DECEMBER 17TH

Our Baby Jesus Party was another success! Thank you for sending gifts to honor Baby Jesus through gifts for needy families! The kids all worked hard at making their cards for the residents at the nursing home. These gifts will make older people and young children happy! They also benefit our children by helping them feel good about doing nice things for others.

Not getting outside to play and being excited about Christmas has these kids SOOOO wired! Whew! I am exhausted by the end of the day! Two more days!

May all of you and your families have a safe, wonderful Christmas and New Year! God's blesssings!

See you in 2009!

Dec. 10

We made it to Court Manor today after all. Thanks to Mrs. Rasmussen, Mr. Brown, and Sara for driving! We had a major scramble to get booster seats! I guess I "assumed"parents would send booster seats, and I didn't send a reminder. Thanks, Ashley, for bringing yours, and to Mrs. Rueckert from borrowing some for us, and to my husband for going home and bringing two of my granddaughers' booster seats!
It was fun to watch the kids help the residents play bingo. They each got a treat from the nursing home, and we even got to sing Happy Birthday to one of the residents. She enjoyed having the kids sing to her.

I think doing these service projects are valuable for our kids. They receive pleasure from helping others. I hope helping others will stay with them as they grow up.

CHRISTMAS PROGRAM TOMORROW NIGHT - KIDS NEED TO BE HERE AROUND 6:00 BUT NO LATER THAN 6:10. Please follow this as every year we seem to have some kids running in at 6:28 and if everyone else is ready, it holds them up, and the program doesn't start on time. Thanks!

Dec. 9 Pictures

Plans are to go to Court Manor tomorrow. We didn't get enough drivers, so instead of canceling we are trying to work out where someone can watch the office and Sara can drop students off and then come back and pick them up.

The pictures are from 1. Court Manor 2. Very Important Pupil 3. December quilt squares for North Country Night

Have a great evening!

Dec. 8

We went to Church today for the feast of the Immaculate Conception. Tomorrow we'll learn about Juan Diego and see the story on video. Friday is the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, but we'll also talk about Saint Lucy whose feast day is Saturday, the 13th. We continue to work on our Advent Wreaths, calendars, and cactus pictures. Students also have a manger they are working on. When they do something nice for someone they can add straw and hope to have it filled for Baby Jesus by Christmas. This same idea is used to color flowers on their Christmas cactus.

I still need permission slips for Court Manor and drivers for 5 kids. Also, the gift exchange slips as well as the Christmas Eve liturgy slips. Please send them in tomorrow. Thanks!

We will not be having spelling words to study as we will be trying out the new lessons this week. The test will be a cloze story word test. This means students will have a paper with blanks in the story. We read the story aloud including the test words, and the kids will fill them in. This spelling program, if I understand it correctly, has an expectation of words kids should already know. Various skills are practiced throughout the week which builds on the skills.

Our reading skills this week include words with AI, and AY as well as compound words. We've practiced several of these today. We'll be reading the story " A Trip to the Firehouse". If you'd like your children to do the spelling pages that go with the story, you may do so. They will not be required this week. These would be pages 167-169.

Remember to start getting gifts for our Baby Jesus Party which is a week from Wednesday! They are unwrapped, and the list was sent home earlier.

We will have liturgy on Wednesday this week as usual.

Remember to have your child here no later than 6:10 on Thursday for the Christmas program.

December 2

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving! I think the kids were ready to come back and see their friends.

Here's planning ahead:

• Baby Jesus Party on Dec. 17th at 1:30 A note will be sent home soon!
• We WILL have a classroom party on the 19th. I will send a note about that also.
• Christmas program at 6:30 Dec. 11th
• 4th Wiseman on Dec. 19th about 9:15

This week we will be learning how to write friendly letters. Then we will write to some of the other soldiers that are on our bulletin board in the hallway! The spelling words for this week are the ones for the Reading-Writing Workshop for Theme 3.

Speaking of Spelling - Next week or the week after, we will be trying out a new spelling plan to see if we like it. It is different because the kids will not have a list to study from. This plan has kids use the words in various ways, and there are only five words. The test is a dictation test where the kids will figure out the words that will fit in the sentences. I haven't had a chance to study it yet, but we will try it soon. We have been looking for a new spelling plan for a few years now.

REMEMBER THE PARADE THIS SATURDAY! OUR SCHOOL WILL BE REPRESENTED FOR THE FIRST TIME IN QUITE A FEW YEARS! HOORAY!

Keep warm!

NOV. 18

We finished making our Thanksgiving dinner centerpieces today, and we also made cards for the residents at the nursing home to take with us when we go on Thursday. A FEW KIDS HAVE NOT RETURNED THEIR PERMISSION SLIPS. I NEED THEM TOMORROW.

We read and discussed our Weekly Reader today. It was about the symbols of our nation. The kids do the back page, and on this, they had ABC order for five words. Tomorrow we will practice ABC order to the 2nd and 3rd letters.

The kids are working on short stories. I hope we have three finished and ready to publish SOON.

