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!