Hello Parents & Students,
It is already the last week of February and we have almost a million things to do this week! Well, it may feel like a million things even if it isn't. This Friday is "Read-Across America Day" in honor of Dr. Seuss's birthday. I am inviting YOU parents into the classroom to read YOUR favorite Dr. Seuss book (mine is The Lorax). Just let me know any twenty minutes window that you are available during the day and I can pencil you in and adjust my plans. This Friday we are also our Jump Rope for Hearts celebration "Jump In." Our time is 2:50 pm-3:30pm so if you have any transportation changes please be sure to let me or your child know by Friday morning. Also, all Read-A-Thon forms should be submitted by tomorrow for credit. Any forms turned in after tomorrow may result in your child not receiving their prize. Finally, on Wednesday the class is putting Maleficent on trial. The citizens of Kingdom Come have have charged Maleficent with crimes against their beloved Princess Aurora. Every student in class has a part to play as this drama unfolds. Please make sure that on Wednesday your child is dressed for their part.
Reading News-This week we are continuing to study personal narratives. We are starting the week by learning about Annie Oakley and how she overcame gender stereotypes to capture the hearts of millions. Your child will also learn more about Sojourner Truth and Harriet Tubman and Dred Scott. Particularly we are looking at their personalities and the qualities that they had and demonstrated by their actions. All of these famous African Americans contributed greatly to the founding of Black History Month and I know how sad we all are to see it end. Be sure to keep the learning going at home by taking your child to the library on weekends and holiday breaks so that they can become intrinsically motivated to learn!
Writing News- Your student is plugging along on their own Personal Narrative. It is my hope that by looking at various other personal narratives your child is able to accurately tell about their lives or a major event in their life. The main concept I am evaluating for in their work is indenting, punctuation, and supporting details. Stretching "It was a nice day" into "Sunday was a nice day because it was sunny and seventy degrees" is only one example of what your child should be able to do by the end of this activity. Please continue to encourage them at home by asking them probing questions.
Science Update- Today was our "High Touch/High Tech" field-trip. Your student went fishing, made ice cream, and created our own "chemical reactions." Do not be surprised if your student wants to create a lot of concoctions at home over the next week. This field-trip is a great segway into our new Science Unit on Matter. In class we will be mixing gravel, toilet paper, salt, and water to analyze what changes these items go through. We will also learn words like "exo-thermic" and "endothermic."
Math- We have been working so hard on subtraction and using extended notation to help us understand regrouping over the last week and a half. This week we will be practicing subtraction with word problems and having our Unit 9 test on Thursday! Friday we will spend reviewing items that we did not test well on so that we can begin our new unit next Monday. Please have your student get a good nights rest on Wednesday night so that they are well rested and ready to show me how brilliant they are.
Fundations- Our Unit 6 assessment is coming up this Wednesday!!! It seems like we have finally mastered our skills from Unit 6 and are ready to head into Unit 7. Unit 7 includes open syllables, y as a vowel, combining open syllables with closed and v-e syllables, y, ly, ty suffixes. Some sample words include: no, music, relate, cry, baby, and chilly. Some trick words we will be looking at are: why, large, change, every, family. Your Unit 7 Fundations packet is coming home today in the Monday Folder!
Final Thoughts-Next week is our Author Visit by Tom Birdseye. He will be in school on Monday and Tuesday of next week. Today a notice is coming home regarding a bagel meet and greet with Mr. Birdseye. On Friday, your student is invited to wear a hat (funky or not) to celebrate Dr. Seuss's birthday. We will still be having Math-Tiles on Friday from 1:40pm to 2:40pm.
*Thank you all for the help you do with your child each and everyday at home. We are almost 3/4 of the way through the year however we still have so many more fun things to learn. If you have any questions or concerns please feel free to email me at gharvey@wcpss.net. Have a terrific week!
Monday, February 27, 2012
Monday, February 13, 2012
Feb. 13th-17th
Hello Students & Parents,
Burr, is it cold in here or what? I suppose the Groundhog was right after all. We are already halfway through the exciting "Healthy Heart/Black History Month" month and there is still so much more to learn and do. Please read below to find out the "411" regarding the learning and activities for this week.
To start with, this week we are working on Literacy Activities regarding No Flying in the House. Your student will write about their favorite character (and explain why with supporting details from the text), answer higher level thinking questions, and analyze vocabulary choices from the text in an effort to "dig deeper" into our Read Aloud. In small reading groups the H.H. (that's Harvey's Heroes) will continue to analyze what we read so that we can make text-to-text and text-to-world connections. We will also continue to practice generating inferences based on what we read. A little shout out of sorts should go to Annabeth and Ava for using inferences to deduce who Annabel Tippens mother and father was in No Flying in the House. If you haven't heard of that story then please ask your child
In Spelling, we are continuing to work on Unit 6 and reviewing our syllable breaks as well as our vowel teams. The "oi," "au," and "ue" continue to give many students trouble so please be sure to monitor your students' understanding regarding those. We will be using many of the words from Unit 6 in our writing for the next few weeks so now is the time to learn them for good. In Writing, we will also continue to work on our indenting (we are about 75% proficient in that) as well as using proper nouns (50%) and elaborate detail (50%). I hope to have all of the students at 100% proficiency by the end of the quarter!
