Queridas familias, 3-28-2020
I hope that everyone is healthy and happy right now! I also hope that you are able to spend some great quality time with your kids!!
Most of the options here are the same as our last email blast. There are a few new options that are highlighted in blue.
I would love for the kids to share what they are reading, inventing, playing, exploring, etc. They could do a video on Flipgrid or Seesaw and pass it along. They could write me an email and tell me what they are doing these days.
Please keep in mind that our district has been very explicit with us in making sure that we are currently not giving due dates, demanding that families complete anything or anything similar. The district has also been specific that we need to provide activities, which I’m more than happy to do. The thing to keep in mind is that just like over breaks in school, the kids who do some academic activities come back to school better prepared to continue where they have left off. Those who don’t, tend to experience a slide, which can take a while to recover from.
I have also had families ask for some help in figuring out how to organize this into a daily schedule. I know that every family is different. I am going to simply give a timeframe for how long I would recommend spending on each academic item per day. Second grade’s current goal is to help all of our kids maintain what they have learned at school so far this year. I know that these timeframes may not be possible for everyone. I understand. This is simply what I would do if I had a child at home during this time.
I am more than open to other ideas to share with families. If you find something, please don’t hesitate to share it.
Have a wonderful weekend!
Janell
Math: 30 minutes
Reading (30 minutes)
Writing (30 minutes)
Videos
Be Creative!
PLAY!!
I hope that everyone is healthy and happy right now! I also hope that you are able to spend some great quality time with your kids!!
Most of the options here are the same as our last email blast. There are a few new options that are highlighted in blue.
I would love for the kids to share what they are reading, inventing, playing, exploring, etc. They could do a video on Flipgrid or Seesaw and pass it along. They could write me an email and tell me what they are doing these days.
Please keep in mind that our district has been very explicit with us in making sure that we are currently not giving due dates, demanding that families complete anything or anything similar. The district has also been specific that we need to provide activities, which I’m more than happy to do. The thing to keep in mind is that just like over breaks in school, the kids who do some academic activities come back to school better prepared to continue where they have left off. Those who don’t, tend to experience a slide, which can take a while to recover from.
I have also had families ask for some help in figuring out how to organize this into a daily schedule. I know that every family is different. I am going to simply give a timeframe for how long I would recommend spending on each academic item per day. Second grade’s current goal is to help all of our kids maintain what they have learned at school so far this year. I know that these timeframes may not be possible for everyone. I understand. This is simply what I would do if I had a child at home during this time.
I am more than open to other ideas to share with families. If you find something, please don’t hesitate to share it.
Have a wonderful weekend!
Janell
Math: 30 minutes
- Khan Academy.
- Several of our kids have started good progress on the assignments. Something for the kids to keep in mind: some of the questions have multiple answers. Make sure that they are reading ALL options and choosing ALL that apply.
- I will be checking this regularly, but when your child finishes their activities, please feel free to email me and I can create a new assignment and base it on your child’s individual needs.
- Xtramath
- When you receive your child’s report card, please note how he/she is doing on progressing with the basic math facts. If your child is still receiving an “L” or a “P”, I would have your child spend some time every couple of days on this program.
- When the kids go into the program, they work on a round until the program gives them and exit button to press.
- These rounds typically last about 10 minutes.
- Freckle
- This has a variety of math concepts to work on.
- I have updated this site to have specific math assignments for the kids to work on.
- Enter the class code.
- Enter your child’s first name and last initial
- Click on “De mi maestro”
- Your child can choose which of the assignments they would like to do first.
- Math-aids.com
- If you have access to a printer, this is an option for you. Based on your child’s report card, their interest or other factors, you can find different pages to help your child reinforce different math concepts.
- This is a free site.
- When you go to the site, scroll through the left hand side of the page and it has different math concepts to choose from. Under each tab are multiple options for each concept.
- If you are looking for a specific type of page and need help, please email me and I can help you find a page that fits your needs.
- Mateslibres.com
- This is a site like math-aids.com, but it is in Spanish.
Reading (30 minutes)
- RAZ-Kids
- The kids are super familiar with this program. I have tried to make sure that everyone is on the correct level. If your child’s level doesn’t seem correct, please let me know.
- I am going to open the English side this weekend and individualize the levels for each child.
- Getepic.com
- This site is now available for free at least through the end of the school year. The kids all have an account and are super familiar it
- My goal is to make another group of books available to the kids that I would recommend them read.
- Scholastic.com
- This is in English.
- https://classroommagazines.scholastic.com/support/learnathome/grades-1-2.html
- Scholastic has made a series of lessons available for free. The kids can watch a fiction story, read a non-fiction book, and complete some puzzles.
- Each lesson also has an art and writing activity.
- Read to your child.
- Reading to your child is a wonderful way for kids to learn about reading with expression, enjoy bonding time with family and explore books that might be above their current reading ability.
- Freckle
- This has an English language arts portion.
- I have updated all of the kid’s accounts with specific assignments based on what types of word patterns they were working with before school got out.
- Enter the class code.
- Enter your child’s first name and last initial
- Click on “De mi maestro”
- Your child can choose which of the assignments they would like to do first.