We will be learning about the parts of the Mass. We have begun learning about the items in church such as the Sanctuary Lamp, the lectern, the ambry ( Do YOU know what that is? :-) I use flash cards and give the meaning/description, and the kids tell what it is. It's a fun way to learn!

Ms. Betzold has begun extra music practices to get ready for the Christmas program. I give her a great deal of credit for working with such big groups at one time. She does a WONDERFUL job!

A NOTE ABOUT BOOSTER SEATS:
The Wisconsin Child Passenger Safety Law
A child at least 4 years old but less than 8 years old, weighs at least 40 but not more than 80 pounds, and is no more than 57 inches tall must be properly restrained in a "child booster seat".

Ages 8 or older or exceeds the weight or height limits above, must be properly restrained by a safety belt.

This means most of my kids will NEED a booster seat. Please remember to send one on Thursday. Thanks for those who are willing to send an extra one we can borrow!

Have a good evening!

November 11

Yesterday we welcomed a new second grade student to our class. We are happy to have Andrew with us!

Today we had a very nice Veteran's Day program in Church. Our band, choir, 3rd and 4th graders did a good job with the Music portion, and the Junior High students had good messages to share about the Veterans. We are very happy to be a part of thanking our vets for all they have done and do for our country!

THANK YOU to all who came for conferences!! It's so important to meet and discuss the progress your children are making. There is a lot more to 2nd grade than 1st grade when you compare what things they are reading compared to last year. Their Kindergarten and First Grade teachers have done a great job in helping them learn to read!

We are taking our Theme 2 skills tests this week. The spelling words are the review words for Nature Walk, page 239 in the Student Handbook. They are: these, use, swim, glad, club, all, bone, cute, next, brave, add, mess, egg, hope, trip, stone, lost, off, grass, hill. The challenge words are: drove, mule, space, storm, across.

November 5

Here it is November already! Where did October go? We have begun our second quarter, and I look forward to seeing all of you at conferences on Monday.

The spelling list for this week is from Around the Pond story. We are working on words with double final consonants including ck. For the English part, we'll be learning about exclamations. We work on capitalization and punctuation every day in our Daily Language Practice. We still need to work on those.

Our Thanksgiving Dinner is on the 20th. I am also hoping to take my class to Court Manor, as we have been invited to go and listen to Granny Goose there. This would mean some of the kids would need to bring car seats, and I will need one or two drivers. The office needs your insurance information if you drive. This is updated each year.

We are celebrating Red Ribbon Week. We have all received red ribbons to wear each day, and Mr. Bell picks numbers each day and kids win a small prize. We've talked about how smoking and abusing alcohol and drugs can hurt our bodies, and the kids made a bookmark. It's important for everyone to help kids learn to say "No" to drugs.

Have a good week! Remember that Friday is a half-day for the students.

Prizes Wanted

We are still looking for prizes for the honors party Friday. These can be small items such as pencils, erasers, small candies, etc. although the kids will get more than enough candy for Halloween! Also, if anyone can help with the games and set-up or clean-up, it'd be great.

We went to Eucharistic Adoration for about 10 minutes today. I wanted to give the kids the experience of this devotion. We didn't stay long because they have a hard time staying focused for too long, plus we had Library.

I believe the discipline plan with the yellow slips is working. Last month there were a lot more slips going to Mr. Bell, and I've seen a decline this month. That's great!

PLEASE make sure your child has WARM CLOTHING for outside including HATS, MITTENS, WARM JACKETS, and a change of clothing that's kept in the lockers. Get ready for snow season by investing in SNOWPANTS and BOOTS now so kids can get out and get fresh air. Teachers have noon duties every day this year, so there will be NO inside recess for kids who don't come dressed warmly - kids WILL be going out. Goodwill, Bargain Hut, and Thrift Store probably have some of these items in . It's always nice to have extra hats, mittens, etc. which we keep in lockers just in case kids "forget".

Next week is the end of the first quarter already. Conferences will be on November 10 so mark your calendars.

Oct. 23 I'M BACK!

I have been ill since Sunday. I hadn't planned on going to the doctor because it's usually spending money to be told "It's just a virus." By Tuesday, I wasn't getting better so I went in and found out I DID have strep! Then I couldn't come back until I'd been on the penicillin for 24 hours which is why I couldn't be back until today. I get VERY sick with strep. I am on the mend... I hope.

Because of my absence, there will be NO SPELLING TEST on Friday. We'll do it next week, and play catch-up with what I missed this week. The story and spelling list go with Exploring Parks with Ranger Dockett. The phonics are the consonant clusters: tr, fl, st, tr, gl, fl, br, sl, cl... We are also learning the two sounds for c (k and s). We'll be practicing Fact and Opinion also.

My kids made Halloween cards to send to the soldiers today. They also helped pack a box of books and another care package. We are spacing the packages so they don't get there all at one time, plus I'm sending to different people in my nephew's unit. Soon we will have the address for another soldier who has just been sent to Iraq. I told her Grandma we will send her some care packages too.

Prizes are needed for the Halloween Honors Party next Friday. I think the cost shouldn't be over a dollar - the pencils, erasers, that type of prize would be fine. Please send whatever you can. I know with the soldier packages, the Stuff-A-Truck and everything else we ask you to do, it's just one more thing. Please help if you can. Thanks so much!