As for Math, we are jumping into subtracting two digit numbers. We will be using this skill with time, money, and basic word problems. Many of the numbers will not involve regrouping but there will be a touch of that. Please make sure that your student becomes comfortable with showing their work. It helps me to monitor their understanding of skills if I can see what your student is thinking. Many times, students forget that when subtracting a number such as 100-47 the middle 0 becomes a 9 whereas the 0 on the right becomes a 10. Little things such as this can be the hardest to master. Please keep a watchful eye on your student as they practice this skill in their homework.
Finally, in Science we are beginning to study "Changes" in our matter Unit as well as continue to learn about traditions such as Valentines, Black History Month, and next week Mardi Gras. With changes, please do not be surprised to find some "seemingly random" homework assignments. The best way for students to get hands-on learning is through supervision at home. This allows for topics covered in class to be performed independently at home. If you have any questions, please feel free to email me.
I look forward to another exciting week with your student!
- Mr.H
Don't Forget...
*Tonight at 6pm is a PTA Meeting in the Media Center at 6pm
*Tomorrow is The Harvey Heroes Heart Healthy Valentines Day Celebration starting at 11:50am (snacks) and crafts at 12:20pm
*Friday is an Early Release Day-students leave at 1:15pm
*Monday (the 20th) is Presidents Day-No School
*Tuesday (the 21st) is a Teacher Workday-No School
Burr, is it cold in here or what? I suppose the Groundhog was right after all. We are already halfway through the exciting "Healthy Heart/Black History Month" month and there is still so much more to learn and do. Please read below to find out the "411" regarding the learning and activities for this week.
To start with, this week we are working on Literacy Activities regarding No Flying in the House. Your student will write about their favorite character (and explain why with supporting details from the text), answer higher level thinking questions, and analyze vocabulary choices from the text in an effort to "dig deeper" into our Read Aloud. In small reading groups the H.H. (that's Harvey's Heroes) will continue to analyze what we read so that we can make text-to-text and text-to-world connections. We will also continue to practice generating inferences based on what we read. A little shout out of sorts should go to Annabeth and Ava for using inferences to deduce who Annabel Tippens mother and father was in No Flying in the House. If you haven't heard of that story then please ask your child
In Spelling, we are continuing to work on Unit 6 and reviewing our syllable breaks as well as our vowel teams. The "oi," "au," and "ue" continue to give many students trouble so please be sure to monitor your students' understanding regarding those. We will be using many of the words from Unit 6 in our writing for the next few weeks so now is the time to learn them for good. In Writing, we will also continue to work on our indenting (we are about 75% proficient in that) as well as using proper nouns (50%) and elaborate detail (50%). I hope to have all of the students at 100% proficiency by the end of the quarter!
As for Math, we are jumping into subtracting two digit numbers. We will be using this skill with time, money, and basic word problems. Many of the numbers will not involve regrouping but there will be a touch of that. Please make sure that your student becomes comfortable with showing their work. It helps me to monitor their understanding of skills if I can see what your student is thinking. Many times, students forget that when subtracting a number such as 100-47 the middle 0 becomes a 9 whereas the 0 on the right becomes a 10. Little things such as this can be the hardest to master. Please keep a watchful eye on your student as they practice this skill in their homework.
Finally, in Science we are beginning to study "Changes" in our matter Unit as well as continue to learn about traditions such as Valentines, Black History Month, and next week Mardi Gras. With changes, please do not be surprised to find some "seemingly random" homework assignments. The best way for students to get hands-on learning is through supervision at home. This allows for topics covered in class to be performed independently at home. If you have any questions, please feel free to email me.
I look forward to another exciting week with your student!
- Mr.H
Don't Forget...
*Tonight at 6pm is a PTA Meeting in the Media Center at 6pm
*Tomorrow is The Harvey Heroes Heart Healthy Valentines Day Celebration starting at 11:50am (snacks) and crafts at 12:20pm
*Friday is an Early Release Day-students leave at 1:15pm
*Monday (the 20th) is Presidents Day-No School
*Tuesday (the 21st) is a Teacher Workday-No School
Friday, February 3, 2012
Feb. 6th-10th
Hello Parents!
