Mrs. Ross's Classroom Blog: Happy Friday!

This week has been a different type of week and we have found out the importance of routines this week! We have been focusing on re-establishing expectations throughout the day.

A shout out to the kiddos and Mrs. Neale for making us feel so loved! We were kicked out of our room today and when we we came back we had a surprise in store for us...checkout our super sweet surprise below! We can't wait to get laminated and hung in our classroom!

Happy School Counselor Week

We are very lucky to have Mr. Smith as our school counselor. This week is School Counselors Week, so the students made a banner for him.

Special Things Happening

Over the next couple of weeks we have a variety of special things happening!

Parent/Teacher Conferences & Book Fair

We have had wonderful parent/teacher conferences this week and are looking forward to meeting with everyone else next week! The Book Fair will open next week! I got a teacher preview this afternoon and there are a lot of variety of books - that I know that the kiddos will LOVE! I hope that you plan a time to come and check it out!

Monday 2/12 7:30 AM-5:00 PM

Tuesday 2/13 7:30 AM-5:00 PM

Wednesday 2/14 7:30 AM-5:00 PM

Thursday 2/15 7:30 AM-7:00 PM

Friday 2/16 8:00 AM -11:00 AM

*Tuesday 2/20 7:30 AM-3:00 PM* -Special Friends and Family Day!

Special Family & Friends Day

Special Family & Friends Day is Tuesday, February 20. On this day family & friends are invited to go to specials with their student's class. Second grade specials are from 1:35-2:25. Mottaz students will start at Music and then go to Media, and Ross students will start at Media and then go to Music. With specials being at the end of the day, if your child's special family and friend would like to take your child to the Book Fair visitors are welcome to arrive at school by 1:15 to take students to the Book Fair. The Book Fair will also be open after school. If your child's special family or friend will be taking your child home at the end of the day, please make sure that you write a note or send us an email!

2nd Trimester Student Banner

As a reminder, continue to bring in your child's Student Banner to your Parent/Teacher Conference. The ones that we have received so far are great! This is a fun way to celebrate all your child's accomplishments over the first two trimesters of school. If you need a new copy of the banner you can click here or email me.

Valentine's Day

I cannot believe that the middle of February is next week and that means Valentine's Day is on Wednesday!

Class Party

Our class party will be on February 14 at 1:45-2:30. If you have not already signed up for party items or to volunteer to assist at a station click here to sign up!

Valentine Exchange

We will have an opportunity to exchange Valentines BEFORE the class party.

If you child will like to participate in exchanging Valentines, there are two options. Your child can exchange with students only in his/her homeroom class (23 students) or with student in both classes (46 students). We only ask that your send Valentines for the entire class - please do not let you child pick & choose who s/he wants to sent Valentines to.
Please do not address the Valentines (do not fill in the "To) and only fill in the the "From" line.
We will be exchanging Valentines BEFORE the party, so please make sure that you send any Valentines with your child at the BEGINNING of the day.

Valentine Mailbox

We will give all students the opportunity to decorate a bag to be their Valentine collector. However, if your child would like to design a Valentine mailbox s/he can. This is not a requirement, but some families enjoy doing this together. If your child would like to have a Valentine Mailbox from home please send it to school Wednesday morning of Valentine's Day (please do not send them in earlier because we do not have space to keep them).

Look At What Happened in Moss World This Week

Math: We started Unit 6 this week. We talked about how to collect data using tally marks, and different ways to display data (pictograph and bar graphs). We also continued to talk about different strategies to solve word problems. Word problems can be a hard concept for second graders because they have to not only pull the important information from the problem, but they also have to figure out how to solve the problem. Below are some examples of how we are working on solving word problems. Next week, we will continue to work on solving word problems.

Writing: The kiddos continued working EXTREMELY hard on their informational writing and almost all the students have finished publishing their writing! We can't wait to have a writing celebration for all their hard work! Next week, we will introduce to the students their second informational writing topic - it's a Who Would Win topic! They will get to choose two of something that are similar (animals, people, countries, etc.)
Reading: We reviewed a variety of comprehension strategies this week through read aloud. Next week, we will focus on identifying the main idea of nonfiction texts.
Word Study: Next week, we are continuing to work on long vowel patterns. We will focus on long e words that have "ee" and "ea." Next week words are: feet, keep, teeth, sweep, week, mean, team, heat clean & weak.
Science: We finished up our ecosystem study this week by having the students create Venn diagrams of two different ecosystems without the headings. Then the student went around and had to try to figure out the missing headings. It was a fun way to end the unit. This paper along with your child's individual exit slip is coming home in your child's Friday Folder - make sure to ask him/her about it this weekend!