- I have updated all of the kid’s accounts with specific assignments based on what types of word patterns they were working with before school got out.
- This has an English language arts portion.
- Word Sorts in English
- The kids can work on separating these and learning the word patterns.
- Read the words and the kids write them down to check on their progress.
- Word Search – As your child reads in English, they can look for words that follow these patterns. They can make a list of these words.
- Read books and magazines that are available in your house. There is no substitute for a good old fashion book.
Writing (30 minutes)
- Kids are super creative when given the opportunity! If you provide the paper, they will write what moves them.
- Opinion papers
- We start with an interesting introduction, three reasons for their opinion with examples and a conclusion.
- Write a letter to me or to a friend. Take a pic of it and email it.
- Type out an email to a friend in our class or to me, using your child’s Google email account.
- Write a thank you note to someone and send it to them.
- Write a card to cheer someone up and send it to them.
Videos
- Seesaw.com
- This is a program that the kids are familiar with. If they do a project or want to share something in a video with the other kids in our class, they can record it here and others can make comments. They must do the video in Spanish if they want it to be published.
- Some ideas for videos
- Tell us the best thing that you’ve done while not at school.
- Tell us what kinds of things you are doing to be helpful around the house.
- Pick a book that you’ve read, make an opinion about it, do a video explaining your opinion and why you have your opinion.
- If you’ve been watching the Cincinnati Zoo presentations, which has been the best and why.
- Other ideas…
- Flipgrid
- This is a new program. The kids can post videos of themselves, similar to Seesaw. The difference is that the other kids in second grade can respond to their videos with videos of their own.
- To access this…
- Go to Flipgrid.com
- Choose “Student”
- Enter the class code
- Choose Google email
- Enter the children’s email address and password.
- Click on the green plus button to add a video
- Cincinnati Zoo presentations of different animals.
- This is on Facebook.
- They presented the sloths yesterday and completely made my day!!
- Mo Willems Lunch time Doodles
- I shared this with my nephew and he is completely fascinated. I hope that your child is enjoying these as well.
- Kennedy-center.org/mowillems
- thespanishexperiment.com
- This is a site where books are read to the kids. If they click on the button “New. Watch the video”, they can watch it in Spanish.
Be Creative!
- Borrow items from the recycle bin and build something creative. When you are done, make a Seesaw video and share it with us.
- Build something great with Legos and share it with us.
- Break out your art supplies and make something that moves you. Share it with us!
- Cook with a family member.
- Tinker on a car with a family member.
- Pull seeds out of a fruit or vegetable. Plant them in a container inside and see if you can get it to grow.
PLAY!!
- Play some board games, card games and other similar goodies.
- Go into your yard and run with your siblings.
- Play Hide and Seek.
- Your children are probably better at this list than I am.
Queridas familias,
I hope that this email finds you safe and healthy!
Some families have asked me if I can help provide a list of some books that they could buy for their kids. I went on-line to try and find some books. I found a couple of sites that can help provide some ideas. The biggest guideline is to look at levels, see if you can look at a page or two for the kids to read, and most important, make sure that your child is interested in the book. Having a child choose a book with high interest causes them to want to read a book. That’s the biggest part of the battle. Please keep in mind that every child is reading at a different level. What would be appropriate for one child, may not be appropriate for another.
Please also keep in mind that I’m not directly recommending any particular book or series. I am also not endorsing any particular place to buy a book or any of these sites. As a reader, I buy from so many different sites. I simply want to help guide families in a direction for titles of books that their child may enjoy reading. Please do not feel like you need to buy books. We have tried to provide plenty of reading options online. Hopefully this email helps provide some titles for things that may interest your child.
Scholastic is offering a direct delivery to your house right now. If you go to Scholastsic.com, it will direct you to the Online Popup Shop. If you are looking for Spanish books, you can type “Spanish” into the search bar and they will pop up. If you click on any book, it will give a guideline for which ages and grades would be appropriate for that particular book.
The following sites have some chapter books in Spanish that the kids can read. We have several of these in class. I have noticed a couple titles that the kids are normally not interested in reading. I would NOT order the Ottoline books, the Caballero books nor the Bat Pat books. There are also several that I have never read, but I have ordered some of them to see what they are like.
Some that they do like:
http://apegoyliteratura.es/seleccion-de-libros-infantiles-por-capitulos-primeros-lectores/
http://www.clubpequeslectores.com/2015/12/libros-infantiles-con-capitulos.html
https://colorincoloradolibros.wordpress.com/2018/02/19/introducir-a-los-ninos-en-los-libros-por-capitulos/
There are a plethora of books available in English for the kids. If you ask your child, they probably already have some that they know they enjoy reading. Some series to think about:
There are also some great lists of English chapter books for kids online. Here are some that I found.
https://www.amazon.com/best-sellers-books-childrens-chapter/zgbs/books/9432911011
https://colorincoloradolibros.wordpress.com/2018/02/19/introducir-a-los-ninos-en-los-libros-por-capitulos/
https://www.commonsensemedia.org/lists/best-book-series-for-early-readers
https://thisreadingmama.com/beginning-chapter-books-series/
https://www.123homeschool4me.com/top-25-chapter-book-series-book_21/
I hope that some of this helps those families who are looking for some new books for their kids!
