DECEMBER 21

One more day! Tomorrow we will be practicing for the Christmas Eve Children's Liturgy after Mass. We have about 35 kids who have signed up to participate!! It will be a great way for our school families and parish families to celebrate the birth of Christ!

Some of the kids did our Christmas tree project, and the pics show a couple of them. Good job!

We are ALL looking forward to a nice break!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

December 10

Whew! What a busy day!!! The kids all loved shopping!!!! We had great helpers from the eighth grade. Thank you eighth graders!! After all that excitement who should show up unexpectedly but SANTA AND MRS. CLAUS!! Each child had a chance to sit on Santa's lap and tell him what they want for Christmas. He asked them to try and not fight as much with siblings and to help Mom and Dad more. The kids were very honest about answering his questions about helping at home and getting along with brothers and sisters. :-)

We had our Advent Retreat on the 6th with the 3rd grade class. We went to the Pastoral Center to have our retreat. During this retreat, we made Advent wreaths and doves. We prayed around the Advent wreath four times, sang "O Come, O Come, Emmanuel", watched a video The Christmas Gift, and also a St. Nicholas video since we also celebrated his feast day. It was a very nice way to add prayer and meaning during the Advent season as well as to be buddies with another class!

We learned about Juan Diego and Our Lady of Guadalupe this week also. There's so much to learn about our faith and the holy people who lived their faith so well!

Next week we will begin our preparation for First Reconciliation! The date will be February 9th at 5:30 P.M. It is an exciting time for us. All too soon we will be doing special lessons to prepare for First Communion.

On Monday, we will be going to County Market to ring the Salvation Army bell. It's a nice service project - one I'm able to do because of the small class size. Also on Monday, we will be learning about Santa Lucia with our Kindergarten friends! We will make Santa Lucia rolls for our snack and do art projects.

Thursday is our Baby Jesus Party. Remember gifts for Baby Jesus need to be unwrapped. It's going to be nice!

HAVE A SUPER WEEKEND!

NOVEMBER 30 CORRECTION!!

CORRECTION!

SHOPPING DAY FOR THE STUDENTS IS DECEMER 10 (not the 17th - sorry for the error)

November 29

Advent has begun! We are already learning about the Advent wreath and its symbols. We will continue to learn about Advent and light our candles each day at prayer time. We'll put up a paper Jesse Tree and talk about the symbols on it. Next Monday, December 6, we will be having an Advent Retreat with the third grade class in the Pastoral Center. This will just be in the afternoon.

Looking ahead to the following week, we will be having our annual Baby Jesus party! I started this party many years ago, and it's a fun way to celebrate the birth of Jesus and helping other families who are not as fortunate as we are. This started out with just 1st and 4th grade and has since expanded to include grades 1 through 4. You will be receiving a letter about this soon. For those new to our school, the kids bring in unwrapped baby gifts to honor Baby Jesus. These gifts go to our local ABC Healthy Families program to be distributed to some families in need. At this party, the children will be making Christmas cards to distribute to local nursing homes. The kids love this, and the residents enjoy receiving their cards so this is another way of serving others - our elderly and sick.

I am considering setting up a time my kids could ring the bells for the Salvation Army. We have a small enough class to do this, and I think the kids would enjoy it, too. I'll let you know more and send permission slips if I can arrange this activity.

This Wednesday, we will be working with our fourth grade buddies to paint rocks. Mrs. Worrall is a wonderful rock painter, and she has graciously offered to help us with this project!

We will, of course, continue with our "regular" studies each day. This week we are working on double final consonants including "ck". We will be practicing exclamatory sentences for English. In Science, we're learning about stems, leaves, and roots. In Math, we are continuing to work with money. Today we found many different coins to make $1.00 which was fun - and a little confusing to some children, too.

WANTED: PERSONAL TAPE PLAYERS - like the Walkman players that used to be sold. I am finding these aren't sold around here. Most are CD players.

DATES TO REMEMBER:
DECEMBER 6 ADVENT RETREAT
DECEMBER 16 BABY JESUS PARTY
DECEMBER 17 KIDS SHOPPING DAY AT O.L.L.
DECEMBER 20 CHRISTMAS CONCERT 6:30

Thanks for all you do!

November 12

One more week before the kids are home for Thanksgiving break! I hope you are looking forward to that special time!

We finished our Chapter 6 Math test and the kids did a great job! Our next test will be our Unit 1 Test on Monday. Then we will start on money - sometimes a challenge for kids. Hopefully, they have counted money when buying things to give them a start on learning about money counting.

