Happy Chicken BBQ Eve!

Happy Friday!

I cannot believe that tomorrow is the 60th annual RBE Chicken BBQ!  The BBQ runs from 4:00-8:00 pm.  Remember that you need to park at Rock Bridge High School and a bus will shuttle you over to the elementary school.  I hope to see everyone tomorrow.  Ms. Mottaz & I are working the drive thru from 4:00-6:00.  Be sure to check out the silent auction.  An itemized list came home yesterday with your child about everything that you can bid on.  There are lots of different items!  In the Teacher Town section we have 2 pictures (of the Moss class), 2 crafts (every Moss student created a portion of each craft), and 2 pizza lunch party certificates that you can purchase for your child & a couple of friends.  Below is a preview of the pictures and crafts.

School to Home Communication

There are a variety of ways that we communicate with you on a weekly basis.  The Friday Folder, that comes home on Friday & is returned to school on Monday, is a way that I can share with you specifics about how your child is performing in the classroom.  The other major way that I share out information about what is happening in the classroom is through our weekly blog updates & various emails that I may send out about things.  I really try my best to make the blog and emails full of information that you want to know - so please read through it so you are informed!  If you ever have a question or concern please let me know - email is really the best way to get a hold me!

2nd Grade STEAM Club!

 

2nd grade students have an opportunity to participate in STEAM Club.  Ms. Mottaz & I sponsor STEAM Club and we will meet once a month starting in November.  This club is usually really well received by students and is filled on a first come basis.  A permission slip will be coming home on Monday in your child's Friday Folder - so be on the look out for it!  If this is something that your child is interested in attending, please fill out the permission slip and return as soon as possible.  We take the first 40 students that sign up.  The club will meet from 2:45-3:45.  So for your child to be able to attend, s/he will need to be able to picked up at 3:45.

Fall Pumpkin Book Project

Just a reminder that your child's fall pumpkin book project is due October 24; however, you finish the project before the due date you can send it in with your child.  We already have few pumpkin characters that have made an appearance.  If you have any questions, please let me know!

Fall Harvest Party

The Fall Harvest Party is October 27 from 1:45-2:30.  Kristy Rysdam, has developed a Sign Up Genius for materials that are need for the party.  Please check out the Sign Up Genius by clicking here.  If you are able to come the day of the party we would love to have you! 

Library Checkout

Just a reminder that our library checkout day is Friday.  Please help your child remember to bring back his/her library books every week!  Mrs. McKinzie & Mrs. Wood in the Media Center appreciate this.

Missouri Weather is Changing

You never quite know what type of weather we will be having in Missouri!  This week has had lows in the 40's and highs in the 80's.  Below is an expectation chart that we use at RBE to decide what needs to be worn outside.  If the temperature is at least 60 degrees your child does not need a jacket, but if the temperature is below 60 degrees your child needs a sweatshirt or light jacket.  We have been talking about that it might be easiest to keep one of these items in your child's backpack.

 

October is Bilingual Child Month!

As a celebration of Bilingual Child Month, Ahmad's mom and sister came in today and shared about Libya.  Ahmad's mom read Brown Bear, Brown Bear What Do You See? in Arabic and then his sister read in English.  It was really neat to be able to hear both parts of the story together!  They also made a special sweet bread to share with the class.  Each student also had the opportunity to have his/her name written in Arabic - which is coming home in your child's backpack.  Ahmad also showed off his traditional clothes that are worn in Libya.  It was a great learning experience!

Bird Day Field Trip & Bird Wise

The kiddos had a BLAST on our field trip on Wednesday!  We are so super lucky that the Audubon Society and the CPS Science Department put it on for us. We learned about birds of prey, bird banding, different bird adaptations, and what owl pellets are.  They learned so much!  You can check out the pictures from our Bird Day field trip here.

The Audubon Society is also hosting a Bird Wise learning opportunity at Daniel Boone Regional Library on Sunday.  You can check out the flyer below with information.  This might be a great follow up for your kiddo from the field trip this week!

What's Been Happening in 2nd Grade?

