Friday, September 13th

Hello Weckie Families!

What a most awesome 8 days we have had so far in Second Grade!! The energy level in the room is contagious and these kids are ready for some learning and some fun!! Thank you to everyone who made it out to either the: Meet and Greet, Welcome Back Picnic or Curriculum Night. It was great to meet so many of you and fun to reconnect with familiar families as well! We have been busy, busy, busy in 204 as you have probably heard!

Reader's Workshop:
This week we launched our Reader's Workshop. We spent time talking about our favorite books as we all shared our own favorites. We have created a display in our classroom library of these books and have been enjoying the chance to read our classmates favorites. Then we talked about our favorite reading memories. Look for your child's favorite reading memory in this week's first Friday Packet! We ended the week talking about "Comfy Reading Spots" and what makes an area a good reading spot for comfort and for noise/distractions. Please look for homework to come home on this topic!

Writer's Workshop:
In Writer's Workshop this week we began a fun writing project called a "Summer Sandwich". The Weckies each created a rough draft first of: how their summer began (lettuce page), something they did with their family (meat page), something they did with friends (cheese page) and how their summer ended (bread page). They spent a great deal of time creating each page with neat handwriting and colored illustrations. Look for these books on the big picnic blanket bulletin board out in our hallway next week!

Word Study:
We began our word study lessons this week by learning first about consonant clusters. We created words that began with two or more consonants in what we call a "cluster". This helped us to review consonants and vowels from first grade. Then we did an activity that helped us to notice the difference between long vowels and short vowels ('a' in apple compared to 'e' in egg). Periodically lists of words will come home for each month that are a great thing to review at home with your child, and in particular the patterns or parts to the words. The list that just came home showed us how to break a word into chunks when looking at familiar endings.

Math Workshop:
In Math this week we took time to do lots of neat things! Our mathematicians learned about their math tool kits and all of the different tools they will use this year (calculator, ruler, deck of Everyday Math cards), tape measure, hundreds grid, pretend money, pattern block template and more!) We worked on Number Grids this week and created a giant number scroll with partners. Each group was responsible for one hundred boxes and together we created a grid that counts from 1 to 1,500! As the week went on we took a look at equivalent names for numbers as we learned to play a game called "Broken Calculator". We also worked with time this week - both on a calendar and on a clock. We reviewed the hour hand (short) and the minute hand (long) and practiced on our own smaller clocks. Math games introduced tihs week included: Addition Top-It, The Number Grid Game, and Clock Concentration.

Look for Math Homelinks to begin next week! :-) If you were not at Curriculum Night, please be advised that we spent a great deal of time talking about our new re-aligned math curriculum. To better match the Common Core State Standards and research about student learning, the district has re-organized our lessons. This means we are no longer going 1.1, 1.2, 1.3, etc. in math but rather, jumping around. This week we covered 1.8, 1.9, 1.2 and 1.3. You will notice too that Homelinks may appear to come hom out of order. Please look for more info on this in the coming weeks!

Important Classroom News:

• Please make sure to pack your child a hearty and healthy snack. Lunch at 1:20pm is late and the kids are hungry! We have snack midway through the morning and healthy snacks will help them to last this long morning period.
• If you were not at Curriculum Night, you can sign up for a Parent-Teacher Conference time on the bulletin board outside of the Office.
• If you were not at Curriculum Night, materials came home about 2nd grade curriculum and classroom routines. There was information about classroom volunteers. Please make sure to send these forms back in a timely manner if you would like to help in the room as I am going to start getting volunteers in towards the end of next week and you must have a "Criminal Background Check" form on file before coming in to help!
• Additionally, we are short MANY volunteers for classroom parties. If you are able to help with either our: Halloween Party, Valentine's Day Party or End of the Year Picnic, please email me at JenniferPhillips@wlcsd.org immediately. I'm worried about our lack of participation! Additionally we also need two parents to work our Market Days month (one day on a Friday afternoon in a month to be told soon) so that our class can have important funding towards our Field Trips this year.

Thanks for everything you have done in making these first two weeks so fantastic! It's going to be an awesome year to be a Weckie, for sure!

:-) Mrs. Weckstein