This week we worked on multiple meaning words, fact and opinion, and sentences that are commands. We also worked on consonant blends such as br, tr, sw, sp, pl, etc. and the two sounds of c - hard c and soft c.


This week's Weekly Reader was on the flu and the differences between the flu and a cold.

Next week, we will be learning the parts of a plant for Science - stems, roots, leaves, flowers.

In Religion, we'll be learning about God the Father and His love for us! We always enjoy our Good News for Children lessons each week. We use these at the end of the week to prepare for the Sunday liturgy readings. They are high-interest and meaningful lessons.


REMINDER: PARENT TEACHER CONFERENCES ON TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 16TH. SEE YOU THEN!

October 29

HAPPY HALLOWEEN! We had a nice day, and it was a fun one, too! We had a story How Many Seeds in a Pumpkin?
We played Halloween bingo, and Mrs. Panasuk read the kids a book Can God See Me in the Dark? Thank you to Mrs. Lindman for the treat of Dilly Bars! We also did an activity called Roll -A-Scarecrow with dice. I had planned on taking pictures to put on here of the kids in costumes. Wouldn't you know it? My camera needed to be charged!

We finished Chapter 5 in MATH this week and started on Chapter 6 which is on graphs.

Next week, we will be working on writing a description for Reading-Writing Workshop. We'll be talking about using sensory language and adding details. We'll also practice words that are frequently misspelled.

We'll be working on capitalizing titles and names and the Long I sounds with different spellings.

In Science, we'll learn about the life cycles of a cat, frog, and sea turtle.

Our November quilt will go along with the book Knots on a Counting Rope.

REMEMBER OUR LITURGY NEXT WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 3!!! HOPE YOU CAN JOIN US!

October 22

We had another good week, and we finished the theme skills tests. We also had a Math test, so it was a busy week as usual.

We are currently working on getting our October stories "published". We are making our own books. We have two completed! The writing process steps seem to be difficult for the kids. They hadn't had any experience with it last year, so it's a whole new thing to learn!

Our all school Rosary on Wednesday was very nice! It was so helpful for the children to be able to follow along with the prayers on the screen. Thanks to Mr. Bell for putting it together, for Mrs. Parent for taking care of the technical part of it for us, and for Mrs. Marita for leading us in song! It was really a team effort! It's great for the students to be introduced to the rosary - even the Kindergarten have been learning it!

This week we practiced long vowel sounds with words having a vowel-consonant- e pattern. We call the final e our "magic e" since it's the one that magically makes the first vowel a long one! We also learned the two sounds for G. Our reading/spelling/phonics all fit together.

Next week, we will spend more time on our small reading groups, practice nouns and verbs, and finish publishing the October stories.

Spelling words are given on Fridays for the following week. They put them in their student planners. In addition, the kids are asked to study the words they've missed on the weekly spelling test. Many of these are repeated, so it's important to keep a list for them to study at home.

Our second grade liturgy will be November 3rd. Hope you can make it!

October 11

It's hard to believe we are in the middle of October already, isn't it?
We are already finished with our first theme in Reading. We'll be doing our theme skills tests this week.

We have begun our Rosary unit for Religion. We will be going through all of the Mysteries of the Rosary and, of course, how to pray the rosary. I know all of the kids received a rosary last May, but if they can't find theirs, I have more. We will spend time praying it this month.

In Science, we are learning about what plants need to grow. We'll have our first Chapter Test on Thursday. It will be an "open book" test.

In Math, we are learning about place-value with tens and ones. The children enjoy using the work mats as well as the base ten blocks.

The past couple of weeks, Sara had a chrysalis in the office. One morning I came in, and there was the beautiful butterfly!! The Weekly Reader for this week will be about the Monarch Butterfly!

Thanks to all who came for Grandparent's Day! What a great turnout!! I enjoyed seeing everyone! Here are some pictures of the day.

September 21

We are hard at work learning and practicing behaviors for our Daily Five. Today we made our chart for Work on Word Work, and then I showed them the many choices we have for doing word work. After that, we took time to practice. We also reviewed our Read to Self and Work on Writing I charts. We practiced them for a short time also. They are really "getting" the idea of what they need to do to make this work for everyone in the classroom! We even talked about how this is like our monthly theme of TEAMWORK.

I hope to get to each reading group this week. That means the kids will have to work independently while I am with each group so we don't have interruptions. Part of this learning is also good manners - not interrupting ( unless it's an emergency.) Students will not necessarily "stay" in the same groups. Once they've progressed, they can move to a different group. The idea is to learn at each student's level.

This week we are working on possessive pronouns, compound words, long e sounds, ou and ow sounds, and synonyms.

