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October 24, 2003 A Letter From The Editor It’s hard to believe that October is half over. The spelling program is in full swing and I’m already seeing the spelling words used correctly by the children in their daily writing. You will see your child bringing home sentences they write in class using their weekly spelling words. Attached to it you will find a writing rubric (introduced at Open House) indicating a writing score. Please review this with your child and have your child write the sentences correctly in their home journal. This will reinforce spelling, sentence structure, grammar, and the correct usage of punctuation and capital and lower case letters. During our writing workshops the children are learning how to develop a topic through the use of a web. Each child has been choosing their own topic and through the use of a web they brainstorm how to develop their topic. It is a way to organize their thoughts and ideas. Children will learn how to write effective topic sentences, followed by details and an ending sentence in the form of a paragraph. I experience the children as being very excited about the writing process. Language Arts lessons have been concentrating on identifying nouns and will then move on to verbs. Adjectives will come later. Word work continues on a daily basis and we have also recently explored synonyms and syllables. In addition to continuing with number sense and problem solving in math, the emphasis on the math unit we are working on is counting and sorting. We will investigate the many uses of numbers we encounter daily in the world around us, count groups of objects in more than one way, and compare amounts. Students will play games involving money and finding different coins that show the same amount. They will explore, sort, compare, and describe different shapes. The class also will collect and organize data about them-selves as a group. As you and your child encounter situations at home, have your second grader record or keep track in ways that make sense to him/her on paper. Some students will use numbers, pictures, or words. Other situations might call for use of a table as a problem solving strategy. If your child is struggling with these methods, have them use real objects for counting (pennies, beans, buttons) to work out number problems. It is important that children use problem-solving methods that are meaningful to them. Quick Notes
A Letter From the Editor Dear Parents, For openers, I wanted to express to all what a pleasure it was to meet all of you at Open House. I would also like to send a special thanks to those who purchased the copies of the books from my wish list. The books will be added to the classroom library and used for reading instruction. Our time together was limited at Open House, therefore if you have any questions please call the school and I will get back to you promptly. If you have a question that does not require an immediate answer, you can email me at farrarjan@aol.com. I will be checking my emails once or twice a week. Also, I urge you to visit our classroom web site at www.scituateri.net and see how our classroom’s progressing. Our web site has a link to information on the Rain Forest that you can visit with your child. I have also outlined our weekly schedule. You will be able to find the most recent newsletter on the web site as well. The past 23 days of school have been great in our classroom. Guided reading groups are well underway and the children have already made noticeable gains. Word study is ongoing and the children are excited about the discoveries they are making. Word study is an important piece of our program. Its purpose is to have children learn to recognize patterns among words and to increase their phonetic skills. These skills are then applied in reading and writing activities. The children are involved in a rigorous writing program. They have been learning how to develop a topic and we have been learning more about grammar and the conventions of the written word. We will be discussing how to write questions and exclamatory sentences. You can practice these skills at home in your child’s journal. Remember, one or two sentences two times a week is adequate at this time of year. If you notice that your child is finding is difficult to know what to write about, try brainstorming together simply by conversing. Math during our day is spent on problem solving and number sense which includes addition and subtraction. Thank you for your support and taking the time to reinforce what is taking place in the classroom. Janet Farrar REMINDERS *Make sure you child returns his/her reading book each day in the homework folder. This will protect the books from damage. (I am in the process of purchasing individual book bags for transporting books to and from school.) *Monday, October 6th is picture day! *If you have not already returned your child’s signed permission slip to visit the outdoor classroom, please send it in. (It was included in the Open House packet.) OCTOBER BIRTHDAY WISHES ! Miles Maxwell – October 5th Brittany Gagnon – October 27th Happy Birthday Miles and Brittany! CLASS SCHEDULE Monday – Music 9:15-9:45 Library 1:00-1:30 Tuesday – Art 10:30-11:30 Wednesday – Computer 2:00-2:30 Thursday – Gym 11:15-12:00 Friday – Health 12:45-1:30 (every other week starting October 3rd) FOOD FOR THOUGHT
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