SPELL CHECK!

I hope everyone had a great weekend! 

I must apologize for all of my misspellings the past couple of weeks! My computer needed a spell check/ grammar update which led to a lot of mistakes in newsletters and even on the most recent spelling list—The test is on Thursday, FebrUAary (not FebrAUry) 28^th. How embarrassing!

Conferences have been going great! It has been so nice visiting with families and sharing the students’ strengths, non-fiction reports, and areas that we continue to work on. Thank you for all of your support this year!

Students are finishing up their non-fiction animal reports! Most students are already finished. Our next step is to create an image of our animal using the Image Making Process. We will write a fictional story about our animal to accompany this picture.

We have been invited to share our animal reports at the school board meeting next Monday, March 4^th at 7:00pm. A letter will be sent home this week about this exciting opportunity. If you and your child are able to attend this meeting, please let me know as soon as possible.

In math, we are working on measuring, finding the median, mode, and range in sets of data, and we continue to practice 2-digit subtraction.

Due to ESL testing and animal reports taking over for most of last week, we are going to continue with the story Frogs this week. Next week we will move on to I Like Where I Am.  

Fun Filled Week

Last week was absolutely crazy! We were busy in room 6 getting ready for Valentine’s Day, working on our animal reports, and preparing for our field trip to Stages Theatre. We also met with our book buddies and continue to fill out hearts for I LOVE TO READ MONTH. We want Mr. Bradley to dye his hair a goofy color!

Our animal reports are coming along! Hopefully we will finish them up this week. Mr. Holvig came and taught us all about the Book Creator App on the ipads that we are using to make our non-fiction books.

Ann Luke came to our classroom and taught us all about the healthy snacks we have been eating at school. Last weeks’ snack was cucumber!

On Valentine’s Day, we saw Diary of a Worm, Spider, and Fly at Stages Theatre. It was FABULOUS! A big thank you to Alan and Raya’s moms for joining us! When we returned to school, we finished up some math that we didn’t get to on Wednesday, played Valentine Bingo and passed out our valentine treats.

Today, we continued working on our animal reports and Unit 7 in math. Students learned a new game called “Hit the Target”. It was a lot of fun!

FIESTA BINGO SUCCESS

Happy Weekend!

This past week was FILLED with CogAt tesing! The students took 2 tests a day and finished up on Wednesday. We have officially finished turning our notes into sentences for our animal reports. Next week, students will begin using the Image Making Process to create a cover for their book. We will also be using the iPads to take pictures of our animals and import them into the BookCreator app. We will also begin adding our text.

Yesterday, students met with their Kindergarten Book Buddies! We have also been filling out hearts for every book we read. Our class read 55 books this past week! Hearts can be filled out for books read at home as well. Please have your child write down the title of the books they read and they can fill out hearts when they get to school. If students k-4 read 2,500 books in February, Mr. Bradley will dye his hair the color students choose.

Next week, we will NOT have a spelling test. Thursday is going to be filled with guidance in the morning with Ms. Casmer, our field trip to Stages Theatre Company, and our Valentine celebration. I don’t want to rush giving the tests and want the students to be able to take their time when taking there spelling test.

Last night was Fiesta Bingo Night. WHAT AN AMAZING TURN OUT!!! I had so much fun talking with the kids and families outside of the classroom! Thank you to all who came!

Ms. Maczko in 2nd Grade

Happy Monday!

  Last Friday, we had a great time at the MIA! The students got to see the artwork that Joshton’s mom had brought into our classroom through Art Adventure. We also had our “I love to read” month kick-off. If Moreland students read 2,500 or more books in the month of February, Mr. Bradley agreed to dye his hair whatever color the students vote on. My vote is green J For every book the students read in class or at home, they will fill out a heart with the title of the book, their name, and grade. Teachers will tally the number of hearts that will hopefully add up to be at least 2,500 books. The class in each grade level that reads the most books will win a Wii Fit Party in their classroom.  Later in February, there will be an “I love to read” spirit week. Look for more details in the future.

  Today, students took the first section of the CogAT assessment. There are three sections of the test so please make sure that your child gets enough sleep at night as well as a good breakfast in the morning. We are looking to be finished with this assessment by Thursday. 

Over the weekend, my mom was cleaning her house and stumbled upon a ton of my work from elementary school. One of the things she gave me happened to be my 2nd grade writing journal. In the journal, I talked about Art Adventures, classroom parties, and everything else that the students this year are doing or have done. I brought in my journals and let the kids check them out. It was fun to see them read the journals and make connections to me at that age. They started to understand that I was in 2nd grade at one point and wrote about very similar things as what they are writing about. 

