I'd like to welcome Violet and her family to our classroom community! Violet joined us Wednesday! Her family has been a Westlake family and...fun fact--I was her older sister Catherine's 2nd grade teacher! Small world! Welcome! She is doing a fine job adjusting to our class and her classmates have been so kind! Speaking of kindness...
We wrapped up The Great Kindness Challenge this week, but will continue to practice kindness daily! Some of the activities we did was to write kindness notes to each other, practice as many acts of kindness from a kindness checklist, and watch kindness videos.
Difference Maker Living Museum Showcase this Wednesday at 9:00 am!!
The time has come! Our Difference Maker Showcase Event will take place this Wednesday, February 6th @ 9:00- 9:45 am in the 2nd grade Neighborhood. Second graders will be enlightening our Westlake community on their chosen Difference Maker! Hope you and your family members can join us! Click here for a PDF of our flyer.
2nd Graders are to come dressed as their Difference Maker Wednesday morning. They may bring a change of uniform to change into later, but if they are able to wear their pared down costume the rest of the day, that would be ideal. We have 110 second grade Difference Makers and 2 bathrooms!
In your child's blue folder, I have given you a copy of your child's Difference Maker script to rehearse with your child over the weekend. 95% of us are completely memorized!! Yay! Rehearsing with you will help keep butterflies in tummies at bay on the Big Day! Thank you for your support! I am so proud of their hard work!
I am looking for someone who would be willing to video record and/or take pictures of our Difference Makers on Wednesday and put together a video or slideshow to share with families. Please email me if you are able to take this on! Thank you so much!
Secret Parent Homework:
Also in your child's blue folder is a large white envelope containing your secret parent homework due before or on Monday 2.11.19! I have been assigning this homework for the past 20 years, and I do believe it is the most important assignment I have ever given! To see your children's faces when they open up your secret valentines on our Valentine's Day Morning Meeting is priceless--it means so much to them! Let me know if you have any questions or if you need my help. Thank you!
Class Valentine Party on Thursday, 2.14.19
We earned another class party! The 2nd graders would like it to be a Valentine movie with candy popcorn/Beyblade/ Chromebook party. Stay tuned!
Curriculum Highlights:
* We celebrated the 100th Day of School with some fun, educational themed activities.
*ELA--We have been focusing on asking and answering such questions as who, what, where, when, why, and how to demonstrate understanding of key details in a text. We were introduced to Padlet! We also reviewed non-fiction text features. We took a Spelling pre-test on words we should know 100% of the time in our Writing.
*Math--We conducted a mid-year Math review on Quzziz.
*Difference Maker Unit--We memorized our scripts with our memorizing coaches. We identified parts of speech from our American Heroes chant and practiced writing million dollar sentences.
School-wide News:
Standards Based Grading Parent Night: What is Standards Based Grading? Please join us on Thursday, February 7th, from 6 PM – 7 PM in the Cafeteria for a parent information night about Standards Based Grading.
Six Flags Reading Logs: Just a little over one month left to complete those Six Flags Reading Logs. Use this log sheetand get started today. Reading can be any reading done by your child or by you reading to your child. If you complete 6 hours by the 2/25 deadline, you can earn a free ticket to Six Flags Discovery Kingdom in Vallejo! Tickets will arrive in late May and you can use them over the summer! Happy Reading!!
February Break: School will be closed Monday, February 18th to Friday, February 22nd. Our BASE program will be open from 7:00 AM to 6:00 PM February 19th to 22nd.
2nd Grade Posts of the Week:
We are finishing up a lesson on inquisitive questions and students are enthusiastically posting on Padlet inquisitive thoughts. Posts include such wonderings as: "Who made science?" "I wonder if dinosaurs are still alive?" "I wonder how old I'm living to?" "I wonder if I'm getting a dog?" and my favorite: "Why does Mrs.A rock?"
That's all for now! Hope to see you on Wednesday! Have a great week!
Mrs. A