Have a wonderful week!
Janell
I hope that this email finds you safe and healthy!
Some families have asked me if I can help provide a list of some books that they could buy for their kids. I went on-line to try and find some books. I found a couple of sites that can help provide some ideas. The biggest guideline is to look at levels, see if you can look at a page or two for the kids to read, and most important, make sure that your child is interested in the book. Having a child choose a book with high interest causes them to want to read a book. That’s the biggest part of the battle. Please keep in mind that every child is reading at a different level. What would be appropriate for one child, may not be appropriate for another.
Please also keep in mind that I’m not directly recommending any particular book or series. I am also not endorsing any particular place to buy a book or any of these sites. As a reader, I buy from so many different sites. I simply want to help guide families in a direction for titles of books that their child may enjoy reading. Please do not feel like you need to buy books. We have tried to provide plenty of reading options online. Hopefully this email helps provide some titles for things that may interest your child.
Scholastic is offering a direct delivery to your house right now. If you go to Scholastsic.com, it will direct you to the Online Popup Shop. If you are looking for Spanish books, you can type “Spanish” into the search bar and they will pop up. If you click on any book, it will give a guideline for which ages and grades would be appropriate for that particular book.
The following sites have some chapter books in Spanish that the kids can read. We have several of these in class. I have noticed a couple titles that the kids are normally not interested in reading. I would NOT order the Ottoline books, the Caballero books nor the Bat Pat books. There are also several that I have never read, but I have ordered some of them to see what they are like.
Some that they do like:
- Claude
- AJ y su extraña escuela
- Stink
- Isadora Moon,
- El Pequeño Dragon Coco
- Los Tipos Malos
- Hombre Perro
- Rainbow Magic (Las hadas de la moda),
- Diario de una lechuza
- Non-fiction of all kinds
http://apegoyliteratura.es/seleccion-de-libros-infantiles-por-capitulos-primeros-lectores/
http://www.clubpequeslectores.com/2015/12/libros-infantiles-con-capitulos.html
https://colorincoloradolibros.wordpress.com/2018/02/19/introducir-a-los-ninos-en-los-libros-por-capitulos/
There are a plethora of books available in English for the kids. If you ask your child, they probably already have some that they know they enjoy reading. Some series to think about:
- Boxcar Children
- Puppy Place
- Bad Guys
- Big Nate
- Bone
- Dogman
- Geronimo Stilton
- Who Would Win?
- Lego Ninjago
- My Weird School
- Princess Pink Series
- Owl Diaries
- Rainbow Magic
- Magic Tree House
- Nate the Great
- World Records books
- Flat Stanley
- Non-fiction of all kinds
There are also some great lists of English chapter books for kids online. Here are some that I found.
https://www.amazon.com/best-sellers-books-childrens-chapter/zgbs/books/9432911011
https://colorincoloradolibros.wordpress.com/2018/02/19/introducir-a-los-ninos-en-los-libros-por-capitulos/
https://www.commonsensemedia.org/lists/best-book-series-for-early-readers
https://thisreadingmama.com/beginning-chapter-books-series/
https://www.123homeschool4me.com/top-25-chapter-book-series-book_21/
I hope that some of this helps those families who are looking for some new books for their kids!
Have a wonderful week!
Janell
Queridas familias, 2-10-2020
I hope that everyone had a relaxing weekend!
In the last two weeks, the kids have been accomplishing a ton and growing so much!
On Friday, the kids brought home their MAP testing results. If you have any questions on these, please do not hesitate to ask. Just please keep in mind a few things…
· MAP is ONE assessment of many that I use to help determine your child's academic growth.
· The test is computerized. Not all kids are good test takers, especially on the computer.
· They could have had a bad experience before the test and not been able to concentrate.
· This is only the 2nd time they have taken the pure Spanish reading version.
· The backside has interpretation instructions.
In math, the kids finished their chapter five and the tests went home last week. If your child is still working on a concept, no worries! We will continue to cover these concepts. In chapter six, the kids learned about a “gráfica ilustrada” and a “gráfica de barras”. Can your child explain the difference in these two graphs? The kids have also been practicing more with story problems. In this chapter, they will be learning about how to do a two-step story problem. Each time they read a story problem, I ask them to imagine what is happening and then draw it to help them. Then I ask them to decide if we are adding or subtracting. Finally, we find the answer.
In social studies, we finished our study of assembly lines and began a new science unit. It is called States and Properties of Matter. Last week, the kids learned some new words to help describe some properties of matter. Then they used a chart and found objects in the classroom. They had to put the object on the chart and decide which of the descriptive words described their objects. This came home last week too.
In reading, the kids have been talking about reading fiction books again. They are learning things about “Bigger Books Mean Amping up Reading Power”. We have talked about reading out loud and then trying to use the same expression silently, while reading in our heads. We have practiced reading phrases instead of just words. We have discussed “guiones” (the equivalent of quotation marks) and how to read meaningfully with them. The kids have also practice reading with the right pace. We have been reading aloud the book “Claude en la ciudad”. We have been using this book and our previous book Isadora Moon to practice using these strategies as a class. Then the kids always have time to work on these during independent working time.