• Math: We are wrapping up Unit 2 on addition strategies and we will be taking our Unit 2 assessment on Tuesday and Thursday next week.  Coming home in your child's Friday Folder are the Home Links for Unit 2.  These are a great resource for you to be able to review with your child on what we have learned during Unit 2.  These Home Links do not need to be returned to school.
• Writing: This week, the students peer edited their writing looking for capitalization and punctuation.  We also taught students about revising and the kiddos worked hard on either adding, removing, moving or substituting words to make their writing the BEST that it can be.  We finished up teacher conferencing with the students on their first small moment (personal narrative) story, and next week we will start publishing this story.  
• Reading: We are still working on identifying and explaining what the story elements are in a book that has been read.  In second grade, when we discuss story elements we are specifically thinking about the characters and their traits, the setting (when and where), the problem and the solution.  We have also been talking about why an author wrote a book.
• Social Studies:  We will continue to discuss and talk about rural and urban.
• Word Study: This week we started to focus on vowel patterns.  Our first vowel pattern that we studied was short and long a.  We learned that "e" is a magic letter that turns a short vowel into a long vowel sound.  Next week we will focus on short o and long o words.  Next week's words are: clock, chop, spot, rock, job, joke, stove, broke, hope, those.

Junior Achievement

Yesterday was our last Junior Achievement time with Mrs. Dent.  We talked about money and played a fun memory game with money.  A certificate is coming home in your child's Friday Folder for completing Junior Achievement, and Mrs. Dent also gave the pencil and a sticker (these are coming home in your child's backpack today).

Book Talks with Mrs. McKinzie

Today Mrs. McKinzie came and shared three books for her October Book Talk.  The books she talked about are below - so you can check them out! :) 

Black and Gold Day!

Next Friday will be Black and Gold day to celebrate MU Homecoming.  If your student would like to participate, they can wear black and gold to school next Friday.

Have a fabulous weekend and I look forward to seeing everyone at the Chicken BBQ tomorrow!

Mrs. Ross

Fabulous Friday!

Happy Friday!

A few reminders!

Wednesday: Bird Day Field Trip (8:45-12), students need a sack lunch

Saturday: Chicken BBQ, Ms. Mottaz and I will be working the drive thru until 6:00.  Stop by and say hi!

Homework Club

This week we had our first Homework Club celebration.  The students who brought back their homework completed during the last 2 weeks ate lunch in the classroom on Monday.  They were excited to have a little more extra time to eat and enjoy a "Magic School Bus" video as they ate!

Please remember that it is an expectations that students complete 15 minutes of reading, practice their spelling words, and play a math game (online or games provided) or practice math facts for 10 minutes each night.  Please make sure that you are initialing in the literacy spot (for your child completing their reading & spelling homework) and in the math spot (for completing math homework). We are about a month in to weekly homework and overall I feel that it is going well.  Please let me know if you have any questions about homework.

Spirit Day - Western Attire Day!!

Next Friday, October 13, will be Western Attire Day.  Your child can wear western clothes in support of the Chicken BBQ on October 14.  I cannot wait to see all the cowgirls and cowboys that we have on Friday!

Chicken BBQ

We are SO excited for the 60th Annual Chicken BBQ!  

Make sure to check out the items that our class is putting in the Teacher Town section of the Silent Auction!!

• We will have two class photographs that are signed by each of the students.
• We will have two craft projects that are created by all the students.
• We will have two pizza party lunch certificates for the winner and two friends.

Next week, I will send out a blog post (or email) that includes a picture of the items that we will have in Teacher Town - so you will know what to be looking for!

Pizza Party

Yesterday a form came home in your child's homework folder about our end of the trimester pizza party.  At the end of each trimester, we have a pizza party for the students as a celebration of all their hard work. We ask for a one time $5 donation from each student to help cover the cost of the pizza.  We also ask for volunteers to donate chips, healthy side or dessert for the students.   If you have not had a chance to fill out and return this form, please do so by October 20.

Pumpkin Reading Project

Here are some examples:

  

  

 

• Students will get a small (we said between a softball and basketball size) pumpkin to decorate to represent a character from a book. 

• The student is expected to transport the pumpkin themselves, so please make sure they can carry it without assistance. 

• The student needs to decorate the pumpkin at home. 

• Please do not carve the pumpkin, as they rot faster when carved. 

• Students need to complete a short book report on the book.  They need to identify the title, author and character.  They need to describe the character, explain if they liked the character or not. 

• It needs to be about a book the student has read or have had read to them. 

