Weekly Update February 21st (a day early)

Happy Thursday! 
Next week we will be working on the following topics: 
ELA: We will continue Journeys working on Lesson 18. In lesson 18 we will review characters and analyzing/evaluating. We will introduce suffixes -y and -ful and the verb be. Our spelling focus will be on long e spelled y and changing y to i. We are reading Roald Dahl's Matilda.        

Math: Next week we will continue spiraling through Saxon working on the addition algorithm, otherwise known as a step-by-step solution to a problem - it's like using a cooking recipe for math (example: one addition algorithm is "add the units (ones), add the tens, and combine the answers), subtracting 1 facts, identifying and creating similar shapes and designs, and creating and reading a Venn Diagram. 

Science: We will switch over from social studies to science starting Monday. We will begin our unit on weather.      

Friend of the Week: Tanner Hodges

Click on this link to see the F.O.W. schedule for the entire year: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Ai_iR7kLmmMpdGw0RC1hZmlIeWtPWDd3NTE0QmV4SVE#gid=0

  Reminders/F.Y.I:  

• Penny War - We need silver coins or dollar bills for our room and pennies to give to other classes. This competition will go on until March 8th. 

• P.E. days next week are Tuesday and Thursday. *The handbook A/B days calendar is wrong starting February 18th. Please check my blog for an accurate schedule of PE days each week.

• BOARD of DIRECTORS MEETING - 2nd Grade will be presenting our service project at this month's BoD meeting TONIGHT (Thursday, February 21st) at 6:30 p.m. in room 17-A (located in the main building). Please come support our students!  

• EARLY DISMISSAL - Friday, February 22nd. Please pick your child up at 12:00 noon.  

• Field Trip Permission Slips - All money and forms are due TOMORROW (2/22). 

• Silent Auction - CIS will be hosting the Annual Spring Social and Silent Auction on Sunday, March 3 from 1:00 pm-5:00 pm. Tickets will be sold in the pick up line the week of Feb. 25th. Please ask your friends and family if they would like to attend. The auction is open to the community. Tickets are 1/$10 or 2/$15. Childcare will be available for a small fee.  
• Technology - my school email is working again (frankarts@ciscomets.com) but please note: if you email me and do not hear a response within 24 hours, please try calling me at school or emailing secondgradehotspot@gmail.com. I will go back to using my school email as my primary means of communication (in addition to my blog). 

A/B Day Confusion

Starting President's Day (February 18th) the handbook is wrong concerning A/B days. From here on out, if it says "A" it means "B" and if it says "B" it means "A". This week our PE days are Wednesday and Friday. 

As if the A/B days weren't already difficult enough to keep up with. :)

No Email!

My school email (frankarts@ciscomets.com) is inaccessible. If you need to contact me please call (704-455-3847 ext. 5526) or email secondgradehotspot@gmail.com 

Weekly Update - February 15th

Happy Friday! 
Next week we will be working on the following topics: 
ELA: We will continue Journeys working on Lesson 17. In lesson 17 we will review sequencing and visualizing. We will introduce antonyms and subject-verb agreement. Our spelling focus will be on long i spelled i, igh, ie, and y. We finished Fantastic Mr. Fox and have started to read Roald Dahl's Matilda.        

Math: Next week we will continue spiraling through Saxon working on adding two digit numbers with regrouping (using dimes and pennies) and using the addition algorithm, otherwise known as a step-by-step solution to a problem - it's like using a cooking recipe for math (example: one addition algorithm is "add the units (ones), add the tens, and combine the answers). 

Social Studies: We will continue our unit on economics, focusing specifically on comparing needs and wants now vs. long ago. Students will define technology, participate in a SMART board lesson, and create a compare/contrast visual (flip book, Venn diagram, or double bubble). Students will also review this unit by playing a swat vocabulary game. Thursday we will take our unit assessment.     