During our writing time, the kids have been learning about writing opinion papers. We have been using an outline to help us prepare and organize our writing. When I recently went to a training, one of the things the instructor said was that we do not teach the kids well enough how to plan and map out their writing before they start writing. I’m trying to correct this. The kids are learning to state an opinion, back it up with evidence, explain why this is evidence and state a conclusion. I have tried to use relevant topics for the kids to interest your child in writing. If you want to talk to your child about ideas that they could use during this time, that would be great! I would love for them to have more ideas to use and to share with others.
The Game Chang3rs group came and visited us again. They talked to the kids about being unique and how that’s a good thing. What did your child like best about their visit?
We have done some role playing in class. Unfortunately, this is the time of year when we start to see some of the kids slump on how to include others and play well with others. I gave the kids different scenarios that they had to solve and them present as a skit to the class. These skits were posted to the kids’ Seesaw pages.
This about sums up what we have been working on in class. If you ever have any questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to let me know. I want to help in any way possible.
Thanks!
Janell
I hope that everyone had a relaxing weekend!
In the last two weeks, the kids have been accomplishing a ton and growing so much!
On Friday, the kids brought home their MAP testing results. If you have any questions on these, please do not hesitate to ask. Just please keep in mind a few things…
· MAP is ONE assessment of many that I use to help determine your child's academic growth.
· The test is computerized. Not all kids are good test takers, especially on the computer.
· They could have had a bad experience before the test and not been able to concentrate.
· This is only the 2nd time they have taken the pure Spanish reading version.
· The backside has interpretation instructions.
In math, the kids finished their chapter five and the tests went home last week. If your child is still working on a concept, no worries! We will continue to cover these concepts. In chapter six, the kids learned about a “gráfica ilustrada” and a “gráfica de barras”. Can your child explain the difference in these two graphs? The kids have also been practicing more with story problems. In this chapter, they will be learning about how to do a two-step story problem. Each time they read a story problem, I ask them to imagine what is happening and then draw it to help them. Then I ask them to decide if we are adding or subtracting. Finally, we find the answer.
In social studies, we finished our study of assembly lines and began a new science unit. It is called States and Properties of Matter. Last week, the kids learned some new words to help describe some properties of matter. Then they used a chart and found objects in the classroom. They had to put the object on the chart and decide which of the descriptive words described their objects. This came home last week too.
In reading, the kids have been talking about reading fiction books again. They are learning things about “Bigger Books Mean Amping up Reading Power”. We have talked about reading out loud and then trying to use the same expression silently, while reading in our heads. We have practiced reading phrases instead of just words. We have discussed “guiones” (the equivalent of quotation marks) and how to read meaningfully with them. The kids have also practice reading with the right pace. We have been reading aloud the book “Claude en la ciudad”. We have been using this book and our previous book Isadora Moon to practice using these strategies as a class. Then the kids always have time to work on these during independent working time.
During our writing time, the kids have been learning about writing opinion papers. We have been using an outline to help us prepare and organize our writing. When I recently went to a training, one of the things the instructor said was that we do not teach the kids well enough how to plan and map out their writing before they start writing. I’m trying to correct this. The kids are learning to state an opinion, back it up with evidence, explain why this is evidence and state a conclusion. I have tried to use relevant topics for the kids to interest your child in writing. If you want to talk to your child about ideas that they could use during this time, that would be great! I would love for them to have more ideas to use and to share with others.
The Game Chang3rs group came and visited us again. They talked to the kids about being unique and how that’s a good thing. What did your child like best about their visit?
We have done some role playing in class. Unfortunately, this is the time of year when we start to see some of the kids slump on how to include others and play well with others. I gave the kids different scenarios that they had to solve and them present as a skit to the class. These skits were posted to the kids’ Seesaw pages.
This about sums up what we have been working on in class. If you ever have any questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to let me know. I want to help in any way possible.
Thanks!
Janell
Queridas familias, 1-26-2020
On Friday, the kids brought home a flier for Jump for Heart. This is a program that they do in gym. We will be having an assembly on Wednesday to help introduce the program to the kids.
I wanted to share with you that my Chiquito, my 14 year old dog who I’ve had since he was 8 weeks old, is in Hospice mode right now. He is in kidney failure. We are doing some treatments each day for him and he has been spending the day with my parents. I am so grateful to them for caring for him during the day so that I can focus on the kids. Chiquito has good days and bad days. I have been focusing my nighttime efforts on him. Unfortunately, this means that I have been almost on survival mode when it comes to keeping up on emails. I have tried to make sure that I am responding to all emails, but if I have missed one, please let me know! I don’t want anything to fall through the cracks.
