Week 38

Hello!

We did it! I have a feeling that this week is going to fly by. Monday and Tuesday are regular days, but Wednesday-Friday will be half days. Please pack a decent sized snack for Wednesday and Thursday, as we get out after our normal scheduled lunch time. On Friday, I will be providing pizza and other snacks to celebrate the end of the year! For my summer birthdays, feel free to bring in a treat any day this week and we will celebrate your birthday early!

If you purchased a yearbook, you may bring it in Wednesday-Friday to get signatures. For those of you who did not pre-order one, but would like a yearbook, the front office is still selling them!

Here is what we will be doing this week:

Literature: Reader's theaters

Spalding: We will be practicing our phonograms and handwriting this week. We will copy a poem in our best manuscript and cursive handwriting, while I do individual OPRs (oral phonogram review). No spelling words this week!

Grammar: Parts of speech review!

Math: Geometry continued - forming basic shapes and making shapes from circles

History: We are finishing up our unit on Civil Rights leaders. We will end it by studying Cesar Chavez!

Science: On Tuesday, we will do another PEEP STEM project. :)

Miscellaneous: We have our last assembly tomorrow (Monday) morning! We will begin cleaning out our desks on Thursday but will also have more to bring home on Friday. If your child will not be here on Friday, please let me know so I can make sure that they get everything early! Thank you!

School Supply Kits

Please visit this site to order school supply kits for next year!

The deadline to order is May 27th (next Friday).

Week 37

Only two more weeks! We're done with DIBELS, took our last Singapore test, and this week we will be taking our end of year Galileo assessment! This will be on Thursday, and we will take both the Math and English Language Arts tests. Please give your child a hearty breakfast and pack a fortifying snack!

Here's what's happening the rest of the week:

Literature: We finished Little House in the Big Woods, so we will wrap up our lap books and do some readers' theaters this week! We will also begin book report presentations!

Spalding: 29 words this week - test on Friday! 

Monday: enclose, await, suppose, wonderful, forward, backward, toward, although, prompt, attempt
Tuesday: who, who's (who is), whose, statement, state, perhaps, their, they, imprison
Wednesday: written, writ, arrange, ankle, appears, bracelet, brace, breathe, breath, calm

Writing/Grammar: We're finishing up our letters to the future second graders. This week we will edit them and then write the final draft on nice stationary to give them.

Math: This week we're studying geometry. We will be counting faces, vertices, and edges on different 3-D shapes.

History: In History, we're finishing up the year by studying Civil Rights leaders. This week we will learn about Susan B. Anthony, Mary McLeod Bethune, Eleanor Roosevelt, Jackie Robinson, Rosa Parks, and Martin Luther King, Jr.!

Science: We have some fun things planned for Science this week. I stocked up on Peeps when they were on sale, so we will be doing some STEM projects with them. :) We will figure out how to create a peep catapult launcher and a peep puff mobile!

Poem: We will recite "Harriet Tubman" this week.

Miscellaneous: On Wednesday, our special is P.E., so be sure to pack/wear athletic shoes!

Have a great week! :)

Week 36

Wow! Can you believe that there are only 3 weeks left?! We are in the home stretch!

I want to say a big thank you for all the little treats this past week! Ms. Carnahan and I really appreciated them. :)

A second thank you to all the moms who came on Friday. It meant a lot to our second graders to have you there.

Third, congrats to all of our scholars in 2A for a successful DIBELS test! Everyone did their best reading on this test, and I am very proud of them. We have another big week coming up - In math we will be reviewing all week long, and on Friday, we will take our Singapore end of year math test! Please make sure your child gets plenty of sleep Thursday night and has a hearty breakfast on Friday, as we will take this test early in the morning. Here is what's on the agenda for the rest of our subjects:

Literature: We are nearing the end of Little House in the Big Woods - we will be reading chapters 12 and 13 this week and continuing work on our foldables. Please continue reading from your classic book at home and plan to report to the class next week - if you cannot finish the book, be prepared to just talk about the parts that you did read. :)

Spalding: 32 words this week - Spelling Test on Friday! 

Monday: either, effort, due, dew, include, allow, position, ledge, claim, primary, result
Tuesday: appoint, information, whom, who, arrest, themselves, self, calves, calf, halves, half
Wednesday: special, specific, present (noun), present (verb), action, act, justice, just, gentleman, gentle

Writing/Grammar: narration and dictation exercises from Peter Pan. We will work on a pre-writing map and rough draft for a letter to the future second graders.

Math: Math facts and review all week - Singapore end of year test on Friday!

History: We are finishing up our Immigration and Citizenship unit and will test on Friday. I know Friday is a big day already, so this will be a mini test. Study guides will go home Monday and we will review in class on Wednesday. We also have a fun "melting pot" activity on Wednesday that requires a small homework assignment. Please bring in a small piece of chocolate to be melted - this can be milk chocolate, dark chocolate, white chocolate...as long as it can be melted down. :)

Science: We are continuing on in our biography unit and are learning about Daniel Hale Williams this week. He was one of the first doctors to perform open heart surgery in the United States.

