October 21 -25, 2024

Spellings: who, goes, where, done, pretty 

Math: We continue to count!

•  Counting forward to 100 by:  5s, 10s, and 2s beginning with 0 

• Counting backward from 100 by: 1s, 5s, 10s 

• Counting forward by 10s from different starting points (1, 11, 21...   6, 16, 26....)

• Parts of 10 

• Doubles to 12

• Counting on (+1,2,3

• odd / even

• equal / not equal

• greater / less

Writing: Narratives

• We continue to work on personal narratives. Our focus is on strong beginnings. We are also looking to make sure we have added some relevant details and juicy (descriptive) words to the middle of our writing,  as we now work on making our own small moments sound more like a story.

Fundations: Unit 3 - Closed Syllable EXCEPTIONS Testing Tuesday!

Dates to Remember

• Oct. 31 - Halloween Activities - The children may come in costume. No weapons and nothing too scary. Make sure their costume is comfortable enough for recess play outside. 

• Nov 1 - PD day, no classes

• Nov 7 & 8 - PEITF Convention , no classes

• Nov 16 - Holiday Craft Fair at Glen Stewart

• Nov 21 - Parent / Teacher meetings in the evening

• Nov 22 - Parent / Teacher meetings, no classes

• Nov 29 - Town of Stratford 'Light up the Night' evening

Starting this Friday - Special Student of the Week - At the back of your child's homework book, you will find a page with information regarding this. I will send home a sheet of bristol board with one child each Friday and they will bring it back to present to the class on Monday. This will give the weekend to prepare it. The bristol board will tell us all about themselves and their family. It may contain their favorite things, pictures or drawings of their family...they can draw pictures, add photos...there is no wrong way to do it! Each day of the week, our special student will be celebrated in a different way (as stated in the homework book). The first bristol board will go home with a student this Friday!

Have a great week!

Kathy

October 15 - 18, 2024

Spellings: think, thank, October, two, Sunday

Writing - Personal Narratives

• Focus - - Showing how a character is feeling, rather than just telling. Showing: Sam clenched his fists and stomped out of the room. His face was bright red as he slammed the door to his room.  Telling: Sam's mom made him angry. 

Fundations: Unit 2 week 2 - Testing Friday (practice this week and last week spellings for this test)

• Focus: Glued Sounds (an, am, ang, ing, ong, ung, ank, ink, onk, unk) and bonus letters (miss, fluff, will)  

• FYI - Bonus letters are f, s, and l. Only doubled if there is only one vowel directly in front of the f, s, or l, then it is a short vowel. example: shelf (the f in shelf is not considered a bonus letter because the vowel e is not beside the f). ALSO...If the s makes a /z/ sound, it is not a bonus letter (example: was, is, his)

Special Student of the Week - At the back of your child's homework book, you will find a page with information regarding this. I will send home a sheet of bristol board with one child each Friday and they will bring it back to present to the class on Monday. This will give the weekend to prepare it. The bristol board will tell us all about themselves and their family. It may contain their favorite things, pictures or drawings of their family...they can draw pictures, add photos...there is no wrong way to do it! Each day of the week, our special student will be celebrated in a different way (as stated in the homework book). The first bristol board will go home with a student this Friday!

Dates to Remember

• Return orange spelling notepad Monday

• Return book bag Monday (to be refreshed for this week)

• Thursday, Oct. 31 - Halloween Celebration (Costumes are allowed, no masks or weapons) Also, make sure the costume your child wears is comfortable for them to run around in during recess.

Have a great week!

Kathy

October 7 - 11, 2024

NOTE:

HOMEWORK WILL RUN FROM MONDAY TO MONDAY. This will still allow for a full 7 day time frame for completion.

Spellings: pull, walk, long, with, both (bonus word: three)

NOTE: The children took home their spelling notepad (orange) on Wednesday. Initial and send back in their homework bags. Practice any spellings they may have had difficulty with. The spelling notepad will go home with them every Friday and is to come back with them on Monday.

Math - (We continue to work on counting in different ways)

• Counting forward to 100 by: 1s, 2s, 5s, beginning with 0

• 10s from different starting points (1,13,23,33..., 5,15,25,35...)