Oct. 14

Here are pictures from our bake sale!

October 13

Wow! What a nice, warm morning it is! I LOVE Fall!

This week's new words are: beautiful, even, quiet, straight, and year. We will be learning about the long vowels O, U, E using the Consonant Vowel Consonant final e patterns. We will also be practicing the 2 sounds for g- the g sound and the j sound. The spelling words this week are for the story Henry and Mudge and the Starry Night story.

We are learning about the rosary and today we will see a video The Rosary for Little Children. We may see another one or two later on this month.

We hope to have a guest speaker from the Day Shelter on Thursday. She had planned on being here last week but was called away.

Thank you to all who donated goodies for our bake sale! It was a huge success! We made $92.25!! We had a glitch with our fry bread sale as our outlets kicked off, and I had to stand in the hall and fry out there. Thank you to Melissa R. for helping out as well as Ms. Eaton, Kristen, Nick, and Mary from our junior high! You made things go so much easier for us!!! I will try and publish some pictures from it tonight or tomorrow.

October 6

BAKE SALE THIS FRIDAY - OCTOBER 10 AT 12:30 IN OUR CLASSROOM.
This will be to help pay for postage for our soldier packages. Please send items in Friday morning.

We are taking our Theme 1 Tests this week. I hope to have the results for you by Friday. These are the skills tests which go with our reading books.

Students should be studying their math facts. We had our chapter test, and it looks like some need to practice more. Remember to do the fact family ( 2 addition facts, 2 subtraction facts.)

Today we had our Fire Prevention program. Firefighters Tim and John helped the kids learn more about safety. They encouraged the kids to ask you if they could test your smoke detectors tonight. It is important to have an escape plan for your homes, too. The men did a nice job. They said our class was the best behaved one they had today! That was nice to hear!! :-)

REMEMBER - NO SCHOOL FOR THE KIDS ON WEDNESDAY. Teachers get to go and learn at Rice Lake! Also, support the school by going to the Indian Taco Sale that day.

Have a good evening!

October 2 More Pictures!

I plan to send a copy of one of these pictures to the press to let people know about our Support Our Soldiers project, so I took a couple of pictures of the girls who brought things in for the soldiers. We hope to get a package ready to send tomorrow. I hope to plan a bake sale soon to pay for postage since we don't have the money for that part of our project. Be looking for more information on the bake sale within the next few days.

Reminder - Spelling Test tomorrow!

We had pictures taken today. Some parents must have forgotten about it, so the kids will have to take pictures on retake day if they didn't have their money today.

Have a good evening!

Oct. 1

Sorry about the previous post! I kept trying to get it arranged properly, but the preview showed it differently than it actually posted. Hope you can figure it out!

October 1 - Pictures from Sept.

Here are some pictures from September. The kids were decorating the paper to cover the Support Our Soldiers boxes for the North Entrance hallway.

I have also included our V.I.P. ( Very Important PUPIL) Each student will get to have their pictures, etc. on the V.I.P. bulletin board for a week or more. Parents will get a letter prior to the week your child will be V.I.P. It gives ideas of what your child might want to bring.

Something else we do in second grade which is fun is to have a student who is V.I.S.A. (Very Important Student Assistant). This child gets to do little extra things to help me and/or other students. Everyone will have turns all year long. It goes with the weekly chores such as line leader, messenger, pass papers, etc. The kids enjoy this job!

Mr. Bell came to our room again today to show the kids the next step in their writing. He is proving to the kids that writing is easy, and they CAN do it! They are very receptive to his ideas. I'm sure we'll invite him in again!

Liturgies have been especially nice this year! Today Mr. Bell was song leader as well as playing the organ at Communion time. For the closing song, he and Ms. Betzold both played. Wow! I don't believe I' ve ever heard our organ and piano playing at the same time. It was awesome!! What is even more awesome, is that some of the kids were talking today and said they "love going to Church!" I think it's such an uplifting yet calming place to be, and when we are all a school community there at once it's even more of a blessing!

Have a good evening. REMEMBER PICTURE DAY TOMORROW!

Sept. 28

Last week certainly went by quickly! In fact, last MONTH went by quickly. Here we are about to step into October already.

This week's Language Arts will center around the story "Mrs. Brown Went to Town", and we'll be practicing the phonics skills using CVCe. This means consonant-vowel-consonant-final e. Words like this will be words such as NAME, LIKE, etc. We have enjoyed the funny stories in this theme!

In Religion this week we have two special days: October 1 is the Feast of St. Therese of the Child Jesus, and October 2 is the Feast of Guardian Angels. Many laypeople probably don't take notice of these days unless they are a Holy Day, but I like to include them for my kids. We'll also be starting to learn about the Rosary. October is the Month of the Rosary. I found out that most of my kids didn't know the Hail Mary, so this will be a good thing to learn.

I now have four people who've sent in their donations for the soldiers. Thank you! I especially liked seeing the hunting and fishing magazines. I hadn't thought of those. I added some items on the easel in the North Entrance, but I'll add them here, too.