Poem: Harriet Tubman - last stanza! We will recite next week!

Miscellaneous: Healthy Snack Day is on Thursday - please pack a fruit or vegetable! I would also like to have a Flashlight Friday this Friday to relax and celebrate after our tests are done. Feel free to bring in a pillow, flashlight, and favorite book to read!

Thank you! Happy Mother's Day! Enjoy your Sunday!

Week 35

Good evening,

I hope everyone had a great R&R 3-day weekend! This week we have a couple of very important things. We will be doing our DIBELS reading assessment all week long to test for reading fluency and comprehension. We also have the Mother's Day Tea on Friday from 8:15-9:15! Feel free to come on in at 8 and check in after dropping your child off. We will head downstairs and meet you as soon as our morning announcements are done and attendance is taken. :)

Here's what we have this week:
Literature: We will read chapters 10 and 11 in reading groups and will work on our foldables.

Spalding: There are 28 words this week - Test on Friday!

Monday: select, connection, connect, firm, region, religion, convict, private, command
Tuesday: debate, crowd, factory, publish, represent, term, section, relative, relate
Wednesday: progress, progress, entire, president, preside, famous, fame, serve, estate, remember

Writing/Grammar: Our writing with ease selection this week is from Dr. Doolittle. We will apply what we have learned about paragraph writing to recap a narration passage from this story.

Math: This week we have a very short unit on graphs! We will discuss tally graphs, picture graphs, and bar graphs. Lesson 1 Test on Thursday and Lesson 2 Test on Friday!

History: We are continuing on in our Immigration and Citizenship unit and learning about 3 very successful immigrants: Andrew Carnegie, Albert Sabin, and Irving Berlin.

Science: In Science, we are learning about biographies. Last week we learned about Elijah McCoy. This week we will study Florence Nightingale!

Touch Pebbles: Text - Narcissus - Goals: Students will differentiate between listening to another person and hearing what one wants to hear.

Idiom: "the real McCoy!"

Poem: Harriet Tubman (to be recited in two weeks!)

Have a wonderful week and we look forward to seeing you moms on Friday!

Week 34

Good evening! We are reaching the end of April, which means we only have one more month after this week! This is a short week - there is no school on Friday, and it's R&R, which means no homework. :)

Literature: Little House in the Big Woods continued - we're learning about how to make maple syrup and identifying animal tracks!

Spalding: There are only 20 words this week - Test on Thursday!

Monday: passengers, remained, retreating, style, subtract, tailor, thumb, trial, voyage, whisper
Tuesday: wrong, sometimes, engage, final, terrible, surprise, period, addition, employ, property

Writing/Grammar: We are working on a paragraph for Mother's Day. :)

Math: This week we will finish up our unit on capacity and will review all units from 1-12. Cumulative Test on Thursday!

History: We are starting a new unit on immigration and citizenship. This week we will focus on why and how immigrants came to America.

Science: We will be studying the life of Elijah McCoy this week and recording some key points from his life.

Idiom: "The real McCoy"

Poem: Harriet Tubman (stanza 3)

Miscellaneous: I hope you received your Mother's Day Tea invites! It will take place on Friday, May 6th from 8:15-9:15 am. You are welcome to sign in and head to the MPR at 8, when school starts. We will take attendance and then head down to meet you there. There will be refreshments, and it will be a fun way to spend some time talking with your child.

Have a great week!

Mother's Day Tea!

Save the date! On Friday, May 6th, we will have our Mother's Day Tea in the MPR from 8:15-9:15 a.m. More details to come soon! :)

Week 33

Happy Sunday! I was out sick earlier this week and then went out of town for a wedding. I have missed your children so much! Looking forward to this upcoming week. Here's what we have coming up:

Literature: In Literature, we are continuing on in Little House in the Big Woods. :)

Spalding: 30 words this week. Test on Friday!

Monday: nearly, to, too, two, animal, basin, breeze, button, cabbage, careful
Tuesday: cough, cousin, dollars, excuse, excuse, island, grief, guard, guilty, hungry
Wednesday: language, laughter, laugh, lining, line, ocean, nephew, nineteen, noticed, notice

Grammar/Writing: more paragraph writing - We will write a descriptive paragraph, describing the story of Grandpa and the pig (from Little House).

Math: This week begins a new unit - capacity! We will compare different containers and develop an understanding of the standard units of capacity - liters, cups, pints, quarts, and gallons!

History: We are wrapping up our Civil War unit this week. We will be learning a little more about the "angel of the battlefield," Clara Barton. Then we will review a bit and test on Friday. A study guide will go home on Monday to help!

Science: This week we will explore what we've learned about simple machines by building them and finding them in our daily lives.

Touch Pebbles: The Man Who Thought He Could Do Anything - In this discussion, students will examine the benefits of working together in a group.

Idiom: "Cold Feet" - loss of nerve or confidence

Poem: Harriet Tubman (Eloise Greenfield)

Miscellaneous: This Friday is French and Fine Arts Night! Come look at some beautiful drawings and hear some French songs!