• Counting backward from 100 by: 1s, 5s, 10s 

• Parts of 10

• Doubles to 12

•     Counting on - When adding 1, 2 or 3 to a number, start with the largest number and count up

Writing - Personal Narratives

• Monday - Journal writing (about their weekend)

• Tuesday -  'My Family' (Postponed from last week)

• Thursday - Continued writing on 'My Family'

• Friday - Illustrate this weeks writing Work 

Fundations - Unit 2

• Focus: Glued Sounds (an, am, ang, ing, ong, ung, ank, ink, onk, unk) and bonus letters (miss, fluff, will)  

     FYI - Bonus letters are f, s, and l. Only doubled if there is only one vowel directly in front of the f, s, or l, then it is a short vowel. example: shelf (the f in shelf is not considered a bonus letter because the vowel e is not beside the f). ALSO...If the s makes a /z/ sound, it is not a bonus letter (example: was, is, his) 

Dates to Remember

• Wednesday, Oct. 8 - School Picture Day for 2B

• Oct 7-11 - Scholastic Book Fair (Our class will go to the book fair on Wednesday afternoon. If you send $ with your child to purchase a book, please put it in an envelope or ziploc bag with first name and amount marked on it.)

• Oct. 8 - Picture Day 

• Oct. 9 - 6pm to 7pm Family night for the Scholastic Book Fair 

• Oct. 10 - Walk to School Day

• Oct. 14 - No Classes (Thanksgiving)

Reminders

• Send orange spelling note pad and reading book bag back to school today

• Homework bag and homework scribbler comes back and forth daily

Keep the baby pictures and family pictures/videos coming, as well as a note on how you chose the name you did for your child! Thank you!

Have a lovely week!

Kathy

October 1- 4, 2024

Spellings:  into, was, this, way, here (bonus word *two)

Math - (We continue to work on counting in different ways)

• Counting forward to 100 by: 1s, 2s, 5s, beginning with 0

• 10s from different starting points (1,13,23,33..., 5,15,25,35...)

• Counting backward from 100 by: 1s, 5s, 10s 

• Parts of 10

• Doubles to 12

•      Mental Math Strategy: Counting on - When adding 1, 2 or 3 to a number, start with the largest number and count up

Writing - Personal Narratives

• Tuesday - Journal writing (about their weekend)

• Wednesday, Thursday - All about my family!

• Friday - Work on any unfinished writing, add to it, or start a new piece on a topic of their own choice.

Fundations - Unit 1 - Week 1

• digraph - 2 letters that make one sound (wh, ch, sh, th, ck)

• blend - 2 and 3 consonants together as in trip or scram (They each have their own sound, but blend together.)

• digraph blend - blend and digraph combined (lunch)

Dates to Remember

• Oct. 1 - Terry Fox Run (this is our rain date)

• Oct 7-11 - Scholastic Book Fair (Our class will go to the book fair on Wednesday afternoon. If you send $ with your child to purchase a book, please put it in an envelope or ziploc bag with first name and amount marked on it.)

• Oct. 8 - Picture Day 

• Oct. 9 - 6pm to 7pm Family night for the Scholastic Book Fair 

• Oct. 10 - Walk to School Day

• Oct. 14 - No Classes (Thanksgiving)

This week:

• Family photo or VIDEO 🙂

• Baby picture

• Letter to the class: Why / How did you choose the name you gave to your child

Reminder: Wednesday is new homework day. Send homework book back and forth daily. Book bag may travel back and for daily or you may keep it at home and return it on Wednesdays to be switched out for new books. I will be sending home a small orange 'spelling notebook' each Wednesday from now on as well. Please initial and send back the next day. Practice any words your child had difficulty with.

Thank you for all the donations to the Terry Fox Foundation!

Have a lovely week!

Kathy

September 24 - 27, 2024

Welcome to our first posting for September!  

It was lovely to meet most of you at meet the teacher this past week. Those who were unable to make it, I have sent home some information with your child on Friday. You will find it in their homework bags.

