Week of September 29th- October 3rd

 Hello Families-

Thank you moms and special guests that came in for Muffins for Moms.  It was so nice to have you all in to our classrooms.  The kids were looking forward to it all week. 

Monday is count day for attendance, it is important for children to be in school every day.. but on Monday we will be taking a special documented attendance.   

Friday is also a PTCO Friday Fun Day, bring in $1 and wear your crazy hat or crazy hair day. 
This week we will focus on ....

Math: In second grade math, we will be finishing unit 2 and will be doing a lesson on Monday for a shortcut for harder subtraction facts, a unit 2 review on Tuesday, a unit 2 test on Wednesday (students will not have homework tonight), and will be starting unit 3 with numeration and place value on Thursday.  Typically your child will have homework Monday through Thursday.  We will be working on higher level thinking activities on Fridays, and will not assign homework over the weekend.  For 3rd grade math students, they are completing the unit 2 assessment, and starting unit 3 which will focus on linear measurement and area. *Please continue to time your child 2 minutes and 15 seconds with their math facts. 

FAST (phonics):  We are working on concept 6 (All King Think Words) this week. We have learned that some consonant sounds distort the vowel. In all and walk, the letter a has a short o sound.  In bank, the vowel has a long a sound. In sing, the vowel has a long e sound.  If your child ever forgets their spelling spiral, please check out the spelling tab on the blog. 
 
Reading: 
In Class: We will be thinking about what we know and writing teaching books.  Our goals for the students are that they understand the term accuracy, and apply it to their teaching book writing.  That they write teaching books on topics that they know and care about.  Lastly, that they include non-fiction visual and text features as well as written text in their teaching books.   

For Homework: Your child will be continuing to work on non-fiction texts, and if they are ready to move on from the non-fiction text feature chart, they will receive other formats to practice their  thinking while reading non-fiction.

Wordly Wise: We are moving on to Lesson 4 this week.  The words we are focusing on this week are: ape, brain, branch, cavern, chimney, dozen, flame, net, spear, and torch.  Check out the wordlywise3000 website for addition support. 
  

Writing: We are continuing to work on Personal Chronological Narrative.  This week your child will receive a prompt to independently fill out for a writing assessment, that will be graded with from Write From the Beginning Rubric.  We will use this rubric to guide our classroom instruction, and to plan for next steps.  This week your child will also be writing about "A fun time you have had with your family".  We are writing into our focused modeled writing notebooks. There is an opening sentence, three sentences for details, three sentences for extended details and a closing sentence.  We are modeling so many wonderful writing strategies within our lessons based on our rubrics and the student's needs. 

Social Studies:  We are continuing to work on Unit 6 "How are goods made and brought to us?" Students will learn how goods are produced and distributed. 

FOSS:  FOSS science is in full swing.  Your child will get to experience FOSS in their classrooms on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 2:45pm-3:25pm.

Upcoming dates to know:
10/1 Count Day
10/3  PTCO Friday Fun Day, bring in $1 crazy hair/hat day
10/8 Walk to School Day
10/10 PTCO Friday Fun Day, bring in $1 mismatch day
10/10 Pizza and Bingo Night
10/16 Cherokee Trail Spirit Bus
10/16 Pack Assembly
10/17 PTCO Friday Fun Day, bring in $1 mustache day
10/20-11/2 Fall Break