Week 32

Good evening,

I hope everyone had a good weekend! Just a reminder that there is a half day this Friday! I will be taking that day off for a friend's wedding, but I will respond back to your emails by the following Monday. This Thursday is healthy snack day; please send in a healthy fruit or vegetable!

Literature: Little House in the Big Woods and lapbook :) We're comparing and contrasting our homes with Laura's and describing Christmas at the Ingalls' home. We still need help with reading groups! If you would like to read with us, please sign up here!

For our classic book report, your child is selecting a book to read. Please let me know once it is chosen so that I can approve it and write the title down.

Spalding: We have 29 words this week. Test on Friday!

Monday: support, does, goes, Tuesday, regard, escape, since, which, witch (you may notice that a couple of words are familiar)
Tuesday: length, long, strength, strong, destroy, newspaper, daughter, naughty, caught, taught
Wednesday: answer, reply, sail, sale, cities, city, known, know, several, desire

Grammar: Pre-writing skills - We will be creating a pre-writing map for making bullets (from Little House in the Big Woods). We will take this map to create a rough draft, edit in class, and then write a final draft.

Writing: narration, copy work, and dictation from "A Child's Geography of the World"

Math: We are reviewing time this week. Each day will focus on a different component: after the hour, before the hour, time intervals, and elapsed time. We will test on Friday!

History: Civil War continued - Robert E. Lee, Ulysses S. Grant, and how the war ends

Science: Simple machines continued - pulley and wheel & axle

Poem: Harriet Tubman by Eloise Greenfield - This is split into five stanzas. Practice one stanza each week. This is our last poem for the year!

Goodnight. See you in the morning!

Week 31

Good morning!

We have loved seeing the brown bag autobiography book reports! We still have several presentations to go, and we look forward to hearing the rest of them! For the next book, your child will get to select a classic to read. More instructions will be going home tomorrow!

This week is going to be a busy one. We have the Spring Concert on Wednesday at 5:30! Come listen to your children sing some beautiful music. :)

Here's what we will be learning in class this week:

Literature: We are continuing on with Little House in the Big Woods and our lap books!

Spalding: 30 words this week - make sure we're writing 2 sentences with spelling words each night! These directions are on the homework. :) Test on Friday!

Monday: importance, important, carried, carry, loss, fortune, empire, mayor, wait, degree
Tuesday: prison, engine, visit, guest, guessed, guess, department, obtain, family, favor
Wednesday: Mrs. = Mistress, Mr. = Mister, Miss, husband, amount, human, view, clerk, though, o'lock - o(f the) clock

Writing: narration, copy work, and dictation exercises

Grammar: We're finishing dictionary skills and then working on pre-writing skills!

Touch Pebbles: text selection - About Lying

Math: We are finishing up our unit on time this week. It was a quick one - please continue to practice telling time at home! (Reminder: The word "minutes" is a longer word and has more letters in it - the minute hand is the longer looking hand!)

Please help us with math groups! You can sign up here!

History: Civil War - By the end of the week, students will be able to recognize Abraham Lincoln, the importance of the Emancipation Act, and list reasons why the South wanted to secede from the Union.

Science: We are learning more about Simple Machines, focusing mostly on the wedge and screw this week!

Idiom: "Get a taste of your own medicine!"

Poem: Poetry recitations this week!! (Lincoln by Turner)

Have a wonderful rest of your weekend!

Week 30

Welcome back!! I hope you all had a GREAT Spring Break! It's hard to believe but we only have NINE weeks of school left! :) Here is what we have coming up:

Literature: We will begin our last book of the year: Little House in the Big Woods. Please bring it to school this week if you have not done so yet. We won't do reading groups this week, but we will read chapters 1 and 2 in class! We have a lap book that we will make as we work our way through the book, and it's going to look really nice!

Spalding: We have 19 words this week and will test on Friday. 

Tues: awful, awesome, awe, usually, usual, complaint, complained, complain, auto, vacation

Wed: beautiful, beauty, flight, travel, rapid, repair, troubling, trouble, entrance

Grammar: Dictionary skills - how to use dictionaries, alphabetizing words, and using guide words

Writing: narration, copy work, and dictation exercises from The Story of Mankind by Helene Guerber

Math: Telling Time! (minutes after and before the hour, to the quarter hour, and to the half hour) We will have a short math quiz on Friday!

History: In History, we are starting our unit on the Civil War. This week, we will be discussing what led up to the Civil War - how the north and south were divided over certain issues - as well as learning about some important people. We will talk about Harriet Beecher Stowe and Harriet Tubman and why we remember them today. 

Science: We are starting a new unit on Simple Machines! 

Idiom: "Get a taste of your own medicine"

Poem: Lincoln by Nancy Byrd Turner - practice stanza 4 (We will recite next week!)