In social studies, we have been learning about assembly lines and how products are transported. We watched the I Love Lucy video (without sound) where she and Ethel try to work on a candy assembly line. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HnbNcQlzV-4 We also watched a couple of videos on how crayons are made https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HnbNcQlzV-4 and how pencils are made. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-nTJeHsgEu0 The kids were then put in groups of six. They were provided a bunch of different objects from our art cupboard. The kids had to use these items to create a product that other kids would want to buy. They drew what it would look like and made a list of what they needed to build it. Next, they made a prototype. The final step was to divide out the jobs in an assembly line, prep each section with their needed objects, and actually do the assembly line for five minutes. I took a video of this and put it on Seesaw. We watched the video and talked about what happened on the assembly line. We talked about solutions to problems and what an assembly line needed to do to prepare for their day.
In math, we have continued to learn about story problems. Some of these are subtraction problems and others are addition problems. We learned that a “modelo numérico” needs a question mark in the spot where we need to find the answer. The kids also learned about “unidad”. This is because every answer in a story problem should have a unit of what is being discussed. The kids learned about changing temperatures and how to find the difference from the beginning of the day to the highest temperature of the day. They also learned four different ways to make change. Can your child explain one of these ways?
In reading and writing, we have concluded our study of non-fiction for now. The next Lucy Calkins set of reading lessons talk about ramping up reading power. The next section of writing lessons will deal with how to write an opinion paper.
We started reading aloud “Isadora Moon celebra su cumpleaños”. The main character is half fairy, half vampire. This is a series of books. What can your child tell you about this story so far? I noticed that a couple of the kids picked these books out during library time. I love that they are getting excited enough about a book to find more like it! While we were reading this book, we studied the preterit verbs and how sometimes the author doesn’t use a pronoun. We have to know what the pronoun is, based on the verb conjugation. We also talked about guiones. This is what most Spanish books use to indicate dialogue. One of the kids asked me about how to use them correctly, so I immediately incorporated it into a couple of lessons.
In writing, the kids finished a process writing paper and also did a pre-assessment for our next unit of how to write an opinion paper. I’m excited to start this next unit. For some of the kids who have struggled to write, this organization style helps kids better organize papers.
On Friday, we had the pleasure of hosting Sr. Hollenbeck’s class for an hour and a half while he attended interviews for our open position of an aide. While the kids were there, we did our pre-assessment for an opinion paper. When they were done, they could write, read with a partner or read to self. We also had Explorations time. The kids are so creative during this time and they produce an amazing amount of Spanish language!
With language skills, the kids have continued to learn about preterit verbs. Next week, we start our study of imperfect verbs. Imperfect verbs are another way of communicating in the past.
In English, we had the opportunity to do another round of reading groups. The kids thrive under the attention of an adult in a small group setting. We also did an initial assessment of the Dolch words. Next week, one goal is to get all the kids words to work on learning. We also talked about our spelling patterns and I pulled the different groups to learn about how the spelling assessment will go. The kids will need to write the different titles at the top of the paper. While I pulled these groups, the kids had the opportunity to read to self or to read with a partner. Then they will need to spell the word correctly in the correct column. We are mostly focused on if the children have learned the word patterns. I have also continued to read aloud The Boxcar Children. The kids seem to really like this book! I noticed a couple of kids picked some of these out during library time.
This about sums up our week. If you have any questions or concerns about anything, please do not hesitate to reach out to me. I value the communication between home and school.
I hope that everyone is having a great weekend!
Janell
On Friday, the kids brought home a flier for Jump for Heart. This is a program that they do in gym. We will be having an assembly on Wednesday to help introduce the program to the kids.
I wanted to share with you that my Chiquito, my 14 year old dog who I’ve had since he was 8 weeks old, is in Hospice mode right now. He is in kidney failure. We are doing some treatments each day for him and he has been spending the day with my parents. I am so grateful to them for caring for him during the day so that I can focus on the kids. Chiquito has good days and bad days. I have been focusing my nighttime efforts on him. Unfortunately, this means that I have been almost on survival mode when it comes to keeping up on emails. I have tried to make sure that I am responding to all emails, but if I have missed one, please let me know! I don’t want anything to fall through the cracks.
In social studies, we have been learning about assembly lines and how products are transported. We watched the I Love Lucy video (without sound) where she and Ethel try to work on a candy assembly line. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HnbNcQlzV-4 We also watched a couple of videos on how crayons are made https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HnbNcQlzV-4 and how pencils are made. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-nTJeHsgEu0 The kids were then put in groups of six. They were provided a bunch of different objects from our art cupboard. The kids had to use these items to create a product that other kids would want to buy. They drew what it would look like and made a list of what they needed to build it. Next, they made a prototype. The final step was to divide out the jobs in an assembly line, prep each section with their needed objects, and actually do the assembly line for five minutes. I took a video of this and put it on Seesaw. We watched the video and talked about what happened on the assembly line. We talked about solutions to problems and what an assembly line needed to do to prepare for their day.
In math, we have continued to learn about story problems. Some of these are subtraction problems and others are addition problems. We learned that a “modelo numérico” needs a question mark in the spot where we need to find the answer. The kids also learned about “unidad”. This is because every answer in a story problem should have a unit of what is being discussed. The kids learned about changing temperatures and how to find the difference from the beginning of the day to the highest temperature of the day. They also learned four different ways to make change. Can your child explain one of these ways?