• If the book they are using is from school, they can borrow a copy for the presentation.  You can also check them out at the school library or the public library if you don’t own the book. 

• If you look on Google, there are a lot of other examples.  😊

• If you are not able to get your student a pumpkin, please let me know and I will get them a paper cut out to decorate. 

• The student needs to bring the pumpkin, the short book report and the book to school on October 24^th.  

Bird Day!!

On Wednesday, October 11, we will have our first field trip in 2nd grade!  We will be going to Audubon Bird Park. 

• We will be leaving around 8:30 and returning about 12:30.  
• Clothing: Please make sure your child is dressed appropriately for the weather - we will be outside for the entire field trip so a jacket maybe appropriate for the early morning time.  We will be walking so please have your child wear tennis shoes.
• Lunch: If you selected that you would be sending a lunch with your child that day on the field trip form, please remember that EVERYTHING in the lunch needs to be disposable.  Please send your child's lunch in a gallon size bag with his/her name clearly marked.  If you selected a school lunch, it will be ready for your child that day!

 

Today we had a bird lab to help get ready for our Bird Day field trip.  The students learned about the different adaptations that birds have to help them to survive.  Some of the materials that the kiddos used were tongs, straws, slotted spoons and tweezers to replicate the different type of bird's beaks. The students learned that all birds are not able to eat the same food due to these adaptations.  Click here for pictures from our lab.

Lots of Learning Has Been Happening in 2nd Grade!!

Math

We have continued to learn about different strategies to help us solve simple addition problems.  We have talked about doubles facts (example: 8+8=16) and about near doubles (example: using 8+8 to help solve 8+9).  We have also learned about combinations of tens, different ways to make 10 (example: 4+6) and making 10 (using a combination of ten to solve a problem that's sum is larger than 10 (example: using 4+6 to solve 4+8 by breaking the 8 into a 6 and a 2).  The fifth strategy that we talked about this week is the turn around facts or the commutative property of addition (example: 7+3=10 and so does 3+7).  We also applied what we were learning to writing number stories (word problems) and solving them.

Writing

We have finished up our rough draft of our first small moment (personal narrative)!  The kiddos have worked so incredibly hard on this piece of writing!!  On Thursday, we started the editing process.  The students worked with their writing partner to make sure that all their sentences started with capital letters and ended with a punctuation mark.  We also talked about proper nouns and how the specific name of someone, something or some place needs to be capitalized.  We have started to have student/teacher writing conferences to talk about writing convention goals.  Next week, we will meet with our writing partners again but this time focus on revising (adding, removing, moving or substituting words) to make our writing even better.  On revising day we talk a lot about word choice.  By the end of the week, we will have started writing our final draft!

Reading

This week our reading skill focus has been talking about story elements of books that we read.  When talking about story elements in second grade we focus on the characters (physical description and their traits), the setting (when and where), and the problem/solution.  It is important when talking about the solution of a book that the solution solves the problem of the story (it is related).  Throughout the week we have focused on one these elements in The Gruffalo and on Thursday the students put all their knowledge together and wrote about these elements while we read Hotel Bruce.  Next week, we will continue to work on independently identifying the story elements of various books.  The students will also make a fall story elements tree from a book that has been read!

Word Study

This week was our last week of practicing spelling trick words.  Next week we will start by working on different vowel patterns within words.  Over the next four weeks our focus will be on long and short vowels.  We will first learn that by adding an "e" to the end of a CVC (consonant, vowel, consonant) word that will turn the short vowel sound into a long vowel sound.  I like to call it the "Magic e."  Next week, we will focus on short a and long a, and the spelling words will be: glass, fast, last, snap, sack, make, same, came, page, face.

Social Studies

We started talking about rural and urban communities this week.  The kids drew a mural of what rural and urban means to them and it is hanging in the hallway across from our classroom.  They did a great job with it!  We also had a discussion that there is more of a variety of jobs and more jobs in urban environments; however, some jobs (example: large animal vet) would need to be in a more rural community.  Throughout next week we will continue to talk about rural and urban, but add in suburban.

As a reminder, toys do not come to school unless it is for show & tell for your child's sticker chart or another classroom celebration.  Please help your child make good choices & keep their toys at home.

I hope that you have wonderful weekend!

Mrs. Ross