and other students used adjectives to describe the objects.  Then we created a Word Cloud of all the adjectives.  That is the first picture below.

In your student's Friday Folder you will find a form (link here) about our Adjective Parade.  On October 28, students can wear one item (hat, shirt, etc.) that represents an adjective.  They will wear their adjective around their neck throughout the day.  We will parade around for the other 2nd grade classes to see.  As it says in the sheet, this is not a Halloween costume, no masks and no make up please.  Also, the student needs to be bale to explain their adjective and how their item (hat, shirt, etc.) represents their adjective.  This will be a very fun way for students to show their understanding of adjectives.  If your student needs help creating their item for the parade, please let me know.

Chicken BBQ
In your student's Friday folder is a preview of some of the items available at the Chicken BBQ Silent Auction.  There are some fabulous items!  A copy of all the items will come home next Wednesday.  I will also post a copy of the list on the blog once it becomes available.  As part of the auction, you will be able to purchase a print of the entire 2nd grade for $5.  It will be printed the week after the BBQ and then put in Friday folders once the prints arrive.

If you would like to purchase tickets in advance and you haven't, you can send in your order next week.  Tickets are also available for purchase at the BBQ or through the Drive Thru.  This is PTA's big fundraiser and they do so much for our school.  Thank you in adance for your support.

Recess Attire
As it gets colder, please make sure your student is wearing or brings warm clothes for recess.  It was 52 degrees when we went outside this morning but felt a lot cooler.  The kids definitely came in with red noses and red cheeks.

As always, thank you so much for the wonderful support from home!

Have a fabulous weekend!

Mrs. Ross