November14th-18th

Hello Parents and Students,

     Thanksgiving Break is fast upon us.  Please keep in mind when you make your holiday plans that we do have school next Monday and Tuesday (but not Wednesday-Friday).  While we will only be in school for two days next week I still plan on having your student work very hard on some critical thinking questions as well as reading passages.
     This week in Math we are continuing to work on word problems that come in multiple steps.  This is a time when math can become very difficult for your student without them realizing it.  Two step questions may seem to give the reader too much information when in fact every little items is important.  I have already seen more than a few students get mixed up.  When doing homework, please remind your student to slow down are read the question twice.  Then develop a plan for how they will attack the problem.  It is also critical that every student show their work.  I have seen some students write just the one step for the solution but it is critical that they show all of their work so I can see their thinking and fix any problems that I see.  I would like to send a Kuddo's to all of the students that continue to do their Math Stars!  I have not been blind to who does them and how often.  Math Stars is a terrific extension opportunity for all of the students.  Please encourage you child to try at least one or two of them.
     For Reading and Writing we are going to working on our Non-fiction texts and research.  We will be exploring life for the Pilgrims and hopefully creating some indian/pilgrim village maps (SS objectives), writing some journal entries from the perspective of an indian/pilgrim (Writing obj), and reading various books about them (Reading obj).  As you can see, there is a lot of synergy in Second Grade!
     Major events coming up... 
            *Book Fair Family Night-Tuesday, November 15th from 4:30-6:30
                (We buy our books as a class on Friday from 12:45-1:15pm)
            *Hunter Orchestra Concert-Wednesday, November 16th @ 7pm
            *Hunter Band Concert-Thursday, November 17th @ 7pm
            *Raleigh Christmas Parade-Friday, November 19th @ 9:30am...look for me on the Falcon
                         Engineering Float kids:)
            *Class Thanksgiving Activities, Tuesday, November 22nd

**Also, December is the month where all 2nd grade classrooms will be collecting canned goods for the Hunter Food Pantry.  The food pantry provides food for over 50 families each weekend through the bookbag buddies program.  Due to the current economic climate more families than ever need our help and yet many of us are in less of a place to help than ever before.  Please consider buying two or three canned/nonperishable food items next time that you are at the store (or Walmart) so that we can share the love with the needy families of our amazing school.