Friend of the Week: Ms. Glass

Click on this link to see the F.O.W. schedule for the entire year: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Ai_iR7kLmmMpdGw0RC1hZmlIeWtPWDd3NTE0QmV4SVE#gid=0

 Reminders/F.Y.I:  

• Reflection Folders come home today - please go over the work with your child. As always, sign your name and send the assessments (in the back/right pocket) back to school on Monday. 

• Penny War - we are currently fighting for FIRST PLACE in the penny war! We need silver coins or dollar bills for our room and pennies to give to another first grade! This competition will go on until March 8th. 

• P.E. days next week are Wednesday and Friday. 

• Thank you to those of you who completed my second quarter survey. We still didn't have 100% participation, but I figured 88% was the best I'd get this time!  

• BOARD of DIRECTORS MEETING - 2nd Grade will be presenting our service project at this month's BoD meeting on Thursday, February 21st at 6:30 p.m. in room 17-A (located in the main building). Please come support our students!  

• NO SCHOOL - Monday, February 18th in honor of President's Day. 

• EARLY DISMISSAL - Friday, February 22nd. Please pick your child up at 12:00 noon.  

• Field Trip Permission Slips - All money and forms are due no later than February 22nd. 

• Silent Auction - We have only had ONE item donated for our class basket (thanks to Mrs. Hinesley)! Please send in a "spring" item for our class basket by Tuesday, February 19th.  
• Silent Auction - CIS will be hosting the Annual Spring Social and Silent Auction on Sunday, March 3 from 1:00 pm-5:00 pm. Tickets will be available for purchase the week of Feb. 18 and sold in the pick up line the week of Feb. 25. Please ask your friends and family if they would like to attend. The auction is open to the community. Tickets are 1/$10 or 2/$15. Childcare will be available for a small fee.  
• Technology - We were informed during our staff meeting that we have grown too large for our server at school. Teachers computers are starting to “crash” and some cannot log on anymore, therefore emails are inaccessible. As of now, nothing has changed with my computer…but from what I understand it is only a matter of time until mine goes down as well. In this case, if my email is inaccessible, I have created a school email through gmail. To make it easy to remember, it is the same as my blog address – secondgradehotspot@gmail.com. Please do NOT start communicating with me through this email unless my computer crashes (in which case I will send out a mass class email letting you know). I will not begin to check this account or utilize it until necessary. I just wanted to give you a heads up so you could add this address to your email contact list. Sometimes unfamiliar email addresses are sent into junk folders! Thanks for understanding our frustration with technology :-)

Weekly Update - February 8th

Happy 100th Day!! 


PLEASE take a few minutes to fill out my survey for 2nd quarter. It is a quick 10 questions -  comments are appreciated! My goal is 100% participation...we have had 18/24 responses. http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/WMVCJ75  
Thank you!

Next week we will be working on the following topics: 
ELA: We will continue Journeys working on Lesson 16. In lesson 16 we will review story structure and inferring/predicting. We will introduce pronouns and homographs. Our spelling focus will be on base words and endings -ed and -ing. We have started a new Roald Dahl book, Fantastic Mr. Fox.       

Math: Today we are celebrating the 100th DAY OF SCHOOL! Next week we will continue spiraling through Saxon working on naming a fractional part of a set, subtracting 0 facts, solving problems by drawing a picture and looking for a pattern, identifying and creating congruent shapes.              

Social Studies: We will continue our unit on economics, focusing specifically on trade. Students will define trade, watching a production worker video, check the labels on their clothing and compare the countries they came from. Students will also journal about what it would be like if we couldn't trade. Thursday we will celebrate Valentine's Day by scrapbooking, doing Valentine stations, and Valentine math.    

Friend of the Week: Will Hinesley

Click on this link to see the F.O.W. schedule for the entire year: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Ai_iR7kLmmMpdGw0RC1hZmlIeWtPWDd3NTE0QmV4SVE#gid=0

Reminders/F.Y.I:  

• P.E. days next week are Monday, Wednesday, and Friday!