  Students also signed an "Everyday is Earth Day" Pledge. They agreed to reduce, reuse, and recycle as well as conserve energy and water.

  In writing, we finished writing about our animals’ characteristics and habitat. Most students also finished writing about their animal’s diet. We will hopefully be able to finish writing our sentences this week and begin to look for pictures on the iPads and take pictures to add to our reports. We might also begin the Image Making Process since the kids’ papers for the project are finished. Next week, students will begin to write their report on the iPads to create an end product on iBooks.

  Just a heads-up, this week we will be changing our Book Buddy day to Friday in order to take part of the school-wide Book Buddy day.

BOOK BUDDIES!

Yesterday and today were JAM PACKED! On Wednesday, Joshton’s mom came and taught us about our last two art pieces that we will see tomorrow at the MIA. After, we had Daily 5 reading time then headed to the library to check out new books then returned to the class to finish up our reading block. After lunch we continued practicing the “count up strategy” for 2 digit subtraction. Hopefully the Parent Cheat Sheets helped out at home. J After math, Carol from the Wentworth Library came to promote the  Waggin’ Tails program that the library offers. Students have the opportunity to check out books and read with a dog! Dates for this program are listed outside of our classroom. Soon after Carol left, our brand new kindergarten book buddies came!!! The kids LOVED reading with their new friends and did a great job setting good examples, answering questions, and overall reading to their buddy (ies). We will meet with our book buddies every Wednesday for the last 20 minutes of the day. They can’t wait until next week.

Today, Ms. Casmer came and taught the students about problem solving. Students created “stop lights” that remind them to stop and calm down, think about their choices, and finally make a good choice of how to solve the problem instead of making it bigger.

During Daily 5, students continued to use their checklists that tell me what centers they get to each day. We also did a fun adjective activity! Students drew a picture of themselves with their name below. We then walked around the room and wrote adjectives that describe the person on each paper. The students did a great job and said that they felt special after reading the adjectives that others wrote on their paper. Since our story of the week is The Quilt Story we are going to create a Class Adjective Quilt in the hallway.

In math, we continued to practice 2-digit addition before going to the 1^st grade music program. The students were a wonderful and respectful audience.

Tomorrow we will be going to the MIA in the morning. We will return in time for lunch and some math before we head to the gym for our "I LOVE TO READ MONTH KICK-OFF" Assembly. At the assembly, teachers will read and act out a story. Mrs. Kantola, Ms. Stoffel, and I will present an I Love to Read Challenge to the students along with a special reward if the students meet the goal of reading 2,500 books in the month of February. I love to read month will include a lot of fun events, so watch for updates in our weekly newsletter!

FINALLY, we celebrated Lucas’ birthday today! Tomorrow we will celebrate Alex’s! I can’t believe that I have watched most of this group grow from being nervous and enrgetic  kindergarteners to proud and focused 8 year olds! WOW! J

Zoomers & Twirlers

Happy Tuesday-

On Friday, Students had a blast with the Zoomers during our Balance and Motion Science Unit. Some of the kids got them to work right away while it took others a little while to figure them out. They were tricky! I have a picture of the zoomers on my ipad, but for some reason it doesn't want to upload. 

Also on Friday, our Strawberry reading group performed a Reader’s Theater for the class. It was very funny and opened up a great discussion about bugs, people, and treating others the way we want to be treated.

Students have been working very hard during Daily 5. I have been trying to find a good method of how to keep track of what centers the students get to each day and how to make sure that they get to Read to Self and Word Work every day. Yesterday, I introduced a “Daily 5 Checklist”. Students keep track of the centers they go to by marking the box under the day of the week that correlates with that center. After Daily 5, I go around and check each checklist and make sure that centers were marked. So far, it seems to be working well.

Today, students made Twirlers in Science. We observed how different twirlers move and what makes them move differently.

In writing, we began changing our animal report notes into sentences. Today, we did the characteristics of our animals. Tomorrow, we will focus on the habitat.

Tomorrow Khandy will return and teach the children about 2 more pieces of artwork that they will see at the MIA on Friday. We will also visit the library to check out new books. At 1:30 every Wednesday, starting tomorrow, we will meet with our brand new book buddies! Mrs. Farrell’s kindergarten class will be buddying up with our 2^nd grade class and will read for 20 minutes together. Sometimes, we will have activities and games for the students to play, but the students will mostly be reading together.

Have a wonderful evening!