In reading and writing, we have concluded our study of non-fiction for now. The next Lucy Calkins set of reading lessons talk about ramping up reading power. The next section of writing lessons will deal with how to write an opinion paper.
We started reading aloud “Isadora Moon celebra su cumpleaños”. The main character is half fairy, half vampire. This is a series of books. What can your child tell you about this story so far? I noticed that a couple of the kids picked these books out during library time. I love that they are getting excited enough about a book to find more like it! While we were reading this book, we studied the preterit verbs and how sometimes the author doesn’t use a pronoun. We have to know what the pronoun is, based on the verb conjugation. We also talked about guiones. This is what most Spanish books use to indicate dialogue. One of the kids asked me about how to use them correctly, so I immediately incorporated it into a couple of lessons.
In writing, the kids finished a process writing paper and also did a pre-assessment for our next unit of how to write an opinion paper. I’m excited to start this next unit. For some of the kids who have struggled to write, this organization style helps kids better organize papers.
On Friday, we had the pleasure of hosting Sr. Hollenbeck’s class for an hour and a half while he attended interviews for our open position of an aide. While the kids were there, we did our pre-assessment for an opinion paper. When they were done, they could write, read with a partner or read to self. We also had Explorations time. The kids are so creative during this time and they produce an amazing amount of Spanish language!
With language skills, the kids have continued to learn about preterit verbs. Next week, we start our study of imperfect verbs. Imperfect verbs are another way of communicating in the past.
In English, we had the opportunity to do another round of reading groups. The kids thrive under the attention of an adult in a small group setting. We also did an initial assessment of the Dolch words. Next week, one goal is to get all the kids words to work on learning. We also talked about our spelling patterns and I pulled the different groups to learn about how the spelling assessment will go. The kids will need to write the different titles at the top of the paper. While I pulled these groups, the kids had the opportunity to read to self or to read with a partner. Then they will need to spell the word correctly in the correct column. We are mostly focused on if the children have learned the word patterns. I have also continued to read aloud The Boxcar Children. The kids seem to really like this book! I noticed a couple of kids picked some of these out during library time.
This about sums up our week. If you have any questions or concerns about anything, please do not hesitate to reach out to me. I value the communication between home and school.
I hope that everyone is having a great weekend!
Janell
Queridas familias, 1-17-2020
I hope that everyone has had a great week! We have been busy, busy, busy this week.
Don’t forget that the kids have no school tomorrow, the 20th. Teachers have professional development for the day.
Is your child completing their reading assignments each night? Starting this week, they are going to receive a superhero for returning their homework on time or early. Reading each night at their appropriate level helps the kids grow as readers, especially since each child is working on a different and individualized reading goal.
The newest addition to our day is that the kids now have English for a half an hour a day. We have completed running records to find appropriate levels for everyone. The kids have picked out some English books to have in their book boxes. We have been talking about short vowels and word families. The kids also completed a spelling assessment, which works on sounds and the words that follow those sounds. The big push for the English spelling is for the kids to understand sounds and how they work. We do not want kids simply memorizing a list of words. Next week, they will all receive their first set of words (if our printer is up and running again). I will send home the lists so that you can see what kinds of patterns your child is working on. In English, I also started reading the book The Boxcar Children with the kids. It is a book that was written so long ago, but the kids still are always interested in what these kids do. Finally, we had our first group of English reading groups. Thank you so much to all of our family members who were able to volunteer to help us out each week!
In social studies this week, the kids learned about how much garbage each person produces and how to reduce, reuse, recycle. After we read the chapter of our social studies unit, the kids watched a Bill Nye video called “Garbage”. Then they worked on a presentation with a partner. They needed to come up with one thing that they could do to help the planet and one thing that we shouldn’t do. When they finished their poster, they had to practice a presentation. I took videos of the kids and added them to their Seesaw account. I will try to get the parent information out to you this week so that you can see what the kids’ videos that they have made so far this year. When they completed practicing their presentation, they needed to write about what they were going to present. They needed to include an introduction, the details of what they learned and a conclusion.
In math, we have been learning more about counting coins and trading them. Most of our kids have mastered this ability. Can your child count coins? The newest part of this week was making change. Most of our kids are still learning how to make change. Some of the kids are learning how to borrow when writing out a subtraction problem. Others are learning how to jump on the hundreds chart to make change. We also had a session of math centers. In the centers, the kids went onto Xtramath to work on their addition or subtraction math facts. They also learned a new game with a spinner and money. They spun the spinner and had to take the amount of money that it showed. As soon as they could, they needed to trade their money (example: two dimes and a nickel for a quarter). Another center was playing Memory with clocks. The final center was Beat the Calculator. In this game, one person is the brain, another is the moderator and the last child uses the calculator. The moderator throws a die and the “brain” figures out the sum with their brains and the person with the calculator figures out the sum with the calculator. The kids have learned that it is normally quicker to use their brain than to use a calculator.
In writing, the kids have continued to write about processes. They also used this information to write about what to do to help the planet and what they shouldn’t do.