• PLEASE take a few minutes to fill out my survey for 2nd quarter. It is a quick 10 questions -  comments are appreciated! My goal is 100% participation...so far we have had 18/24 responses. http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/WMVCJ75  
• PIZZA LUNCH - Tuesday, February 12th - Caden's birthday is Tuesday and his parents are sending in cheese pizza and ice cream cups for the whole class! Pizza may not be filling enough for some of your children. Please still send a drink, fruit or veggie, and afternoon snack!
• Thursday (February 14^th) - Students will have an opportunity to exchange Valentines toward the end of the day. Please note, students do not have to participate, but if your child decides to participate, there needs to be a Valentine for every child in our classroom. I emailed out a list of student names. 
• Talent Show - Friday, February 15th at Concord Christian Church from 5-8 pm

• NO SCHOOL - Monday, February 18th in honor of President's Day. 
• Field Trip Permission Slips - Look for these to come home Monday, February 11th. All money and forms are due no later than February 22nd. 
• Silent Auction - All basket items (spring theme) are due to the classroom by February 22nd.  

Notes from the Principal: 

Parent Wiki: www.cisparentnotes.wikispaces.com

Weekly Update - February 1st

Happy first day of February! I can't believe it is already the 95th day of school! 
 
Next week we will be working on the following topics: 
ELA: We will continue Journeys working on Lesson 15. In lesson 15 we will review cause and effect, abbreviations, and dictionary entries. Our spelling focus will be on compound words and the schwa vowel sound (When words have two or more syllables and we say one syllable with more stress, the vowel in the quieter syllable sometimes has neither its long nor its short vowel sound). We will continue reading Roald Dahl's The Giraffe and The Pelly and Me.       

Math: We will continue spiraling through Saxon working on drawing a number line, drawing line segments to the nearest inch, locating points on a number line, making polygons on a geoboard, identifying angles of a polygon, adding three or more single-digit numbers, and identifying the associative property of addition. Friday we will celebrate the 100th DAY OF SCHOOL!!             

Social Studies: We will continue our unit on economics, focusing specifically on goods/services and producers/consumers. This week students will define goods/services, make a double bubble comparing goods and services, have pairs of students act out services while the class guesses, bring in their HOMEWORK for our lesson on producers/consumers, define producer/consumer, and sort homework items into products that can be produced, grown, or manufactured.   

Friend of the Week: Asia Greene

Click on this link to see the F.O.W. schedule for the entire year: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Ai_iR7kLmmMpdGw0RC1hZmlIeWtPWDd3NTE0QmV4SVE#gid=0

Reminders/F.Y.I:  

• P.E. days next week are Tuesday and Thursday!
• MAP Testing is next week on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. PLEASE make sure your child is here! 
• Report cards go home today, February 1st. Please sign and return them to school Monday. 
• PLEASE take a few minutes to fill out my survey for 2nd quarter. It is a quick 10 questions -  comments are appreciated! My goal is 100% participation...so far we have had 17/24 responses. http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/WMVCJ75  
• Homework - Wednesday students should bring in ANY item from home that fits in his/her backpack. The goal of this lesson is to sort the items between what can be produced, grown, or manufactured. Therefore, if everyone brings in the same sort of item (a toy, a can of food, etc) it won't be too exciting. Please try to convince your child to bring in something that no one else will think of! This goes along with our lesson on producers and consumers. 
• Reflection Folders come home today - please go over the work with your child. As always, sign your name and send the assessments (in the back/right pocket) back to school on Monday. 
• We filled our marble jar...AGAIN!! Students have voted to bring their favorite toy to school...again! They may bring their favorite toy (that easily fits in their backpack) on Tuesday February 5th. 
• $5 Fee is due to Mrs. Lamm for her Creative Dramatics class starting on Tuesday, January 29th. If you have any questions you can contact her at lammd@ciscomets.com

Notes from the Principal: 

Parent Wiki: www.cisparentnotes.wikispaces.com