In Math, we continue to work on simple addition and how it relates to subtraction. Please practice the fact families with your child. This can be done in the car, while setting the table, doing dishes, etc. We practice this way: If I say 3+5, kids need to say 3+5=8, 5+3=8, 8-5=3, and 8-3=5.


In Science, we used the balance to learn about mass. Thursday we will do the Chapter Review.

Social Studies is our map study continuing from last week. My kids are really pretty good at this! This week our Weekly Reader is on Hispanic Heritage Month.

In Religion, we read about God's Stories and related this to family stories of our own. They learned the Bible is divided into the Old Testament ( before the birth of Jesus), and the New Testament (after Jesus was born). They've also learned that Psalms are prayers and songs and most were written by David.

Another new and fun game to learn spelling words: We played Sparkle! They love it! It's also excellent for listening skills as they need to listen to what the person before them says. Ask them about this game!

Have a good week!

September 9, 2010

Thanks to all of you who were able to attend the family dinner! It was a good chance to see each other once again. I also enjoyed seeing the new families who've joined our school family this year!

We've been working on Reading Assessments this week, but I'm not quite finished. These assessments will help me know the abilities your children have - and I can work with their levels at their pace. Sometimes students will move up levels during the year- not at any particular time, but when they are ready. I will be working at implementing the Daily Five this year. So far, we've learned how to choose "Good Fit" Books. The way they do this is to use "I PICK" which is I choose, what's my PURPOSE for reading this book, why am I reading it- am I INTERESTED in it? C is for COMPREHEND. Can I understand it? K is for KNOW. Do I know most of the words? These are questions students ask themselves when choosing books to read. The next thing we will learn about and practice will be "READ TO SELF".

In Science, we are reading about Inquiry skills -observing, comparing, hypothesizing, communicating,...

In Religion, we have been talking about creation. We learned a little more about Mary, the Mother of God, on her birthday, September 8th. The kids wrote in their journals what they know about Mary. Then I read the book Mary, Mother of God while they were working on a picture of Mary. After that, we went to Liturgy which was the Mass of the Holy Spirit. It's always nice to be able to share in the mass with our entire school family!

We read the Weekly Reader today and learned how apples get from the trees to our stores. There was a diagram of an apple for the kids to read. Being able to read diagrams is an important skill for kids to learn.

We are working on addition in Math. Today we did doubles and doubles plus one. The addition table was very difficult for most of the children. After much practice, there was that "AHA" moment when they "got it"! Some of them were able to see the pattern of doubles and doubles plus one - for a while I wasn't sure if they were going to understand it. Those AHA moments are what make teaching fun!

Sunday is our Open House from 9-12.
REMEMBER- Monday Night is Grade two Parent Night! We'll meet from 5:30-6:00 so it won't take too much of anyone's time. See you then!
Have a good weekend!

September 3, 2010

Welcome back to a new year of school! We are off to a good start! These first three days were all about learning routines, procedures, etc. I have asked students to read 20 minutes a day, and they should have a reading bag like last year and a reading calendar to be signed by parents. Thanks for taking time to do this!

We practiced Math facts yesterday and used triangle flash cards. The kids really liked those! It is to help practice the four facts - two adding and two subtracting. For example: 2+3=5, 3+2=5, 5-3=2, 5-2=3. Today we were working on some review of first grade lessons.

I love to read to my kids, so we've heard several stories and poems. They love it! Next week I will be working on Reading Assessments to see where your child is at so I can provide the needed instruction at his/her level. This year I will be attempting to use the Daily Five for my Reading and Writing. More about that at parent night on September 13!

Book orders will be sent home today. There are three - Yes, more paperwork at the beginning of the year! :-) I would like them returned by September 20. Remember, you can order online and our class will still get credit for your order. If you prefer to send an order with your child, cash is not accepted by Scholastic. They need checks made out to them. (not to me or school.) Thanks!

Hopefully , all of you will go to the Safe and Sacred Training so you can be a driver, helper for our class. It's only an hour. Mark your calendars. I know Mr. Bell sent this message home already, but I strongly encourage you to go to it - grandparents or any other family member who might drive or volunteer should do this also.

Have a great weekend!

May 22

We are continuing to work hard! In Science, we learned about the phases of the moon and the changing of the seasons. In Reading, we are on the last of our six themes. Beginning Monday or Tuesday, we will be starting our theme tests! In Social Studies, we've done some map work, and our last weekly reader was on ANTS. We have begun Geometry in Math. The kids are finding the plane figures SO EASY so we are moving right along! In Religion, we've been learning about the Sacraments. We had a very nice all school rosary on Friday. Mr. Bell had a nice powerpoint so the kids could just hold their rosaries and not try and handle papers, too. We included the Fatima Prayer and Hail Holy Queen. We added the Memorare Prayer,also, which is one of my favorites!