In reading, the kids have continued to learn about how to read a non-fictional text. When your child reads a book like this at home, are they remembering to read the titles and to read the words that are found near a picture to explain what is in the picture? Many of our kids skip these important parts of the book. They should be reading them. The titles for each section help us understand what we are going to learn about in that section of the book. This has been one of our focuses this week.
Regarding Spanish language arts skills, the kids have been separating verbs that are in the preterit form. One day, they needed to separate all of their words and then use ten of them to write sentences using the correct pronoun and verb. Several of our kids are still using the wrong verb when they speak and write. This is one way that they can start to learn the patterns and to start realizing that it is important to use the correct verb.
We also had our first session of Explorations. During this time, the kids have a variety of different centers to choose from. They get to build and use their imagination to make things. This is also a good time for the kids to use their Spanish and talk to one another about any and everything.
That about sums up our week. I hope that everyone has had a wonderful safe weekend so far! I look forward to seeing all of the kids on Tuesday!
Thanks!
Janell
I hope that everyone has had a great week! We have been busy, busy, busy this week.
Don’t forget that the kids have no school tomorrow, the 20th. Teachers have professional development for the day.
Is your child completing their reading assignments each night? Starting this week, they are going to receive a superhero for returning their homework on time or early. Reading each night at their appropriate level helps the kids grow as readers, especially since each child is working on a different and individualized reading goal.
The newest addition to our day is that the kids now have English for a half an hour a day. We have completed running records to find appropriate levels for everyone. The kids have picked out some English books to have in their book boxes. We have been talking about short vowels and word families. The kids also completed a spelling assessment, which works on sounds and the words that follow those sounds. The big push for the English spelling is for the kids to understand sounds and how they work. We do not want kids simply memorizing a list of words. Next week, they will all receive their first set of words (if our printer is up and running again). I will send home the lists so that you can see what kinds of patterns your child is working on. In English, I also started reading the book The Boxcar Children with the kids. It is a book that was written so long ago, but the kids still are always interested in what these kids do. Finally, we had our first group of English reading groups. Thank you so much to all of our family members who were able to volunteer to help us out each week!
In social studies this week, the kids learned about how much garbage each person produces and how to reduce, reuse, recycle. After we read the chapter of our social studies unit, the kids watched a Bill Nye video called “Garbage”. Then they worked on a presentation with a partner. They needed to come up with one thing that they could do to help the planet and one thing that we shouldn’t do. When they finished their poster, they had to practice a presentation. I took videos of the kids and added them to their Seesaw account. I will try to get the parent information out to you this week so that you can see what the kids’ videos that they have made so far this year. When they completed practicing their presentation, they needed to write about what they were going to present. They needed to include an introduction, the details of what they learned and a conclusion.
In math, we have been learning more about counting coins and trading them. Most of our kids have mastered this ability. Can your child count coins? The newest part of this week was making change. Most of our kids are still learning how to make change. Some of the kids are learning how to borrow when writing out a subtraction problem. Others are learning how to jump on the hundreds chart to make change. We also had a session of math centers. In the centers, the kids went onto Xtramath to work on their addition or subtraction math facts. They also learned a new game with a spinner and money. They spun the spinner and had to take the amount of money that it showed. As soon as they could, they needed to trade their money (example: two dimes and a nickel for a quarter). Another center was playing Memory with clocks. The final center was Beat the Calculator. In this game, one person is the brain, another is the moderator and the last child uses the calculator. The moderator throws a die and the “brain” figures out the sum with their brains and the person with the calculator figures out the sum with the calculator. The kids have learned that it is normally quicker to use their brain than to use a calculator.
In writing, the kids have continued to write about processes. They also used this information to write about what to do to help the planet and what they shouldn’t do.
In reading, the kids have continued to learn about how to read a non-fictional text. When your child reads a book like this at home, are they remembering to read the titles and to read the words that are found near a picture to explain what is in the picture? Many of our kids skip these important parts of the book. They should be reading them. The titles for each section help us understand what we are going to learn about in that section of the book. This has been one of our focuses this week.
Regarding Spanish language arts skills, the kids have been separating verbs that are in the preterit form. One day, they needed to separate all of their words and then use ten of them to write sentences using the correct pronoun and verb. Several of our kids are still using the wrong verb when they speak and write. This is one way that they can start to learn the patterns and to start realizing that it is important to use the correct verb.
We also had our first session of Explorations. During this time, the kids have a variety of different centers to choose from. They get to build and use their imagination to make things. This is also a good time for the kids to use their Spanish and talk to one another about any and everything.
That about sums up our week. I hope that everyone has had a wonderful safe weekend so far! I look forward to seeing all of the kids on Tuesday!
Thanks!
Janell
Estimadas familias, 1-12-2020
Thank you so much to everyone for all of your generous gifts! I have thank you cards written to the children and I need to get a few more stamps to send them out to everyone.
Lunchtime Arts is moving this year & will now be Afternoon Arts! Same programing, different time frame to adjust to the new lunch times that Ada Vista has this year. These optional art projects will take place during the student's afternoon recess times, instead of their lunch recess time.