• POWDERED DRINK MIXES (single serving ones) like Crystal Light
• COMBOS AND OTHER PRETZEL, CRACKER TYPE GOODIES
• MICROWAVE POPCORN
• EASY MAC ( a favorite for some!)
• PADS OF PAPER
• PENS AND PENCILS

These are all pretty inexpensive items, so I hope we get more donations. They'd also be easy to ship. I sent two packages of my own using the flat rate boxes from the post office. Postage is around $11.oo or $12. oo for each these boxes which can hold up to 20 pounds.

You might want to ask at work if your co-workers would like to be included. One parent said her fellow employees wanted to do this and are collecting from them. I thought that was a great idea!

Mr. Bell came into our room on Wednesday to help the kids get started on writing. He showed them how to plan for a beginning, middle, and end of stories by using drawings on their planning sheets. He was going to come in on Friday but we had too many kids absent so I asked him to come back on Wednesday. It's great that he's willing to do this, isn't it? :-) This week we will begin planning for our October books.

Have a great week!

September 19

I just wanted to update you on today. First grade shared the Safe and Sacred video with us. It was very well done. The video was cartoon characters and had rhyming verses in it. It was divided into sections: 1. My Body Belongs to Me 2. Good Adults-Bad Adults 3. Good touches- Bad Touches 4. What Can I Do? 5. Who Can Help Me? 6. Let's Talk About It.

Basically it helped kids to know that they shouldn't talk to strangers, shouldn't get in a car with strangers, don't let a stranger know if you are alone at home whether it is someone on the phone or at the door ( I doubt anyone here would allow a 2nd grader to stay home alone!) and they have a right to say no to anyone who touches them in a way that makes them feel uncomfortable, sad, mad, or scared. Then they are to TELL a trusted adult. The kids were given good information about who they could go to - parents, grandparents, aunt, uncle, older siblings, teachers, priest, minister, doctor, etc. It also pointed out that kids need to memorize their home phone ( with area code), as well as their address, parents' work phone numbers, and the town's emergency number. I believe it's very much like the information we as parents, grandparents, & teachers have already taught our children. It's just a good reminder.



Next week we will be reading the story "Julius" so look for the spelling list under that story in the student handbook. This theme is Silly Stories, and we've already had some chuckles about the stories we've read so far!

We'll be continuing our subtraction in Math, and we'll have a test on Chapter 2 on Friday if we get everything done up until then. Some days we just don't get as much done as we'd planned.



Today the kids drew and colored on paper that we'll wrap boxes in to collect our donations towards the Support Our Soldiers project. We hope to be able to put some out for others to donate to this project. By the way, if anyone wants to help with postage, we'd like that too. Thanks for the donations we have received so far! I plan on getting a box of my own ready this weekend - including homemade cookies which my nephew said the guys would really like!



If there is anything in particular you'd like me to include in these posts, just let me know.



Have a good weekend!

Addition to Sept. 18th post

There are two things I forgot to mention on the first post.

Several children are finishing their breakfasts and then say they are still hungry at milk break time. If your child is one of these, please send a snack in for your child. I do ask that you NOT send in sweet snacks such as fruit roll-ups, gummy snacks, breakfast/snack bars as many of these are just full of sugar if you read the ingredients. You may want to send fresh fruits and vegetables, maybe whole grain crackers, low-fat string cheese, etc. Please do not send soft drinks or tea.

Please feel free to start sending in items for our "Support Our Troops" service project. I have one donation so far. We can collect all year, but I'd like to get at least one package going if possible. If you have any relatives or friends who'd like to donate, we'd certainly welcome that also!

September 18

I have a reminder for you. Some of the students have still not handed in the Parent/Student Handbook sheet and the Safe and Sacred Sheets. Please send them in SOON so the office has those. Thanks!



We had our first Chapter Test in Math yesterday. It was basic addition, and everyone did well. One of the things I've mentioned to the kids today is that they need to CHECK their work BEFORE they hand it in. As you will see on some of the tests and other work, kids sometimes skip an answer.



There will be a Spelling Test tomorrow. The words in the Student Handbook that I gave you are the ones for the Reading-Writing Workshop. These are a little confusing because the company intended for the lists to be torn out, so they go from RIGHT to LEFT in the handbook. (Last week's words were from Dragon Gets By.)



Tomorrow we will see a video on the Safe and Sacred material. We will view this with the first grade as the video is in high demand and needs to be returned. When we get videos through the Diocesan Media Center, they are approved by the diocese so you won't need to worry that it isn't age-appropriate. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me.



In Social Studies we learned what a community is, a citizen, rules, and responsibilities. They had good answers to the questions.



Thank you to Mrs. Rueckert for reading two books to my class this morning! The kids were very interested and quiet! She read two books about "Jesus", and the kids asked for more books about Jesus. Hooray!



Have a good evening!

September 15

We had another busy day, but it was a beautiful day! We're going to enjoy these nice days while we can!

This week we are working on Reading-Writing Workshop. We will use the 5 steps of the Writing Process. These steps are: Prewriting, First or Rough Draft(sloppy copy), Revising, Proofreading ( or editing), and finally, publishing. This writing is to write a story. We will go through each step of the process. We will be using this process when we write. Since it is already the middle of September, I think we'll write a short story. Next, we will begin working on our October books. Each day we will be writing - most days it will be in a journal.