Miscellaneous: Book reports are due this week! Please turn them in by Friday. :)

Week 29

Good evening! We have a different kind of week coming up, as it is short and jam-packed with activities! Here's what's happening:

Literature: We finished Sarah, Plain and Tall but still have reading groups scheduled for Tuesday, so we will use leveled readers in groups and also work on our Idioms and Proverbs packet. When we get back from break, we will dive right into Little House in the Big Woods.

Spalding: We will be practicing our cursive and reworking words that were commonly missed on the last several spelling tests. There will be no spelling test this week; it will simply be review. The homework will be to write ten sentences in cursive and this will be due on Thursday.

Writing: narration and copy work exercises from The Real Princess by Hans Christian Andersen

Grammar: We are working on paragraphs this week and will learn the rules for writing a paragraph, as well as the steps of the writing process.

Math: Our objectives this week are to write fractions whose sum makes a whole and write fractions of a set. On Thursday, we will play fraction scoot to review, and then there will be a cumulative assessment!

History: We will be reviewing our Westward Expansion material in class tomorrow (Monday) and will test on Thursday! We will also learn more about settling the west on our field trip this week!

Science: We will take a short Magnet Quiz on Tuesday after a little more review. On Thursday we have a really fun activity planned, but I'm going to leave it as a surprise! :)

Idiom: "You can't teach an old dog new tricks!"

Poem: Lincoln (stanza 3 this week!)

Note: Thursday is a half day, and there is no school on Friday!

FIELD TRIP
Our field trip is this Wednesday and will be an all day event. We will get back in time for early release. :) Please don't bring backpacks to school on Wednesday. Simply pack a sack lunch and water bottle. Students must be in school uniform. Even though we are not at school, we are representing Archway Arete and should dress accordingly. Students may bring hats since a lot of the field trip will take place outside. We also encourage all students to wear sunscreen since it will be warm and sunny! We are so excited and looking forward to this trip!!

Week 28

Good morning! I hope everyone is having a relaxing weekend. I know I have! I spent yesterday shopping, baking, and grilling with my family. :) Hard to believe that quarter 3 is almost to an end. Here's what we have coming up this week:

Literature: Chapters 7-9 of Sarah, Plain and Tall - Thank you to our reading group helpers! We love having you in the classroom on Tuesdays and Thursdays!
Vocabulary words we will encounter:
chapter 7: whickering, primly, squak
chapter 8: overalls, weary, squall, pungent, eerie
chapter 9: scuttling, wailing

Spalding: We have 29 words this week. Just like last week, we will do 1 or 2 words in cursive each day. Your child can choose to write 1-2 words on the homework in cursive, but this is not mandatory. We are just practicing and getting used to reading and writing it. The Spelling Test will be on Friday after Field Day. Words:
Monday: knee, lemon, lying, lie, nails, needle, nobody, oar, palace, penny
Tuesday: regular, repeats, sailor, sentence, shining, shine, surface, sweeping, sweeps, thief
Wednesday: waist, waste, waiting, weary, writing, writer, write, spend, enjoy

Grammar/Writing: We are learning about transition words this week and how they are necessary for forming a good paragraph. We will be discussing the six traits of writing and will work on a pre-writing map before delving into our individual paragraphs.

Math: We are continuing fractions. On Friday, I introduced the words "numerator" and "denominator". We talked about how numerator sounds like number and this represents the number that are shaded. Denominator sounds like divide, and this represents how many pieces it is (equally) divided into. We will continue to recognize fractions and begin to compare them. Which one is bigger? How many 1/4 pieces fit into 1/2? We will take our first chapter test on fractions (recognizing halves and quarters) on Wednesday!

History: We are nearing the end of our Westward Expansion unit, just in time for our Field Trip next week! This week we will discuss the Native Americans and some of their leaders, like Sequoyah, and how they were impacted by the pioneers moving west.

Science: We are exploring how magnets repel and attract and learning the law of magnetic attraction: "Unlike poles attract; like poles repel". We will also look at compasses and how the magnet in them always points north.

Miscellaneous: Field Day is on Friday from 8:30-11:00 am! Our class is Macedonia and our symbol is the sun. I am waiting to hear more details on dress attire for that day. Please plan on sending your child in a hat and with sunscreen on. The forecast is showing sunny and a high of 88 for Friday. It is also important that every child has their water bottle!

Our Field Trip is the following week, on Wednesday, March 16th. If you have not done so yet, please sign the waiver allowing your child to attend. :)

That's all for now! Enjoy your Sunday!

Field Day!

We are so excited about the upcoming Field Day! It will be held on the athletic field from 8:30-11 a.m. next Friday, March 11th. Just like last year, it will be similar to the Greek Olympics, and K-2 will compete in the morning. Our class will be representing Macedonia, and our symbol is the sun! We will need two large rolling coolers to transport water bottles around, as it will be quite warm. Please let me know if you are willing to let us borrow a cooler for the day! We also need parent volunteers - if you are interested in helping out, please click here. :) We will provide more information regarding what to wear and bring a little closer to time. Looking forward to it!