We are sorry to hear about the loss of Dr. Nancy Betzold, the sister of two or our teachers, Ms. Betzold and Mrs. Swiston. We pray for the family!

We hope all of you will be able to attend the 10 o'clock Mass this Sunday to honor Mrs. Urling as she retires!

Happy Weekend!

April 30

It was so nice to be able to have the second graders receive Communion with the rest of OLL school classes on Wednesday! Let's hope, as Father reminded the kids, families remember to attend Mass on Sundays, too. It is so important to be at Mass with our Church family as well as our school family! Ed Monroe delivered the First Communion pictures already!! Kids should be taking them home tonight. Ed did a really nice job!

Officer Brinker was here for the last time this year for Cops for Kids Program. The kids each received another book, and one child ( who was the only one to turn in his reading sheet for Cops for Kids) received a second book as an extra prize for all his reading. Officer Brinker brought carrots, crackers, and Starbursts for the kids as a treat, too. He read many good books and taught some very helpful lessons.

We begin our last theme in Reading next week! This theme is Talents. There are some very good stories in this theme,too. We continue to work on phonics, verbs, and comprehension.

Have a good weekend!

April 21 READING AND SEAWEED

Officer Brinker came in again to read to our class today. He read the books, Previously, The New Girl, and The Giving Tree.

He had promised us he'd bring in dried seaweed to taste, and he did that today! I even tried some! Not too many kids liked it very well, but like he said, "Think of trying new things. Think of it as being "different" not bad." He also showed us his taser gun. It was very interesting - something else for me to learn as well as my kids. He was introduced to it at a training about ten years ago, and he told us they are a safe way to handle someone who is trying to hurt the police, another person, or him/herself.

Thank you to everyone who came to First Communion practice last night. It went well, and I am confident it will be a great day on Sunday! How exciting!!

I was very happy today when my kids "got it" for the borrowing in subtraction. Hooray!! It's fun to see the success and smiles on their faces when it connects. :-)

Have a good evening!

April 19

Countdown to our First Holy Communion! What an exciting time!!! We are so looking forward to this special day!!! This week we will continue to learn about the Eucharist and this very special Sacrament. REMEMBER PRACTICE AT 5:30 TUESDAY IN CHURCH - APRIL 20.

In Math, we are practicing our two-digit subtraction with "borrowing" (regrouping). Most kids have picked this up pretty well with the help of our base-10 blocks.

We wil begin Weather in Science, including seasons, weather patterns, temperature, wind, and precipitation.
Our Weekly Reader for this week also works with this as it will be about sun and wind power.

For English, we'll be using is, are, was, were and choosing the correct one. We'll also use dictionary skills in finding words with endings in the dictionary.

Thursday is Earth Day, so our art will be tied in with this day.

We will be reading the story "Thunder Cake" this week. We will be practicing our sequence of events skills. We will be working with -ed, -ing endings as well as silent consonants gh, kn, and b.

Have a great week!

March 25

Yesterday we made our pretzels to remind us to pray. This is a great Lenten activity the kids really enjoy! The pretzels are "arms crossed in prayer". Most kids chose to take a copy of the recipe home for you to try with them. Kosher salt for the top can be purchased at the grocery store if you choose to do so. In addition to Lent activities we are also preparing for our First Holy Communion. Even those who aren't making their First Communion get to do the lessons with us which are all part of our basic Religion class.


We are going to be learning to subtract 2-digit numbers beginning next week! We continue to practice our facts. Hopefully, the students are practicing with them at home, too. Each child was given a laminated practice sheet ( which I would like returned after they know those facts), and they can get the next one to study.

In English we are doing more possessives and next week will be present tense verbs. In addition, we do Daily Language Practice each day. This is a sentence on the board which they "proofread" and correct to help them learn about capitalization, punctuation, spelling, and grammar. They have been doing really well with this daily practice.

In Science, we are learning about water as a resource. We made a chart of as many ways as we could think of that we use water every day, and then tallied how many times that day we used water in those ways.

Next week is Holy Week. May it be a blessed week with prayer and worship!

March 5

Next week we will be finishing up our 4th theme in Reading. That means only two more to go! We will be doing our Theme Skills Tests and hopefully begin a March story.

I will be gone on Tuesday and Wednesday. Mr. Bell and I will be at St. Louis School on the validation team. It will be different to be on the "other side" of the site visit!


