Thanksgiving

Dear parents,
I am so excited about our "Thanksgiving Fruit Feast" on Nov. 22. This will be a fun opportunity for us to pull in our literacy theme of working together, and our health unit on eating healthy through a "class family dinner" in which we will put together a fruit salad and sit and talk about why we are thankful for each person in the class. Please use the following link to sign up for something to bring on this day:
http://www.signupgenius.com/go/30e094dacae2babf94-thanksgiving.

Thank you very much for all you do to help us create meaningful and memorable classroom experiences!

Common Core Standards

Dear parents,
Many of us have questions about the College and Career Readiness Standards that DoDea is adopting (also known as the Common Core State Standards). While there are challenges to adjusting to a new system, there are benefits to the system. Learn some of the facts about these standards through the following link and video.
http://www.corestandards.org/about-the-standards/myths-vs-facts/ 

Catapaults, Conferences, and Celebrations

Wow! We have a lot going on this week and next week.
This week, students have been creating "candy corn catapaults." We will be using skittles instead of candy corn. On Thursday we will have a test to see which catapault can shoot the farthest. We already have some creative inventions.

Next week, on Wednesday and Thursday, we will be having parent, teacher, student conferences. Students will be preparing to share what they have been learning and how they have been doing in class with you. Therefore, on this day, if it is possible, please bring your child, so we can talk about how he or she has been doing and how we can challenge each child to improve as well.

Finally, before I forget, we would like to thank all the veterans who have served our country as we celebrate Veteran's Day next week. We are grateful for all you do throughout the year and you deserve to be honored every day of the year. Thank you for your service!

I am learning too!

Today, I sat in a professional development meeting and gained knowledge of how to better teach our math standards and incorporate our new math curriculum. However, the most interesting thing I learned completely defies what we learned in our math classes growing up. When I was in second grade, my teacher always emphasized that we shouldn't be using our fingers to do math. However, today I learned that recent research has shown that a better understanding of finger math allows is a predictor of increased success in math skills. Here is an article supporting this research and providing ways in which you can help your child increase their finger knowledge: http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2016/04/why-kids-should-use-their-fingers-in-math-class/478053/

Many events

Dear parents,
As the end of the quarter quickly approaches, along with the end of my favorite month of the year, we have a lot going on at school. In math last week, we made a number chart all the way to 600! We looked at the different patterns and were learning how to count by ones and by tens in the process of putting this work together.
Today (Monday), we took a chapter test and will be going over our answers tomorrow. This test evaluated our understanding of even and odd numbers, place value, and counting by ones, fives, and tens.

For our book-lovers, we have a couple fun events coming up. First, on Wednesday, we have our character parade. On this day, students can dress up as a storybook character. They should also bring the book of the character they have dressed up as, so we know what book they come from. Then, we will march in a parade starting at 12: 10. I encourage you to come out and see all our creative costumes.

Then, on Thursday evening at 5:00-7:00 PM, we will have our trick-or-read evening here at school. This will be a fun event for all.

Finally, we have begun our red ribbon week. Today, we had Colonel Collins sign our school pledge to be drug free. We also talked about what drugs are as a class and discussed how drugs are things that change the way our bodies work. Sometimes (like with medicine used appropriately), this is helpful, other drugs (like chocolate or soda), should be used in moderation, while other drugs are bad for our bodies. We also have a door decorating contest this week in which we will be decorating pledge hands, committing ourselves to be drug free, so we can grow to be healthy, strong, and successful in whatever we choose to do. We are so grateful for the parent who helped us decorate our door.

Apologies

Dear parents,

I apologize for the delay in posting on our class blog. The last couple weeks have been quite busy. I also know many of you are asking about papers we have done in class that you would like to see results from. I am catching up this week on my pile of grading and you will be getting these papers back little by little throughout this week. Again, I apologize for the tardiness in getting these returned home.

The thing I am most looking forward to this week is that we will be studying Christopher Columbus in depth. We will be looking at the contribution he made to society and the reasoning behind having Monday as a holiday this week. However, we will also look at the opposite side and his negative effects on society. We will study why there are groups of people today that would like to get rid of Columbus day as a national holiday and finally write our own opinions on the subject. I am definitely looking forward to the critical thinking students will be doing as they explore this subject. We will also have conversations in our class about how like Columbus, we all have the opportunity to have positive and negative effects on those around us through the actions that we choose.

An Eventful Week

This week there are so many exciting things going on! 

We kicked the week off with a successful day as we demonstrated quality behavior with our substitute teacher. Today, the class also came to school with a note from the pillownapper who stole our beanbag and seat cushions. The pillownapper says they will only return them if we are on our best behavior for the substitute teacher. The class will have a substitute through Wednesday as Mrs. Thomas continues to pull students individually for reading testing. These tests provide excellent data on student reading accuracy, fluency, and comprehension. If you would like to meet after this week to discuss your child's reading skills, feel free to call or email me to set up a conference.

We ended our day with a fantastic Chuseok celebration, with plentiful amounts of food. Thank you all for sending in your delicious treats as well as your helping hands. We could not have done this without you!

Tomorrow evening, I look forward to seeing you at our Open House. You will have the opportunity to see student work, understand a little more about your child's second grade year, and meet other teachers around the school. 

