January 1, 2018

Happy New Year!
I hope that your family has had a wonderful time enjoying the holidays, family, and friends!  We are returning to school with quite some chilly weather.  Don't be fooled, though!  If it is sunny, our room will be toasty warm.  Please make sure your child is dressed in layers so that he/she can take items on or off as needed.  Thanks!

Thankfully, on the Thursday before vacation, the second grade team had a quick pow-wow at AM recess and decided to switch gears by doing our Friday events on Thursday.  We enjoyed an imaginary ride on the Polar Express!  Mr. Conductor (Dr. Stokes) greeted us and punched our tickets as we climbed aboard.  After a short break for lunch, the ride was completed with a hot chocolate and popcorn treat.  The only part of our Friday plans we didn't get to do was wear pajamas.  Wearing pajamas was an earned recognition for all of our hard work and effort in the classroom.  Mrs. Gallegos, Mrs. Prive, and I will be rescheduling a second grade pajama day soon.  Notices will be sent home with more information as soon as I know more.

If your son/daughter starts the school skiing program this week, please send in a note letting me know who will be picking your child up.  If the plan is the same each week, one note will work as long as you state that it is the plan for all five weeks.  Skiers will be dismissed to the office at 12:55 on Friday.  Thanks!

As we get back into the routine, we will be picking up the academic pace a bit.  We have a lot of content still to cover!  Now that we have reviewed the basics and are familiar with routines and expectations more focus can be placed on new academic skills.  It is an exciting time of year!  Here are some things we are looking forward to:

• Learning cursive!  We already began some cursive foundational skills when we practiced making some letters 'second grade style.'  For example, the 'clock letters' we practiced (a, c, d, g, o, and q) only need a lead-in stroke and a release stroke to become cursive.  Our first individual letters to practice will be those.  We will also be learning our names as a whole 'chunk,' rather than waiting to learn each individual letter.  Many have already been attempting their first names and I would rather them practice correctly.  
• Place Value!  Our next steps in math will require more careful attention to and understanding of place value.  For quite a few students, this will be a big step in numeracy skills.  We will be learning that numbers can be represented by a whole number as well as by groups of ones, tens, and hundreds.  Zero as a 'place holder' will also become more important.  
• Measurement!  We will be measuring in inches, centimeters, minutes, and hours.  Many students are frequently confused when measuring  - they line up the item being measured with the '1' on the tool being used instead of at the spot where the '0' would be.  Thus, their measurements are off by one unit.  We will work on that.  With time, we will look more closely at the analog clock and learn that time can be told fairly accurately with only an hour hand.  A big concept is determining what hour is being shown by a clock.  From there, we will use our counting by 5 skills to find which minute the minute hand is pointing to.  YES, there will be mixing up of the hour and minute hands.  Practice is key!  Now is the time to be calling your child's attention to the analog clocks in your house.  Many have clear faces that can be removed so you can label the hands with a small 'H' or 'M.'  
• Vowel Teams!  We began touching on this before vacation and it will continue for awhile.  The students are being introduced to multiple ways letters combine to make long vowel sounds.  We study the patterns for each long vowel.  As we do this, we talk about syllables.  'Open' syllables have vowels at the end and will therefore have a long vowel sound.  'Closed' syllables end with a consonant and will have short vowel sounds.  We will be more familiar with Y and W and their roles as both vowels and as consonants.  
• Details!  The time has come to include more information in our writing.  We are going to learn to tell -and then write- a whole lot of information about one tiny event!  You can practice this at home....   Pick a common, everyday object and ask your child to tell you seven things about it.  The first 3-4 should come pretty easy, but the last few will probably be a stretch.  For example, a paperclip;    1) it is metal   2) it is shiny    3) it may/may not have ridges on it     4) it is silver    5) it holds papers together     6) it has three curved parts    7) it is one piece of metal bent almost like a spiral
• Stamina!  We are going to be increasing our stamina for many things....reading/writing for longer amounts of time, reading/writing longer texts, focusing for longer amounts of time during work periods/lessons    Right now we are pretty good at doing all of the above for about 10-15 minutes, once we settle in.  The goal is to settle in more quickly and then work for 25-30 minutes.

Of course we will also continue to work on things such as fact fluency and self-advocacy skills, two 'biggies' from the fall that continue to need more focus!  

As you prepare your child for his/her return back, please make sure ALL of your child's clothing items are labeled - and that your child knows they are labeled!  There was LOTS of unlabeled winter gear that came in before vacation.  We have many similar coats, boots, and gloves!  I want to be able to return missing items to you ASAP and the label gives me a much appreciated hint!  (I often have to coerce  students to bring home unlabeled items that I think might belong to them!)

Finally, if you mentioned waiting until after the vacation to schedule a conference - NOW is the time!  Please be in touch so I can schedule something with you.  Thanks!