Next week, too, we will begin our lessons in preparation for First Holy Communion which is on April 25th. It's coming sooner than we might think!

Our Lent projects and meditations have been going very well. We all enjoy the peacefulness of the meditations and writing our responses or prayers about the meditations. We do them once a week, and the theme is from the Sunday's Gospel.

We are working on two-digit addition in Math. This is going MUCH better than telling time! :-) We're having fun using the base-10 blocks as well as the overhead projector.

We read "The Great Ball Game" in reading this week. The phonics lessons included OA, OW, O words for the long o sound. We also reviewed Cause and Effect.
In English, we are working with plural possessives. They "got" the singular possessives, but the plurals are more difficult.

We are learning about rocks and sand in Science. We looked at different kinds which the kids enjoyed. They knew some of the rocks such as the granite which is pretty plentiful around here. Of course, quartz and sandstone are also, which they recognized.

Have a good weekend!

February 18

Happy February! Is is really the 18th?? I have not added to this blog for quite some time - not that we aren't doing anything - just that time is getting away from me with all the hustle and bustle of things to do!

We are working on Lent projects including daily "stepping stones" on our journey with Jesus. Today we had our first Lenten meditation and wrote in our Lent Journals (myself included.) We talked about Ash Wednesday on Tuesday and then again before mass Wednesday to remind the kids what it's all about. We'll be doing different activities and art projects during Lent.

We are working on TIME in Math. It's before and after the hour, estimated time, and time relationships. It's so hard for the kids since they are dependent on digital clocks. Just when I think they've "got it", I find they don't! If you can work with your children at home with this, too, it will help.

We have begun the next unit in Science. Today we did an investigation using rock salt, sand, and water. Kids used magnifying glasses to observe the rock salt before adding the sand and water, and they shook the jar for 5 minutes and then observed the rock salt after that. They did really well on figuring out WHY and HOW it changed!

We are learning about the branches of our government in Social Studies. It's geared down so this age can grasp it without using the big words Legislative, Executive, and Judicial. We also do our Weekly Readers for Social Studies, and they always have interesting topics about current news.

We did reading assessments and found out that we are on the right track! The kids have "moved up" in levels - some as much as a few levels. A new program added last week is called Cops for Kids Reading Program. Officer Gene Brinker is coming in one day a week to read to my kids. You will receive information on this soon. In addition to reading to them, he also discusses the books and ideas from them. Yesterday he read BRAVE HARRIET and he talked about her difficulties as a woman trying to fly across the English Channel as well as how women didn't always have the same rights as men. He chose the book because it reminded him of his mother who NEVER complained and how gentle and kind and smart she is. It's a great idea and the officers who do this are wonderful!

January 15

What a busy week! The validation team was here and have told us we are once again accredited! We knew we would be because we have an awesome school!! It's a great feeling to know people outside of our area feel the same way!

Today we'll take our test on money. Some are still having some difficulties with it, so we'll see how the test goes. We may need to stay with it for a while.

This week we worked on long a sounds spelled AI, AY, as well as compound words. We also practiced homophones. The write/right and there/their continue to be confusing for several of the kids. We'll keep on reviewing. Next week we will be doing OU, OW words and -ly, -ful suffixes. In English we'll be doing plurals.

Today our Good News for Children is about the Sacraments.

Have a good weekend!

January 8

Back after vacation and working hard! We are working with counting money and using the fewest coins to get the same amount. Some kids are having a hard time with money. It would help if they practice counting coins at home, too. Give them an amount to make with coins and ask them to show two ways to make that amount including one way with the fewest coins. We used the overhead projector ( they call the "ooh- aah!" machine) and coins yesterday. They like to work with the overhead projector.

I was so pleased with how well the kids did at First Reconciliation Wednesday night! Thank you for all your help in preparing them for this wonderful sacrament! It won't be long before their First Communion on April 25th!

In Science, we've been studying food chains and food webs. The kids seem to really understand these.

This week for Reading-Writing Workshop, the kids are writing a friendly letter - to ME. :-) We are still using the Writing Process to do this even though it isn't a story. I hope you liked their December books. They were pretty proud of them! I hope to have them make a February book also.

We reviewed the four kinds of sentences and how they are punctuated. Now if I could only get everyone to capitalize the first work in each sentence!! We'll keep working on that!

Our January quilt is going up today. I read the story THE SNOWY DAY as well as some snow poems and The Adventures of Snowwoman.
I always like to include books as often as I can in all subject areas. They are so much fun to read and hear!

HAPPY 2010!