On Thursday, we have some fun in store to go along with our story about Henry and Mudge going camping. Make sure to ask your child about this on Thursday.
Below is a picture of some excellent math words we came up with today to help us solve word problems.

Interesting Conversations

This afternoon we had some interesting conversations in class. We discussed the events of 9/11 and read a paragraph introducing us to the events of that day, and looked at a before and after picture. Students were curious as to why someone would do this, and I explained that some people believe their religion says that they will get rewards in heaven if they kill people that don't follow their religion. This led to a discussion and many questions about heaven, hell, God, and the devil. I tried to share multiple viewpoints and explain that some people believe in God, others do not, while still others believe in many gods. While understanding various religious beliefs may not be part of our core curriculum, these conversations are important for understanding the ideas and background of people who may be different than our own.

After this conversation, we read "14 Cows for America." This book is about a tribe in Kenya who hears about the events of 9/11. They are deeply moved at the tragic events and decide to gift the United States with fourteen cows. This gift was a meaningful symbol, as cows in their culture symbolize life.

Two weeks down

Dear parents,

We learned a lot this week, from adding doubles, to identifying the characters and setting in our reading. As a class, we continue to work on procedures and practicing our class rule of being respectful towards others, our selves, and our school. I was very impressed this week with our first spelling test in which we scored an average of 82.6%. Thank you for all your support from home in helping to study these words as well as complete the rest of the homework this week. We enjoyed listening to students share about their families today.

Starting this week, there are some adjustments to our schedule. I will send home our updated schedule this coming week. We will also be starting to have centers in class this week. This will be an added change to our schedule as well.

As we commemorate 9/11 this weekend, we will be reading books and discussing this event as a class on Monday. It would be meaningful for students to have an understanding of your experiences relating to 9/11. I encourage you to talk to them about where you were, and how this may have impacted your life.

This week, we also celebrate Chuseok. Therefore, there will be no school on Friday. The following Monday, on September 19 we plan to have a small class celebration in the afternoon. If you would be willing to help serve or bring in cultural treats/ snacks for the class, please let me know by Wednesday, Sep. 14.

Finally, some of you will notice that the spelling list has been adjusted for your child. If your child missed a word on their spelling list that was not one of our three hardest words (engine, lettuce, pocket), they will be repeating this as one of their spelling words for next week instead of one of the hard words that are on the list. Please let me know if you have any questions.

Great work!

Dear parents,

Our class worked hard last week on the timelines of our lives. Look at the final product of our work. I would say this was a great success! Please continue working, sharing the stories of your lives with your child, so that we can compare our lives to those of our parents and grandparents. Thank you for all your support from home!

Happy Labor Day!

Dear Parents,

I hope you are having a wonderful labor day weekend! In the link below is some reading about labor day that I encourage you to read with your child. While this is not a class assignment and is geared for students starting 4th grade, it has some great resources for students to learn why we celebrate this public holiday. You may have to copy and paste the url in order to get to the articles.

file:///C:/Users/Erika.Thomas/Downloads/SummerReads-Labor_Day.pdf

Our First Week/ Homework

We had a great first week of school! We learned about each other's lives, how we grow, words with short vowel sounds, Antarctica, our muscles and bones, and our class rule: Show respect to ourselves, others and our school. We worked hard on math and reading assessments and have one more math assessment left for this coming week.

On Friday, I sent home the first homework packet of the year. In it, there is a reading log that needs to be filled out each day. There is also a spelling activities list. Students need to complete one spelling activity each day in order to prepare for our test on Friday. There is also a math sheet with a hundred chart behind it. Monday to Thursday, students need to fill in the column for that day. I will be checking these each day, so please ensure they are complete. This week, as we are learning about family relationships and family history in both Social Studies and Health, I sent home interview questions for homework for the students. The responses for these questions need to be completed by Friday. Please let me know if you have any questions or if your child is spending too much time on this homework and I need to make adjustments.

Timeline project

Dear parents,

We have had an excellent start to our week as we get to know each other and learn procedures for the classroom. On Monday we discussed our one class rule: "Respect yourself, others, and the school." On Tuesday, we discussed ways we can show this respect to the teacher, to our neighbors and to our school building. 

This week, we are working on timelines of our lives. We have begun them in class, but need more ideas to add to our timelines. Please work with your child to complete these timelines by Thursday, Sep. 1, 2016.  

Next week, we will be comparing our lives to those of our parents and grandparents, so please be thinking about stories you can share with your children about your lives and those of your parents.

Thank you for your support,

-Erika Thomas

Welcome to Second Grade!

Dear parents, families, and second grade students,

I am so excited for this coming school year and look forward to all the learning that will happen in our classroom. It was such a joy to meet many of you tonight at the "Meet the Teacher" night. On this blog, you will receive information and pictures of what we are doing in the classroom, as well as other news and announcements. We will also share excellent student work on this page.

I wanted to start out introducing myself. I grew up moving from one country to another with my family. I have an older brother, who now has four beautiful children, and younger sister. I live with my husband and we hope to one day have children of our own. I love delving into adventures through reading, and solving complex problems with math. I have now been teaching for 5 years. My favorite part of teaching is seeing a student struggle to learn something and then get excited when they succeed.

I look forward to working and learning with you all this school year!

-Mrs. Erika Thomas