Just to clear things up for you when work comes home: I let the kids know if they should put papers in the Keep at Home or Return to School pockets of their homework folder. When it comes to the Reading/English/Spelling sheets, I have them all stapled together. If some of the sheets are blank, there should be a note on the page such as Did Together, Did Orally, or Skip as we may just not have time to do all of these or these may not be items that will be on the tests at the end of the themes.

I am needing to use the yellow discipline slips less often. Hooray! That's our goal! I am going to be using Positive Behavior cards in addition to the Caught being good, etc. For these cards, I will punch them and when the card is full they'll get a treat/award. Hopefully, the kids will work at getting the positive awards and not the yellow slips! :-)

Thank you to the Rasmussens for cutting our carpet squares for our lockers. Thanks to Brad Lundmark for donating the carpet mats. Thanks to Mrs. Rueckert for agreeing to be our Room Parent, volunteering to read to the kids, and for offering to do the book orders.

Here is our second grade liturgy schedule for this year:
October 22
January 14
March 11
May 13.
There will also be the All-School Sunday liturgies. There will be the usual 4 P.M. Christmas Eve liturgy, the Catholic Schools' Week Sunday liturgy on Feb. 1st, and April 26 at 11:00.
This year we will have the opportunity to attend Mass with the Bishop in Superior. This will be Jan. 21st ( pray for good weather!)

If anyone would be interested in coming in to do an Art project anytime this year, feel free to let me know. We'd welcome it!

Have a good evening!

SEPTEMBER 9TH

First of all, I'd like to thank the parents who took the time to come to Parent Night last night! It shows how important your children are to you, and I appreciate it - especially since the Packer-Viking game was on earlier than planned.

This week we are focusing on the short a and short i sounds in words. Your child should have taken home their story "Len and Linda's Picnic" which they are to read to you, but it does not have to come back to school. The high-frequency words this week are: kitchen, bought, front, kitchen, roll, and until.

Today we worked on order and zero properties in Math. We also counted on by finding the larger number and then counting on from it to add numbers. This is like 9 + 2. Nine is the larger number, and then we count on two to get 11.

We also did some map work in Social Studies. We learned there are 7 continents, 4 oceans, that the colors on a map stand for certain types of land, and blue is for water.

In Religion, we talked about God's gifts of creation. Students are to choose one photo from the book and write two sentences telling how people use these gifts. This is the first time they've written in their journals. Mr. Bell wants us to do daily writing. We also do Daily Language Practice which is one sentence on the board for the kids to write correctly. For next month I hope to get going on their October books!

Have a good evening!

FIRST DAY1

Our first day is over, and we made it through the heat. I am looking forward to cooler weather IF the meteorologists are right :-). We had a very good day! The breakfast/getting ready for class will take some getting used to, but we will work it out. We will still have the milk break, and I am sure you are getting or will get the letter about the cost.

Tomorrow is our first school year liturgy. We are looking forward to singing and praying together as a school family.

Thank you to the Home School Association for the wonderful apples for snack today!!

Students were given a "take home folder" which is to be returned each morning. There is a "return to school" side and a "keep at home" side. They also have their reading bag and calendar. Please sign this and return each day. Thanks!

Have a good evening!

HELLO TO A NEW YEAR!!

Welcome to a new school year! I am excited to be meeting you and your children. This is going to be a very special year when the second graders make their First Reconciliation and First Holy Communion!

Another exciting part of this preparation is getting to meet our newest additions to our school family. Mrs. Bernier's baby daughter is SO precious! She will be having a new sub for the time she is on maternity leave. Our principal, Mr. Bell, is a wonderful addition. He is really looking forward to meeting everyone and seeing the school filled with children. He's very much a "people person". Mrs. Levings is our new fourth grade teacher. She is from the area and is excited to be back "home" with her husband. We also have Mrs. Worrall who will be teaching Computer and Library classes. These girls are such friendly, eager teachers! Mr. Bell and these two new teachers fit in so well with our staff. We are blessed to have them with us!

I am getting close to being ready - just a few more odds and ends to take care of tomorrow. I hope everyone has had a good summer. It certainly went FAST! Soon God will bless us with cooler weather and the changing colors of fall. Fall is my favorite time of year.

You will be receiving information from me on Tuesday. Please read it as it will help you know what's happening in second grade. I KNOW you will get LOTS of things from the office, too. Be sure and read those things also.

IMPORTANT- mark your calendars! Monday, September 8th at 6:30 is our 2nd grade Parent Night. I look forward to meeting all of you.
See you very soon!

May 23

It is unbelievable that this year will soon be over. The kids have certainly shown me they are ready to be finished! It has been difficult to keep them on task this past week. We continue to do our regular daily schedule. Next week they will take their final theme test in Reading. We'll also be doing the next chapter test in Math. It's on fractions, and the kids are really doing well on these as they usually do in Math.

