What’s New in Room 2?

Hi Parents, sorry this message is not to you. It is for your students.

Hey, Second Graders!

As promised I have linked the typing program http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/typing/ to the blog page. Look under links and click on Typing Game and you will be able to practice your typing. Have fun and practice your home row too!

Love,

Mrs. MacDonald

Hi All!

Reminder: Please make sure,  if you signed up to chaperone the 2nd grade field trip next Thursday, you are not only fingerprinted, but also have completed the online Safe Environment for Children Program @ shieldthevulnerable.org . 

If you haven’t been fingerprinted, you may be too late for this field trip, but you are encouraged to get fingerprinted for our next field trip on November 13th. If you haven’t completed the Safe Environment for Children Program, it isn’t too late. Just make sure you send in the Certificate of Completion. While the diocese provides us with completion updates, we are only notified monthly, so the certificate is necessary if you are chaperoning on this field trip. See the directions below for completing the online course. It may be done in segments and shouldn’t take more than an hour total.

Parents planning to volunteer in the classroom also need to complete this course. I will be looking for volunteers next Friday (10/23)  to assist with the Halloween stations in class.

Go to: shieldthevulnerable.org

Click Diocese Sign Up Adult

Select Sacramento Diocese

Complete registration

Click Start on the My Course page

Print and return the Certificate of Completion to school

Parents planning to volunteer in the classroom also need to complete this course. I will be looking for volunteers next Friday to assist with the Halloween stations in class.

I thank you and so does your child!

Laura MacDonald

As all of you should know by now, progress reports went home Friday. Just a quick note regarding one grade in particular. Under math you will find End of 2nd grade Assessment. Please note this assessment is assessment that covers all of the end of the year standards for second grade. Your child will take this assessment again at the end of the year and growth will be measured. If your child didn’t appear to do well on this assessment, then don’t be surprised. None of the students did well on it, don’t worry. We will use these numbers to show growth at the end of the year. Chapter one math, on the other hand, shows how your child did after learning unit one, your child should have done well on this test. Please feel free to voice any other concerns by sending an email, dropping me a line or coming by at school. Thanks!

Mark your calendars… We will be going on a field trip Thursday, October 22 to Dave’s Pumpkin Patch to learn about harvesting crops and how food gets from the farm to the grocery store. This trip will support our Social Studies unit: People We Depend On. More information will follow. If you haven’t yet, please get fingerprinted, so you will be able to participate. If you can’t join us this time, there is another possible field trip in the works for November and December. Notes coming home soon!

Also, your child will be bring home thier progress report Friday. If you have specific questions about what an assessment consists of or what a score means, please feel free to ask me. I love to talk about your children!

Hope to see you at Grandparent’s Day next Thursday!

Behavior

Many of the students were not on their best behavior this week. Please check in with your student and discuss their behavior in class. Ask them about their conduct. One way to get a correct response out of  your student is to ask them, “If I asked Mrs. MacDonald about your behavior, what would she say?”

Areas of concern include:

• Blurting out during discussions instead of waiting to be called on
• Talking over the teacher or other students when they participate in classroom discussions or give responses
• constant attempt to go to the bathroom during direct instruction
• talking off-topic during independent work time
• treating others with disrespect

While many students in the class have outstanding behavior, it is always helpful to reinforce your expectations of your child at school. I appreciate your support and would be happy to speak further with you regarding this issue at anytime.

FOCUS

Another concern I have with several of the students is their ability or willingness to pay attention to classroom learning. I assess students throughout the day and ask for verbal feedback and physical cues (individually, group or whole class)  to let me know they are listening and following along during instruction. I watch and listen carefully because just because a student is quiet and well behaved, it doesn’t mean they are paying attention. There does seem to be quite a few students in our classroom that fall into this category, so I am focusing hard in this area and following up frequently, so students will see they are held accountable for the information I am teaching.

I also work hard to get students to be active learners. While students are eager to share, they do not do a good job at this age listening to each other. I continue to instill in them that they can learn by listening to each other and that I am not the only teacher in the room.

We have completed chapter one math and are now working on Chapter two: Place Value, as you could probably tell from this week’s homework.  Coming home tomorrow (Wed.) should be your child’s Chapter One math pages  along with their Chapter test and their self assessment stapled to the back. You may notice a few of the pages in the packet were blank. We covered the standards and moved quickly,  due to the simplicity of the subject matter.  If your child has pages that were incomplete, it could be for a number of reasons. With future chapters, unfinished pages will result in extra homework. Almost all students did well on the test . Students had a chance to review missed problems and we discuussed the correct answers together this afternoon.

Grandparent’s Day will soon be at OLG and we will start preparing this week in class when we have extra time. I will update this post when we get closer, but as for now…

Please make sure your child owns a plain, white t-shirt (no patterns or other colors, please) and a pair of blue jeans, for we will be wearing them for the 2nd grade performance. I’m not telling what we are doing yet, but I’ll give you a hint: it has to do with what we are wearing!

If you volunteered to watch the students when they are not on the stage, I will be contacting you soon.

Hope you are off to a fun weekend already!

FYI- We now have butterflies

Mailboxes

Students are forgetting to check their mailboxes each night. While I remind them and give them time prior to leaving,  between water bottles,  lunch bags, sweatshirts, and  backpacks, I am sometimes unable to check if they cleaned out them out prior to their departure. They are doing a good job for the most part, but sometimes items are sitting in their boxes overnight. Please  ask your student when you remember, if they cleaned out their mailbox, eventually between myself and you we can help them be more responsible.

Little Teachers

I am working toward students doing more correcting on their weekly homework. I want them to get instant feedback on some items, rather than never really seeing the homework once it is turned in. They are given a red pen and we go over some of the pages orally. So… when you see a red pen all over their pages (on some of them), don’t assume it is my red pen. This activity is difficult for some because it is primarily oral, but it will improve their listening skills too, I hope. 

Whether your off to one of the birthday parties, soccer, football or just kicking back, have a good one!

Some of the students (about 6 of them or so) have a little extra homework tonight. If students did not complete their math classwork this week, you will find a group of papers stapled together in their backpacks for them to complete tonight. Because most of the students who didn’t complete their pages this week were the very same students who were distracted or chatty during independent math time, I saw sending home the incompleted papers as a natural consequence. These pages will count for homework so if they are incomplete or not returned by tomorrow, your child will have to complete them during station time. Two of the pages in their packet may have a highlighted X through them because we will not be completing these pages. Hopefully this will be a deterrent for your child in the future. If you have an concerns please feel free to email or come see me.

As requested, here our the birthdays for our class. Birthday Chart If you are planning on bringing in a treat around your child’s birth date, please check the list to avoid bringing a treat on another child’s birthday. Please let me know if you are planning on bringing a food item by and I will help coordinate. As you can see,  on the blog site,  I only use first names to identify students.