Week 27

Good evening! I hope everyone had a fun weekend. I saw several people running the 5k! :) Here's what's coming up this week (note: Friday is a half day):

Literature: We are continuing on in Sarah, Plain and Tall with chapters 4, 5, and 6 this week. Vocabulary words we will encounter are:
chapter 4 - scallop, paddock, stew, rustle
chapter 5 - coarse, charcoal, mica, dune, pitchfork
chapter 6 - tumbleweeds, gullies, collapsed, petticoat, treaded

Spalding: 30 spelling words this week - Test on Friday! We will write the majority of them in manuscript. Each day I will pick one or two in class to write in cursive. We will still review and practice our letter formation, but the switch to cursive will be gradual. :)

Writing: narration, copy work, and dictation exercises from The Elephant's Child

Grammar: This week we will be learning how to form a good paragraph! We will be learning the components that make up paragraphs, looking at sample paragraphs and identifying these parts, and then applying what we learned to our own writing.

Math: In Math, we are still working with money. We will be doing word problem work and making change. I encourage you to practice counting money at home and let your child count out bills and coins to help pay at the grocery store or restaurant. :) We have our last money test on Tuesday and the cumulative test on Thursday.

History: This week we are learning about the Pony Express, Transcontinental Railroad, and how the west was settled.

Science: We are beginning a new unit in Science! We will be experimenting with magnets! Vocabulary words we will encounter this week are magnetism, attract, and force.

Idiom: "Eaten out of house and home"

Poem: We are reciting the Preamble this week. Our new poem we will begin working on is "Lincoln" by Nancy Byrd Turner.

Miscellaneous: Mother-Son Event is Friday!

Week 26

Good evening! We have some exciting things coming up this week!

Literature: In Literature, we will be starting our new book, Sarah, Plain and Tall! We will begin reading this in class tomorrow, and we will break into reading groups on Tuesday and Thursday to read chapters 2 and 3. I'm so excited to begin this book!

Spalding: In Spalding, we have an exciting week as well! We will be introduced to cursive this week! I will send home a packet tomorrow about cursive and how we form our letters (it's a little different from how I learned it as a child). Monday's and Tuesday's homework will be to practice the letters a-z five times in cursive. Let's work on our best handwriting! There will be no spelling words this week, as we will really be practicing letter formation. In the upcoming weeks, we will still primarily write in manuscript, but we will slowly bring in cursive. (For instance, next week one word will be done in cursive on the homework. We will gradually bring in more and more as we prepare for third grade!) 

Writing: narration, copy work, and dictation exercises from The Plant That Ate Dirty Socks

Grammar: edit, classify, and unscramble sentences!

Touch Pebbles: Our reading selection this week is from Homer's The Odyssey. Students will explore how understanding another person's reasons and motives can help explain his or her actions. 

Math: We will continue practicing with money, both adding and subtracting it. We will also see it in word problems. We will take a chapter test on Wednesday during one of the math centers!

History: We are studying the Oregon Trail and California Gold Rush this week! We will each create a wall hanging with a scene of the Oregon Trail, and Ms. Carnahan and I will demonstrate panning for gold!

Science: This week we will play a couple of games to assess our knowledge on nutrition. :)

Poem: We are spending another week on the Preamble and will recite it next week!

Idiom: "Eaten out of house and home!"

Miscellaneous: The Family Fun Run and picnic is on Saturday! I'll be running the 5k and hope to see you all there! :)

Have a great week! 

Week 25

Happy President's Day! I hope everyone is enjoying their 4 day weekend! Here's what we have coming up this week:

Literature: We will be finishing up Cricket in Times Square this week. Our next book will be Sarah, Plain, and Tall. You can start sending these in if you would like, as we will begin reading it in reading groups next week! I will be sending out a sign-up genius soon to take on a reading group. :)

Spalding: We only have 21 words, due to the shortened week. They are as follows: (Spelling Test will be on Friday as usual!)
Tues: remain, direction, direct, appear, liberty, enough, fact, board, September, station, attend
Wed: public, music, picnic, friends, friend, during, police, until, truly, true

Writing: narration, copy work, and dictation exercises from Little Women

Grammar: edit, classify, unscramble sentences - same format as we have been practicing these last several weeks! We will test on Friday over editing and classifying sentences!

Touchpebbles: Story: The Weapons of King Chuko; Goal: Students will decide whether they should tell people about certain accomplishments or keep them secret and examine a story in which a great accomplishment is kept secret.

Idiom: "Better late than never!"

Poem: Preamble by Gouverneur Morris - We will recite this next week since it is so short! (For a song that may aid in memorization, check out this School House Rock video.)

Math: We will continue to practice division with remainders and then begin our money unit towards the end of the week. We will take our 1-8 Cumulative Test on Thursday!

History: We are starting our Westward Expansion unit! This is a fun unit that will culminate in our field trip to the Pioneer Living History museum right before Spring Break. We will have more details on this coming soon! This week we will examine ways of going west, looking at early transportation: keelboats, flatboats, and Fulton's steamboat.