We will be (weather permitting) going fishing on Friday, the 30th at the friars' cabin in Iron River. The kids are very excited about it! Things they need to bring: jackets, sunscreen, maybe mosquito spray, but for sure BAIT! I will let you know Tuesday about the food. I'll go over the slips and see what we have or what we need.

June 2 is our picnic with the first grade at Kreher Park. The school hot lunch program will provide us with lunch and milk. We will go to the Dairy Queen after the park. Kids will probably need to bring their own money for the DQ.

If I don't get back to this blog before the end of the year, let me say "Thank you!" It has been a very good year. The kids have made this year an enjoyable one for me, and the First Reconciliation and First Communion were highlights of the year. All of you have been wonderful with your support and cooperation. I couldn't have asked for a better group to make this transition year a great one!
May God bless you! Have a safe and happy summer!

May 15 Class News

I thought I'd add some of our most recent pictures. These include our praying the rosary a decade at a time with the third graders and Mrs. Starosta. We pray for Mrs. Punjak and others who need our prayers. I really like this feeling of unity as we join our hearts and prayers.

Today we went to MMC and had some really great lessons! Thank you to Cindy Johnson and Jenny Korpela for driving and helping chaperone! The most impressive lessons were the Don't Smoke and the Nutrition. The ladies had some very good visuals about the lungs and the amount of sugar in foods and beverages. I imagine some of the kids told you about these - I know my granddaughters came home yesterday with this information, and it made an impression on them. The kids also enjoyed the PT activities. They love to move! We got to see the ambulance and a demonstration on germs and handwashing. I felt this was a very worthwhile outing. Adam got to experience the heart monitoring and is showing his adhesive souvenirs as well as his muscles in the picture.

I also included pictures of Brooke, Father Frank, and her mom and grandmothers ( 4 generations!). Brooke received a very special rosary at Mass Wednesday. It was sent by our Bishop and was blessed by the Holy Father!! It was awesome! The Holy Father sent them to the bishops and asked that the rosaries be given to one of this year's First Communicants whose birthday is closest to his. It was Brooke, so she was able to receive this very special gift. I know she will treasure it always!

Next week we will be reading the last story from our Reading book, and the following week will be theme skills tests. In Math we are moving right along and are now into fractions! We are learning about Weather in Science , and in Social Studies we are studying about our government. We just had our Unit Test in Religion.

Have a good evening!

May 5

Our First Communion went REALLY well, didn't it? What a great day to receive Jesus for the very first time! They looked like little angels! I think I was more nervous than they were, so I'm glad we made it through.

We look forward to going to MMC next week for our second grade tour. This is another "first" for me, too. A permission slip will be going home this week. I'll need drivers for 7 kids. Remember if your child needs a booster seat, please be sure it's here.

Looking ahead, I've been talking with Brother Tom about the possibility of taking my class to Iron River for a day of fishing. More on that later this month...

A reminder: If your family took the name holder from Church on Sunday, please return the large part of it. You should keep your family name part, but like I said at practice, I want to save them and reuse them each year. I am missing 9 of them.
Thanks!
Have a good evening!

APRIL 14 THUNDER CAKE

A snow day in April - not unheard of in our neck of the woods! Nice to have the day off on a Friday, but I AM hoping for the 50s and 60s we're supposed to get soon.

Today we baked a Thunder Cake. This is another recipe from our reading book. In this story, we learned about a way to tell how close a storm is, and we learned about how this gentle grandmother helped her granddaughter to know how brave she was. Ask your child to tell you the story! I try and let everyone help when we make things. Miss Nancy has been very kind to let us disrupt her morning chores to help us do these things. Thank you, Miss Nancy!

This week we will be taking our Theme 5 Reading Skills Tests. Only one more theme to go! We'll have plenty to do for the rest of the year, believe me.
In our lesson for First Communion, it suggests parents have kids begin making invitations to First Communion. That's a great idea! I remember when our children made their First Communion. What a wonderful time to celebrate!

APRIL 7

Hello! I hope all of you who are parents of First Communion students received the note about the practice. If not, mark it down. The practice will be April 29 at 5:30, and we need you to be there so everyone knows what to do on May 4.

Students are to be working on their trees and today we began a calendar. They are to do things each day. I asked them to leave them at school and write in the days here - as well as the trees. They can do the good deeds anywhere, but I want them to put the leaves on and write in the calendar here at school so they don't get lost. I told them I'll be collecting them the Friday before First Communion.

This week we'll hear the story Thunder Cake about a child who is afraid of thunder. She is helped by her kind, gentle Grandma to overcome this fear. Together they make a "thunder cake". The recipe is in the book, so now the kids want to make this recipe. I'll have to ask Miss Nancy and see what she thinks.
We will be working with words with -ed and -ing endings as well as silent letters such as gh, b, and kn.

We had the Chapter 17 Math test today. There were several 100% papers! Hooray! This week we will be working on solid figures. My kids are enjoying working with shapes!

Have a good evening!

March 28 Reading Recipes!

