OUR WEEKLY NEWSLETTER: Week of: September 9/14-18, 2026
Theme (science/social studies/literacy: We continue to read the book titled Where Did Your Family Come From?. In doing so, we are discussing various words such as immigration, visa, continent (and their names), ancestor, culture, heritage and more. Students are coloring a map and marking where each character moved from. We will read the book, Mama Where Did You Come From?, which will lead us into a discussion about the differences between the words "culture" and "heritage." The calendar markers we made for September are pictures of objects that represents aspects of culture. We also continue learning about what good readers do! We will read the book How to Read a Story and create bookmarks that remind us of the characteristics of good readers.
Writing: This week we will continue talking about complete vs. incomplete sentences. Students will review that every sentence needs a "who" and a "what." We will work on expanding sentences to make them stronger using the five W questions. In handwriting we will work on identifying types of lines as well as "ascending" and "descending" letters (looking at letter sizes on the line).
Language: Alongside our writing goals, we will be talking about nouns and verbs/ subjects and predicates. This relates to sentence structure. We will be working on dictionary skills! Students will learn to use guide words to find words they want to write. In doing so, we will practice alphabetizing words from books we read this week along with words we "brave spell."
Phonics: We will review the difference between vowels and consonants.
Bears:
Eagles:
Heart/High Frequency Words: (Heart words don’t always follow the rules and we often have to remember their spellings “by heart”. HF words appear most often in texts)
*Not beginning this week due to testing
Bears:
Eagles/Seals:
(Both grades are exposed to and practice both sets of words)
Math: Last week we learned about the attributes of various 2D shapes (sides and vertices) as well as their names. This week they will work on composing or putting smaller shapes together to make larger ones. Students will work on drawing shapes with the correct number of sides and vertices with chalk outside. Towards the end of the week we will begin to look at the attributes of 3dimensional shapes.
Special Activities Last Week: Students worked on MAPS testing. We had a great day out at Eagle Valley Center. Students picked nagoonberries and participated in teamwork building activities. They enjoyed sitting on the grass and eating lunch together on a beautiful day!
This Week: We have to finish MAPS testing this week as many students have to finish various assessments as well as having some makeups due to absenses. We will finish this completely this week!
Special Announcements:
Marmot of the Week: Ali (continued due to the short week)
Birthdays: Harper (Sep. 9)
Friday, Sep. 18-All School Centers-
Friday, Sep. 18-Movie night (flier coming home)
Friday, September 25-we will have our 1st swimming/library class field trip! I plan a once a month trip to the pool/ and Valley library. We swim first from 10:15-11:15, then head over to the library to eat our lunch, have story time with Ms. Amelia and look at books. I WILL NEED SWIMMING CHAPERONES! 7 year olds are required to have a parent in arms reach at a 1-3 ratio. I will also need at least one female adult with me in the locker room and 2 males in the boys locker room. I do not swim with the students as I really appreciate being able to "lifeguard" from the deck (as I know who all the children are) and help lifeguards monitor for safety, mediate any behaviors, and take students to the bathroom if needed. That means I will need at least 5 swimming adults (so far, Ms. Patsy is joining us) to make this trip work as I have a lot of 2nd graders (15). Please reach out by email if you can come!
Tuesday, Oct. 13 (12:30-1:30) DIPAC field trip
Friday, Oct. 16 (12:30-3:00) Hike with Discovery Southeast
I am planning a once a month field trip to Juneau Animal Rescue to have the students read to the cats. Hopefully this will begin in October. This will take place in the afternoons and I will need parent drivers, as the time we will be gone is outside of the school bus driving hours. We will only take 1/2 the class each time we go. If you are thinking you could be available to drive and chaperone, be thinking ahead about stopping into the office to fill out the needed driving form and show your license and proof of insurance! It is my goal to also turn this into a service project where we will collect goods for JAR to give each time we go...More to come...
I am including a link for our classroom handbook under "Links and Forms". You will also find permission slips there!
Thank you so much for the classroom supplies and snacks!
*Please see ALL posted links for important information!