YAAY! Homework starts this week on Wednesday! (a little off-color humor?) As mentioned at Meet the Teacher, homework will run from Wednesday to Wednesday rather than the usual Monday-Thursday. PLEASE have the homework book travel back and forth EVERY day. 

Homework consists of:

• Reading each evening 

• Record spellings each evening

• One 'super' sentence each week using one of the weekly spelling words

• One response each week to one of the books read for homework (This will begin mid October.  Direction for the weekly response will be posted here each week.)

The children will be taking their book bags (ziploc) and homework scribblers home this week. These books are for reading homework each evening. You may keep them at home until the following Wednesday. On Wednesday mornings,  make sure they are in your child's homework bag to come back to school so that they are able to refresh their books for the current week. Some children will take an extra book home for homework on any given day.  This would be a book that I have read with your child in class. When this happens, please use this book for homework on that evening.  Your child may have the same book on more than one evening. This will happen when we are working on fluency and/or expression. The homework bags and homework scribblers travel back and forth every day. Each evening, your child is asked to read to you one of the books from their book bag. Record the title, whether it was H(hard), J(just right, or E(easy). Initial. Please check their bag daily, as some days there may be work your child has completed or information sheets for you.

 The following will give you an idea of what we are working on this week in 2B.

Spellings: We are reviewing grade 1 spellings this week and next week as well. I have sent home a copy of the assessment so you can see which words your child had difficulty with.  

Math: Counting, counting and more counting:)! 

• Forward (& backward) by 1s to 100

• Forward (& backward) by 5s and 10s to 100

• Forward by 2s (starting with 0) to 100

• Parts of 10 (6+4, 8+2...etc.)

We are also working on our first mental math strategy for math facts up to twenty. 

• Counting on - When adding 1, 2 or 3 to a number, start with the largest number and count up

Writing: Personal Narrative

We have read the book 'Chrysanthemum' by Kevin Henkes. It is about a little mouse who starts out absolutely loving her name and is very excited to start school.  Her feelings about her name change throughout the story. This prompted discussion about what might make us feel happy inside, thus leading to our writing last week about what might make us feel good inside. (I will tell you this....family, hugs, snuggles with mom or dad or the dog...these were the top stories!).  We revisited this book and the children then wrote about what might make them 'wilt', or feel sad inside. 

• Personal narratives are a great way to start the year in writing. The children will write about things that they themselves have experienced. Authors write about things they know about!

Perhaps even more importantly at this time, we are working on getting to know our routine, class expectations and each other!

Parent Homework! 

This next request of you will help us get to know each other and build on our sense of community within the classroom! The children will be writing about their families and sharing their stories. It would be lovely if each child could share a photo of their family with the class. You can do this in the way you are most comfortable with: 

1. Send in a photo of your family (photocopy preferred, as I would feel terrible if your photo got wrinkled, ripped or lost!) I can put it up on the big screen:).

2. Email a family photo.       

3. Record a little video of your family and introduce yourselves! (This would be awesome, and the children would LOVE it! :)

I have  a SECOND request.  If you could send in a baby picture of your child (hard copy or email) we want to have a little fun guessing who in the class that baby might be!   These can trickle in all this week and even next week. We will share a few each day. (Now, that doesn't mean EVERYONE should wait until the last day of next week....trickle.)

I have ONE MORE request. Another connection we have made with the book 'Chrysanthemum' is how you came about naming your child.  We will be doing an activity with our names later this week. Please send in a little letter to the class telling us how / why you chose the name you did for your child. 

So..In a nutshell

• Family photo or VIDEO 🙂

• Baby picture

• Letter to the class: Why / How did you choose the name you gave to your child

Dates to Remember

• Sept. 27, Friday - Terry Fox Run / Orange Shirt Day (In honor of the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation  

• Sept. 30 - No school (Truth and Reconciliation Day)

• Oct 7-11 - Scholastic Book Fair (Exact time and date for 2B to be announced)

• Oct. 8 - Picture Day Oct

• Oct. 9 - 6pm to 7pm Family night for the Scholastic Book Fair 

• Oct. 10 - Walk to School Day

• Oct. 14 - No Classes (Thanksgiving)

Thank you so much for helping out with this! Have a great week!

Kathy