This week we read the story "Jalapeno Bagels" in our reading book. A young boy was at his family's bakery looking for something to take to school for International Day. They were to take something from their culture. He thought of taking pan dulce, Mexican sweet bread. Then he thought of taking empanadas de calabaza - pumpkin turnovers. After making those, he helped his Mama` make chango bars. Next, he helped his Papa` make bagels and challah, Jewish braided bread. Finally, his mom, dad, and he make jalapeno bagels. In the end, Pablo decided to take jalapeno bagels with cream cheese and jam.

Last night, my granddaughter and I (mostly my granddaughter - top left photo) made the jalapeno bagels. We've never made bagels before so it was a fun experience! I wasn't sure if my kids would like them, but they ate them with cream cheese and jelly and really liked them!

This morning, Miss Nancy gave us all the ingredients to make Chango Bars. The pictures are from this morning's baking session. They turned out GREAT! BOTH OF THESE RECIPES ARE IN OUR READING BOOK IF YOU ARE INTERESTED IN TRYING THEM.

Next Tuesday is the end of our third quarter! How can that be?????

We continue to learn more in preparation for First Communion. Three of my kids should have taken a note home and the intention they'll do for the big day. There will be three from Mrs. Gierczic's class and three from mine for Intentions. We will each have two for Offertory also. By the way, did you know that is also the Feast of the Ascension?

Have a great weekend!

March 18 - Vacation time is almost here!

Today we made pretzels to remind us to pray. I gave the kids the recipe and story of the pretzel. They did a really good job! I wasn't sure how well it would work with younger kids, but once again they surprised me with what they can do. We have been doing more Religion during Lent with Art activities, daily readings, and First Communion preparation. They need to be working on their Gifts of Self projects to put leaves on their trees.

We continue our subtraction in Math. Tomorrow we will work with money. Next week we will finish the chapter and then take a Unit Test.

We will be reading the story "Jalapeno Bagels" next week. I asked the kids if we should make some, but they weren't keen on the idea of spicy bagels. :-) Speaking of reading - I am looking for more reading time at home. I only have two kids who show me their reading calendars every day. Some don't even turn them in. This is the only homework they have had each night - to read 15 minutes. For the last nine weeks of school, I plan to send one sheet of homework home Monday through Thursday so kids can get used to "having homework".


The kids have done well with their monthly quilt projects as well as their art projects. Several of these should have gone home tonight. I haven't taken my camera to school lately so I don't have more pictures to put on this blog. I had wished I'd brought the camera today for the pretzels, but I didn't think about it.

Once again, please check with your child and see if he/she needs new supplies. I am still loaning out crayons, scissors, and glue. Also, if anyone would like to send paper towels and napkins, that'd be great.

REMEMBER - VACATION IS THURSDAY THROUGH NEXT MONDAY, THE 24TH.

Have a great Easter!

March 11

I'm BACK :-)! Wow, we have had lots of sick people in school recently! I know I had the cough and fever, and the cough seems to hang on forever. I slept one entire day when I got sick. I thought I'd been doing well with keeping the germs away, but I guess with sick kids in school and sick granddaughters I was bound to catch it.

First Reconciliation went really well! My kids all felt happy about receiving this great sacrament. We've come a LONG way since I was their age and knelt in that little dark box! I think it's much nicer now - much less intimidating to sit face-to-face with Father.

We have now begun preparing for First Communion. We have several projects to work on in the next few weeks. Mrs. Gierczic and I met tonight to work on plans for first communion. We have come up with a seating arrangement with one pew per family. You will be receiving more information about the big day once we have everything worked out. Remember, the kids should be taking their Communion pamphlets home to share with you - particularly the parent section.
Please take time to read it.

No one has brought in items for The Brick during Lent. We ARE continuing the collecting until next week so they still have time to donate.

We are subtracting in Math. Some kids still need to practice their facts every night. They are understanding the process but need to know their facts. You can practice with them as you are preparing dinner, driving in the car, or any other time. I will be giving individual oral tests on facts through 18 very soon.

Have a good evening!

Feb. 21

I'm still here - just have a very hard time making time to sit down and actually blog!
Wow, what short week this was, but we accomplished a lot. Can you believe we have even started our prewriting for our March books? Hopefully the kids can read their February books to the Kindergarten and/or the first graders soon.

We are progressing nicely with our preparation for First Reconciliation! I have asked the kids to take their pamphlets home to share with parents as there is always a section on the last page for parents. Remember to mark the date - March 5th at 5:30. I will have a letter with more information about the actual event for you in the near future so all of you will know what to expect.

We will be taking our Theme 4 Skills tests for Reading next week. That means we only have two more themes until we have completed the book. That's great!

Monday is our Chapter 13 Math test. My kids are zooming right along in Math, too! The addition is going just fine. Tuesday we will begin subtraction. Keep on practicing those fact families! Knowing the basic facts helps kids immensely. It really adds to their understanding of the math concepts, but it saves them time - ( not having to count on their fingers or make tally marks to count truly is a way to save time.)

We are doing lots of things to learn about Lent - art projects, stories, scripture, and explanations of why we do things like fast and abstain, etc. I am counting on my kids to keep up with their "paths to Lent" each day. My kids did an EXCELLENT job at the Stations of the Cross last Friday as well as our liturgy this past Wednesday. I am so proud of them!! I can see them now - our future lectors, greeters, communion distributors, servers... super!

