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.