Happy Friday!

Happy Ugly Sweater Friday!

Wow!  We were quite impressed with the holiday sweaters and outfits today.  It's amazing how kids can make ugly sweaters look cute.  :)

It's crazy to think that next Thursday is our last day of school before Winter Break.  There is information below about special activities planned for next week as well as our learning for after break.

We will not send home Friday folders next week.  Sometimes they get lost over long breaks.  :)

Important Upcoming Dates

• Wednesday, December 19: Grinch Day
• Students may dress as their favorite Grinch character.
• We have fun Grinchy activities planned.
• Thursday, December 20
• Library Check Out (please make sure students have their library books)
• PJs for Positives Day
• Students may wear PJs to celebrate our first 100 positive office referrals before the 100th day of school.
• Please make sure they have shoes for recess and their pajamas will keep them warm.  
• Winter Party at 1:45 p.m.
• https://www.signupgenius.com/go/30e0b4fa5ac2eab9-winter
• 
  
• Friday, December 21-January 2: Winter Break
• Thursday, January 3: School Resumes

Student Bragging!

• Our goal is for 80% of the students to get 80% or better when we give an assessment.  We don't expect all students to get 100% as we all have off days or need some clarification on a topic.
• We took the STAR Reading winter benchmark this week and ALL the students' scores have gone up since the beginning of the year!  We know the students are growing as reader and it is always nice to see that carry over.
• On the Mid Year Assessment in math which covers all the topics from 2nd grade so far (it's long and covers a lot), 85% of the students received an 80% or better.  
• We bragged earlier this week, but will brag again over 80% of the students received an 80% or above on their Unit 4 math assessment over time, measurement and place value.  ALL the students showed huge growth in this unit.  It is amazing to be writing the pre and post test scores on the cover sheet and see their huge improvement!

Our Learning After Break

Math

• We will be continuing with Unit 5.  This unit reviews money and introduces making change.  It also covers word problems and various strategies and models to solve the problems.  The students ROCKED the pretest over Unit 5 so we will be pushing them even more with explanations and variety of ways to solve a problem.  One thing to continue to work on at home is basic addition and subtraction facts.  As we get into harder addition and subtraction problems, we don't want them to get hung up on the basic facts.
• The students all did very well on our time unit, but this is not a skill that we will hit much more this year.  We will continue touching on it here and there, but please continue practicing telling time at home.  It can be something as simple as randomly having your student look at the clock and tell you the time.

Writing

• We started writing our informational piece this week.  The goal is to have the rough draft written before break.  It all depends on scheduling as to whether this happens.  :)
• When we return from break, we will pick up where we left off.  They will finish writing if needed, then edit and revise their writing and then publish.  With their informational writing, they will also be including text features in their books.  This will help their reader understand more about the topic.

Fundations

• We are in the middle of Unit 7 which introduces open syllable words.  We are continuing to review all syllable types as we introduce new ones.
• We will wrap up Unit 7 after break and start Unit 8.  Unit 8 covers r controlled vowels.  
• Please continue practicing the trick words at home.  These are words the students just have to memorize.

Science/Social Studies

• The students became an expert on volcanoes, floods or earthquakes this week and were able to teach classmates about their topic.  We will also be learning about landslides before break.
• After break, we will switch back to social studies.  We will be focusing on geography for the month of January.  They will be identifying landforms and creating maps to show the landforms.

Reading

• We finished learning about text features this week.  They will use these text features in the publishing of their informational writing.
• When we get back from break, we will briefly review the concepts we have covered in the first half of the year.  Then we will move on to making connections between different books as well as between books and events occurring in the world.  

Have a fabulous weekend!

Mrs. Ross