Science: We are continuing to study nutrition and will learn how to create a fully balanced meal.

Miscellaneous: We have P.E. this Wednesday in addition to our normal days (Tuesday and Friday). Please bring P.E. shoes. :)

Thank you to everyone who donated sheets or funds for sheets to New Leaf! Second grade collected over 100 sets of twin sheets for this cause. Way to go! :)

See you tomorrow!

Week 24

Good afternoon! I'm posting today because I'm about to head out to sunny California for the weekend! I'll be running a half marathon at Huntington Beach, and I can't wait to see the water. :) Next week is a four day week, followed by a four day weekend. On Tuesday, we will take class pictures, so please dress nicely and comb hair! Thursday is Great Hearts Day, and we will focus on the virtue of friendship. Thank you to those of you who signed up to bring supplies. It will be a fun day! Here's what we have coming up:

Literature: We will read chapters 10-13 of Cricket. Vocabulary words we will encounter are: limbered, compositions, ovation, oblige, castanets, smoldering, indignantly, salvage, melancholy, accompanist, suspicious, recital, encores, and entomologists. Please start reading the new chapter book at home and working on the mystery book report (either the board game or pizza) - due Feb. 29th!

Spalding: We will only have 21 words this week, due to not having school on Friday. Test will be on Thursday!

Monday: sudden, instead, throw, threw, personal, everything, rate, chief, perfect, second

Tuesday: slide, farther, duty, intend, company, quite, quit, quiet, none, knew, know

Writing: narration, copy work, and dictation exercises from The Hare That Ran Away; friendship writing

Grammar: editing, classifying, and unscrambling sentences

Math: We will work on multiples of 10, fact families, and introduce division with remainders! Unit 8.3 Test (multiplication and division of 10) will be on Thursday!

History: America at War! (War of 1812) - We will identify problems that America faced early on. We will also discuss how Dolley Madison showed courage and how we got our national anthem. 

Science: We will explain the importance of eating a balanced diet and classify foods as being healthy or unhealthy!

Idiom: "Two heads are better than one."

Poem: We will recite Smart by Shel Silverstein this week. The new poem is going home on Monday - it is the Preamble! Since it is fairly short, there will be two weeks to practice it. 

Miscellaneous: Healthy Snack day was moved from this Thursday to Feb. 18th. :)

Have a GREAT weekend!

School-wide Service Project!

As Great Hearted scholars and families, we enjoy showing kindness and generosity to others through our annual service project. This year we will participate by partnering with A New Leaf.  Last year A New Leaf served 21,140 individuals with resources, including homeless and domestic violence shelters with services, affordable housing solutions, behavioral health, foster care, counseling, financial literacy coaching, and basic needs. To lend a helping hand to the families served by A New Leaf, we will be collecting various goods that the organization is in desperate need of.  Each grade level will have a specific goods or supplies to collect; this allows us to cater to many needed items.

See below for our grade level’s list of items. Please ensure that all donations are brand new, as gently used items cannot be accepted.

Kindergarten: canned food, baby food, condiments (jarred, canned, and bottled food items)

First Grade: bath towels and washcloths

Second Grade: twin sheets and pillow cases

Third Grade: kitchen supplies (sections can be divided by: silverware, pots/pans, cooking tools)

Fourth Grade: paper products (toilet paper, paper towels, paper plates, plastic cups)

Fifth Grade: snack food, cereal, granola bars, instant rice (boxed foods)

During the week of Great Hearts Day (Feb. 8-11), our students will be asked to bring in items to contribute to our donations list. The drive will conclude on Great Hearts Day (Feb. 11), where total counts of the donated items will be shared and celebrated at the morning assembly. We look forward to seeing the generosity and kindness fill our hearts and rooms with supplies that are greatly appreciated by the families at A New Leaf! If you have any further questions regarding the supply requirements, please do not hesitate to ask!  

Week 23

Good evening! I hope everyone had a great weekend! I look forward to seeing all the amazing book reports this week! :)

Some of us ran in the "Walk in the Wild" 5k at the Phoenix zoo this weekend! (Ms. Reger, Mrs. Mason, myself, Ms. Hofstaedter, and Ms. Smith) It was super early in the morning, but we had fun!

This week 2nd-5th grade has Galileo testing. Our assigned day is Thursday. We will take the Math portion in the morning and the English Language Arts portion in the afternoon. Please pack a hearty lunch, as it will be a taxing day. I will provide snacks. :)

Here's what else we are doing this week:

Literature: We will read chapter 9 of Cricket tomorrow. Tuesday and Wednesday we will discuss and practice vocabulary from chapters 6-9, compare and contrast characters from the book, and discuss what is to come in the next several chapters.

Spalding: There are 30 words this week. We will test as usual on Friday. However, due to Galileo testing, the spelling homework on Thursday (reviewing the words) will be optional. I still recommend practicing them, but if feeling fatigued, it is okay to forego this assignment this week.