Well, Sir Walter Raleigh and all of his groundhog buddies said it will be winter for the next 6 weeks...so please make your child aware of the high each day so that they can discuss whether it is higher or lower than our average weather. We should have a pretty excited discussion on the first day of spring I'm hoping. Aside from that, the big news this week is that (drum roll please) there is NO HOMEWORK (except to read for 20 minutes each night) so please take this time to have your student PRACTICE YOUR MATH FACTS.
This week we are going to start learning about "Changes" in Science. Over the next few weeks we will explore the various states of matter and how they can change. We will create some mixtures as well as solutions. It should be a very exciting unit. To kick start it, we are going to learn about digestion the first half of the week. We will learn how digestion begins in the mouth and how our solid food changes state and becomes a liquid and then a solid again. The second half of the week the students will be learning about the heart (an intergration with Healthy Heart Month). We will learn about the role of the heart and its importance to the human body while at the same time learning about how the vitamins in our food is transfered to our cells. Your child may have plenty of questions so consider this a warning.
In Math, we are going to spend some more time on fractions. Specifically, we are going to explore fractions through cutting apples (Heart Health) and fraction sticks. We will also be intergrate some literacy into Math time through reading fraction related books. All in all, it should be pretty exciting time!
In Reading, we will dive into letter format so that we can prepare to write to our friend Gavin McLamb who moved to Oklahoma this past Friday (also because it is a 3rd quarter objective). We are going to jump into the concept my reading a Toot and Puddle book entitled Wish You Were Here. Independantly, we will continue to work on researching non-fiction topics by learning about various Peguins.
That is about all I have to say for the moment. Please continue to send in "Box Tops" for education which runs through this week. Also, all Yearbook orders are due by Feb. 13th or the price will rise by a few dollars. Please don't wait! Please also pay attention to following announcements so that you are "in the know." Finally, I will not be in school all of text week so if you email me and do not hear back from me please do not take it personally. I have made arrangements for Mrs. Hollaran to substitute for me and she is AMAZING. All of my supplies are arranged in order and things should run smoothly. If there are any concerns please let anyone on the Second Grade team know and I am sure they will work to remedy it. Mrs. Tympkin can be reached at jtymkin@wcpss.net
Don't Forget
PTA General Membership Mtg.
Hunter Media CenterFeb 13, 2012 6:00pm
EARLY RELEASE
Feb 17, 2012 1:15pm
TEACHER WORKDAY
Feb 20, 2012 8:45am
Well, Sir Walter Raleigh and all of his groundhog buddies said it will be winter for the next 6 weeks...so please make your child aware of the high each day so that they can discuss whether it is higher or lower than our average weather. We should have a pretty excited discussion on the first day of spring I'm hoping. Aside from that, the big news this week is that (drum roll please) there is NO HOMEWORK (except to read for 20 minutes each night) so please take this time to have your student PRACTICE YOUR MATH FACTS.
This week we are going to start learning about "Changes" in Science. Over the next few weeks we will explore the various states of matter and how they can change. We will create some mixtures as well as solutions. It should be a very exciting unit. To kick start it, we are going to learn about digestion the first half of the week. We will learn how digestion begins in the mouth and how our solid food changes state and becomes a liquid and then a solid again. The second half of the week the students will be learning about the heart (an intergration with Healthy Heart Month). We will learn about the role of the heart and its importance to the human body while at the same time learning about how the vitamins in our food is transfered to our cells. Your child may have plenty of questions so consider this a warning.
In Math, we are going to spend some more time on fractions. Specifically, we are going to explore fractions through cutting apples (Heart Health) and fraction sticks. We will also be intergrate some literacy into Math time through reading fraction related books. All in all, it should be pretty exciting time!
In Reading, we will dive into letter format so that we can prepare to write to our friend Gavin McLamb who moved to Oklahoma this past Friday (also because it is a 3rd quarter objective). We are going to jump into the concept my reading a Toot and Puddle book entitled Wish You Were Here. Independantly, we will continue to work on researching non-fiction topics by learning about various Peguins.
That is about all I have to say for the moment. Please continue to send in "Box Tops" for education which runs through this week. Also, all Yearbook orders are due by Feb. 13th or the price will rise by a few dollars. Please don't wait! Please also pay attention to following announcements so that you are "in the know." Finally, I will not be in school all of text week so if you email me and do not hear back from me please do not take it personally. I have made arrangements for Mrs. Hollaran to substitute for me and she is AMAZING. All of my supplies are arranged in order and things should run smoothly. If there are any concerns please let anyone on the Second Grade team know and I am sure they will work to remedy it. Mrs. Tympkin can be reached at jtymkin@wcpss.net
Don't Forget
PTA General Membership Mtg.
Hunter Media CenterFeb 13, 2012 6:00pm
EARLY RELEASE
Feb 17, 2012 1:15pm
TEACHER WORKDAY
Feb 20, 2012 8:45am
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