I'll TRY to keep up a little better with this blog :-) but I'm sure all of you are in the same boat with so many things to do and families to take care of each day. Have a good day!

Feb. 1st Other pictures

Jan. and Feb. quilts. Note the smiley face decoration on the top right heart of the close-up picture of the Feb. quilt.

In case you are wondering why I posted pictures of just the girls, it is just that I don't have permission from all of the boys' families to publish their pictures on the blog. I certainly wouldn't go against any parent's wishes.

They all looked cute in their shirts and enjoyed wearing them today.

FEBRUARY 1ST

Happy February! The days are a light a little longer. Hooray! Today was the closing mass for Catholic Schools' Week. It was great to see so many of our alumni from all age levels there to celebrate with us. One thing I always enjoy is when we get to see the kids we had as students who are now in high school or college - and to get hugs from these nearly adult kids. I love it! It was a nice way to end the week. The kids (and teachers!) had a nice student appreciation day by having Tuesday off. Me - I actually WENT to school on Tuesday before I found out there wasn't any. That wasn't the first time I've done that. I hadn't realized it was icy on other roads because our road was perfectly fine and the temperature was 27 so we hadn't even turned on the radio, TV, or computer! Our granddaughters were just about ready for school, too. They were pretty excited when I got home and told them no school! We slept in on Wednesday.

In a few short days it will be Lent. On Monday, we will be meeting with Father to learn more about St. Blase and get our throats blessed. We had the lesson on this saint today for Religion. I am happy Father is going to do this because, unfortunately, not too many of our kids get to Mass on weekends to get their throats blessed then. ( With Reconciliation and First Communion coming soon, I would hope Mass attendance for my second graders will increase.) We will also be doing projects during Lent for Religion.

This month's quilt is based on the story "Mama, Do You Love Me?" In this story, a young girl presents her mother with different scenarios and wants to know if her mother would still love her. We all know the answer is "YES!"

We also made groundhogs and put then on a paper with a poem and displayed them in the hall.

I will try and add some pictures here of the tie-dyed shirts and the January and February quilt squares.

Have a nice weekend!

January 21

I can hardly believe it's been so long since I' ve posted! Time has flown once again.
Today was the feast of St. Agnes as well as Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Last week we did an Art project on Martin Luther King's "I had a dream..."

We have now started our fourth theme for language arts. We have a total of six themes. Our new skills this week are r-controlled vowels: ar, or, ore. Our new words are board, listen, and told.

We had our first lesson in preparation for First Reconciliation. The lesson was on God's love for us. We are making a booklet "My Book of God's Gifts". Even though it's supposed to be for sacramental preparation, I think the non-Catholics can enjoy these lessons as well. Next week it will be "How I Love God". We'll act out a play Jesus by the Sea from Luke 5:1-11. Please read the note to parents on the back page of their booklets.

Tomorrow we will go to church for the first time for Eucharistic Adoration. We won't be staying the full hour, but I do want the children to experience this form of prayer and being silent with God if only for 15-20 min. They will see how the Monstrance looks on the altar. Speaking of the monstrance, we have been studying many things about church. Last week we went to church to see these things and talk about how some of the items are used. We got to see things we've never seen before ( that includes ME!) Mr. Eaton happened to come in just at that time, and he showed us the monstrance and other things. Fr. Frank also happened to come in. He showed us the altar stone with the relic. Anybody remember those? Maybe you'd have to be close to my age to know about that. Mr. Eaton was impressed with how much the kids have learned. We use "flash cards" I made with pictures of things such as the Paschal Candle, Monstrance, tabernacle, etc. I read the definitions and the kids name what it is. It's a fun way to learn!I told Mr. Eaton that I have smart kids - and he agrees!

We are gearing up for Catholic Schools' Week next week. The opening mass is at 9:30 Sunday. Remember, next Monday night is Family Night. I hope to see many of you there! We also know that the St. Louis kids will be here to celebrate with us on Wednesday. The rest will be finalized soon, and I'm sure you will get a calendar of events.

Have a good evening.

IT'S JANUARY!

Happy 2008! It won't be long until we have completed a half year of school. Wow! I can hardly believe it.
Our time off from school certainly went by quickly, too. There's always so much to do and people to visit with, but it's good that we take time to attend church. For me, it is a peaceful, calming time of worship and community. I hope all of you were able to attend services on the weekends as well as Christmas and New Year's Day. It's a great way to start a new year, too!

We will be starting our new reading lessons even though there are just three days. We won't have the spelling test until next week. The new vocabulary words this week are: believe, whole, and lady. Our skills will be long e sound spelled with ea or ee as well as the endings of
-ture and -tion. Our phonics library story is "The Clean Team". When we finish these stories, the kids should be taking them home and reading the stories to you. I hope they are doing so.

In Math we are still working on TIME. Today we did "time before the hour". Have you ever noticed at the bottom of their sheets ( the colored ones from their texts) that there are suggestions for you to do at home? For example, today's home activity is - At times from the half-hour to the hour during the day, ask your child to tell the time before the hour. Please check these out when the kids bring their papers home.

Have a good day!