Monday: rather, comfort, election, elect, aboard, jail, shed, refuse, district, restrain
Tuesday: royal, objection, object, please, pleasure, measure, treasure, navy
Wednesday: forty, fourteen, fourth, four, population, proper, judge, weather, whether, worth, contain, figure

Writing: narration, copy work, and dictation exercises from Nurse Matilda

Grammar: sentence edit, classification, scramble, and analogy

Math: We are reviewing our multiplication and division facts of 4's and practicing 5's and 10's. We will take our chapter 1 test (4's) on Tuesday and chapter 2 test (5's) on Friday.

History: We will review the Constitution tomorrow with a trivia game and then test on Tuesday! Then we will begin the War of 1812 unit.

Science: In Science, we are discussing the excretory system and creating a model. We will also learn about nutrients.

Idiom: "Two heads are better than one!"

Poem: Practice stanza 5 of Smart by Silverstein. For those who are ready, we will start recitations this week. Everyone else will recite next week!

Regarding our upcoming Great Hearts Day:

Great Hearts Day

Friday, February 11^th is Great Hearts Day! We have reserved this special day to focus on the virtue of friendship and having a heart of service. In the classroom, your children will participate in activities and lessons around these topics, and time will be set aside for making Great Hearts Day cards for classmates. These cards are part of the Great Hearts Day tradition of highlighting classmates’ virtuous qualities and invaluable friendship. Further, hand-making cards at school also alleviates the burden on parents to purchase cards. Parent volunteers with a valid fingerprint clearance card on file are welcome to assist in arranging a short afternoon celebration with snacks and activities. Stand by for more information about the afternoon celebration from our lead classroom parent volunteer, Sandra Cardenas.

Archway Classical Academy does its best to introduce students to an academic culture that leaves popular culture at the door.  The time we have with our students is so valuable, and there are many great ideas, people, music, and art from the ages that we want to introduce them to. Therefore, we will strive to keep the focus of Valentine’s Day on friendship and having a heart of service for others. Students will not be permitted to bring store-bought valentines, candy, or gifts to school on Great Hearts Day. We want students to remember that a good friend is not something one can purchase. We look forward to celebrating this special occasion!  

Have a great week!!

Six Traits of Writing

Week 22

Good evening! Hope everyone had a great weekend. This week we have a half day on Friday, and it's the 100th day of school! I would like to have a Flashlight Friday as well. :) I'll send a reminder closer to time! Here's what we have going on this week...

Literature: We will do a "Let's talk about it" for chapters 6-9, and then begin reading chapter 6 of Cricket on Tuesday. We will read chapters 6-8 this week. Vocabulary words we will encounter are: novelties, embroidered, kimonos (Our characters take a trip to China Town!), pagoda, souffle, compartments, accuse, gilded, and pathetic.

Spalding: We will have 31 words this week - 10 on Monday and Tuesday and 11 on Wednesday. Spelling Test on Friday over the following words:

Monday - baking, bake, bowl, cheap, cheerful, chicken, driving, drive, echoes, echo
Tuesday - fairy, knock, leather, linen, mixture, nation, pause, peace, permission, rough
Wednesday - social, steal, steel, strange, trophy, voices, voice, eight, ate, afraid, uncle

Writing: narration, copy work, and dictation exercises from Alexander the Great

Grammar: We are continuing our work in editing and classifying sentences. You should have seen our new format come home last Friday (they were on half sheets of paper). We begin with a sentence to edit, and students must correct capitalization and punctuation errors. Then I write a sentence on the board for them to copy and classify. We always find the "heart of the sentence," which is the subject noun and verb. From there, we identify article adjectives, adjectives, and adverbs. Then I write a scrambled sentence on the board for them to unscramble and record. This is the most difficult of the tasks because it involves identifying parts of speech in order to make the sentence make the most sense. The last thing we do is complete an analogy. There are four types of analogies that we have covered: synonym, antonym, rhyme, and part-whole. We will be using this grammar format for a while, so that we can really master the parts of speech that have been introduced thus far.

Typing: Hooray, it's finally a typing week! Second grade is always assigned Monday to use the computers, and we have had a lot of Mondays off! I am so excited to get back into our typing program! And of course, your child is more than welcome to be practicing typing at home. :)

Math: We will take our Unit 7 chapter 3 test on Monday after reviewing the homework from last Friday. The Unit 7 cumulative assessment will be on Tuesday! Our next unit is multiplying and dividing by 4. We will review our multiplication of 2's and 3's in math centers on Wednesday before introducing 4's on Thursday.

History: In History, we are continuing to study the Constitution. We began talking about it last week, and the students really enjoyed beginning the Constitution foldable. This week we will take a closer look at the Constitution and talk about the branches of government.

Science: In Science, we will be describing and identifying important components of the digestive and excretory systems. Some vocabulary words we will learn: esophagus, villi, excrete

Idiom: "Get up on the wrong side of the bed"

Poem: Smart by Shel Silverstein - practice stanza 4. We will recite next week!

I hope the chapter books and book reports are going well! They are due in one week! :)

Let's have a fabulous week!

Week 21

Good evening! I hope everyone enjoyed their day off! Here's what's on the agenda for the week:

Literature: We are continuing Cricket in Times Square - we'll be reading chapters 4 and 5 this week and then reviewing vocabulary found within the first five chapters. Vocab words this week: looming, leery, instinct

Spalding: Only 19 words this week - Test on Friday! Words: act, been, be, yesterday, among, question, quest, doctor, size, December, dozen, there, their, they're, tax, number, October, reason, fifth

Writing: narration, copy work, and dictation exercises from Five Children and It by Edith Nesbit

Grammar: We are editing, classifying, and unscrambling sentences - labeling the following parts of speech: subject noun and verb (heart of the sentence), adjectives, and adverbs.

Math: We are working on subtracting large numbers mentally!

History: We are leaving the ancient cultures behind and jumping into the history behind the Constitution. We will begin by reviewing the causes of the Revolutionary War and then start to discuss the writing.

Science: We are continuing our study of the human body and learning about organs and the four types of tissue.

Poem: Continue practicing Smart by Shel Silverstein! We will recite it in two weeks.

Idiom: "Get up on the wrong side of the bed" <-- This one may sound familiar to some! ;)

Have a great week!

Clubs

Here's a link to our list of clubs being offered this semester!

Week 20

Good morning,

I hope everyone had a good first week back, despite the rainy weather! I sent out an email with lots of important information yesterday, including typing information, book report directions, our new math group sign-up genius and a sign-up genius for our science activity this week! If you have any questions about any of it, please don't hesitate to email and ask! This week we will also have our first healthy snack day! This will take place on Thursday during snack time, and the goal is for everyone in the school to bring in a healthy fruit.

Here's what we have coming up this week!

Literature: We will begin reading Cricket in Times Square during class. We will read it as a class and then discuss the chapter. There will be reading comprehension questions for homework on Tuesday-Thursday. Please have your child answer the questions in complete sentences.

Spalding: new words: dollar, evening, plan, broke, feel, sure, sugar, least, sorry, press, God, god, teacher, November, subject, April, history, study, himself, matter, use, thought, person, nor, or, January, mean, vote, court, copy. Spelling Test over all 30 words on Friday!

Writing: narration, copy work, and dictation exercises from The Midnight Ride by James Baldwin

Grammar: We will be editing and classifying sentences, practicing analogies, and reviewing linking verbs!

Touch Pebbles: We are reading and discussing an excerpt from Plato's Republic. Questions to ponder: If you were invisible, what would you do that you wouldn't do if others could see you? Why is our behavior in private situations different from how it is in public?

Math: We will be adding two-digit numbers to 99 or 98 and discussing how we can use mental math strategies to solve these in our heads. We will also subtract ones and tens from 2-digit and 3-digit numbers. Unit 7 Chapter 2 Test on Thursday! (adding mentally)

History: We are discussing the Great Thinkers this week. We will cover Plato and Socrates and discuss similarities and differences in their teaching. We will also cover Aristotle and Alexander the Great!

Science: This week, we are going to learn about cells! On Tuesday we will discuss the relationship between cells, tissues, organs, and systems. On Thursday we will talk about parts of a cell, by creating a cell cookie!

Idiom: To turn over a new leaf - to make a fresh start, to change your behavior or attitude

Poem: Smart by Shel Silverstein (week 2 of 5)

Have a wonderful week!

Week 19

Welcome back! I hope everyone had a spectacular break! We are jumping right back into our studies and have a lot planned for this week! A few quick notes: We will be starting Cricket in Times Square next week, so please start bringing these books in if you have not done so yet. Housekeeping - we have had a lot of pencil and crayon shavings on the floor, so we are sending home personal sharpeners that were previously in pencil boxes. I have collected them all and put them in individual baggies, which will go home and need to remain there. We have a class sharpener that can be used as needed. Last, please make note that not only is it a shorter week, but there is a half day on Friday as well!

Literature: We are introducing our new book by taking a look at the history of Connecticut and New York and reviewing our map skills. There will be no assigned books going home for homework this week. Please read for fun for 20 minutes each night!

Spalding: Spelling Test on Friday over 20 words: wonder, pair, pear, pare, check, prove, heard, hear, inspect, itself, always, something, expect, need, thus, woman, women, young, fair, fare

Writing: narration, copy work, and dictation exercises from Pied Pier of Hamelin

Grammar: We are reviewing quotations and exclamations, as well as practicing our linking verbs.

Math: We will begin book B, which starts off with mental math strategies. We will learn some methods to use and practice with addition first. These strategies include number bonds, partial sums, open number lines, expanded form, and traditional algorithms. There will be a chapter test on Friday!

History: We are finally finishing up Ancient Greece and discussing the Great Thinkers! We will "tour" Athens, have a symposium, and learn about Alexander the Great.

Science: In Science, we are learning about the human body! We will be learning about cells, tissues, organs, and systems.

Idiom: To turn over a new leaf

Poem: Smart by Shel Silverstein

Have a great week!