Afternoon Arts is a program offered by the PTO’s Cultural Arts Committee. It provides an optional, fun-for-all art project as an alternative to afternoon recess one Wednesday a month for students in 1st-4th grade. This program runs January through March. On the day of the program, an announcement will be made to students in each respective grade prior to their recess time, giving them the choice to stay inside and participate. No student sign-up is required; students can decide that day if they want to come.
Below are the dates & times. The timeframe corresponds with their normal afternoon recess time.
2nd grade: 2:15-2:45 pm
- 1/15/20
- 2/12/20
- 3/11/20
The sign up links are:
January: https://www.signupgenius.com/go/30e0c49adaa29a31-january1
February: https://www.signupgenius.com/go/30e0c49adaa29a31-february
March: https://www.signupgenius.com/go/30e0c49adaa29a31-march
Please make sure to note that Monday, January 20th, the kids do not have school. We have professional development on that day.
The kids have completed their MAP testing this week. I’m sure that they are relieved to have this completed. I know that I am. There are only three kids who need to finish a part of one of the tests.
In math this week, the kids started chapter five. We started talking about story problems and how to figure out if we are adding or subtracting. Story problems can be tricky for some of our kids. This will be something that we continue to study for the remainder of the chapter.
In writing, the kids have been doing process writing. This is when they need to pick a topic that they can explain to someone else the order of how to do something. They have been learning how to use an introduction, the process and then a conclusion. We also started talking heavily about how to use capitalization and punctuation. Some of our kids are just realizing that they do not ever use this. We did a couple of exercises where the kids had to correct a page that had no capitalization or punctuation. We talked about how hard it is for someone to read our writing when these are not a part of our writing.
In reading, we read a few books and talked about the introduction, problem and solution. My goal this week was to find some high interest books that could draw some of our kids back into reading.
Every day, the kids have the opportunity to read to themselves and to read with partners. I have been encouraging the kids to stop frequently and discuss what is happening in the stories. Many times, the kids just read the words and forget to think about what is going on in the story. The comprehension is the fun part of reading. If you don’t understand what you are reading, it is no fun to read it.
This is a relatively short update on what we did this week. Unfortunately, too much of our time was spent completing MAP testing this week.
I hope that everyone enjoys the rest of the weekend!
Janell
Thank you so much to everyone for all of your generous gifts! I have thank you cards written to the children and I need to get a few more stamps to send them out to everyone.
Lunchtime Arts is moving this year & will now be Afternoon Arts! Same programing, different time frame to adjust to the new lunch times that Ada Vista has this year. These optional art projects will take place during the student's afternoon recess times, instead of their lunch recess time.
Afternoon Arts is a program offered by the PTO’s Cultural Arts Committee. It provides an optional, fun-for-all art project as an alternative to afternoon recess one Wednesday a month for students in 1st-4th grade. This program runs January through March. On the day of the program, an announcement will be made to students in each respective grade prior to their recess time, giving them the choice to stay inside and participate. No student sign-up is required; students can decide that day if they want to come.
Below are the dates & times. The timeframe corresponds with their normal afternoon recess time.
2nd grade: 2:15-2:45 pm
- 1/15/20
- 2/12/20
- 3/11/20
The sign up links are:
January: https://www.signupgenius.com/go/30e0c49adaa29a31-january1
February: https://www.signupgenius.com/go/30e0c49adaa29a31-february
March: https://www.signupgenius.com/go/30e0c49adaa29a31-march
Please make sure to note that Monday, January 20th, the kids do not have school. We have professional development on that day.
The kids have completed their MAP testing this week. I’m sure that they are relieved to have this completed. I know that I am. There are only three kids who need to finish a part of one of the tests.
In math this week, the kids started chapter five. We started talking about story problems and how to figure out if we are adding or subtracting. Story problems can be tricky for some of our kids. This will be something that we continue to study for the remainder of the chapter.
In writing, the kids have been doing process writing. This is when they need to pick a topic that they can explain to someone else the order of how to do something. They have been learning how to use an introduction, the process and then a conclusion. We also started talking heavily about how to use capitalization and punctuation. Some of our kids are just realizing that they do not ever use this. We did a couple of exercises where the kids had to correct a page that had no capitalization or punctuation. We talked about how hard it is for someone to read our writing when these are not a part of our writing.
In reading, we read a few books and talked about the introduction, problem and solution. My goal this week was to find some high interest books that could draw some of our kids back into reading.
Every day, the kids have the opportunity to read to themselves and to read with partners. I have been encouraging the kids to stop frequently and discuss what is happening in the stories. Many times, the kids just read the words and forget to think about what is going on in the story. The comprehension is the fun part of reading. If you don’t understand what you are reading, it is no fun to read it.
This is a relatively short update on what we did this week. Unfortunately, too much of our time was spent completing MAP testing this week.
I hope that everyone enjoys the rest of the weekend!
Janell
Queridas familias, 11-3-2019
We have arrived in November! I can’t believe how quickly the year is going. I loved having the opportunity to sit down with so many families for conferences and look forward to seeing everyone else on Monday night. It’s so exciting to me to share how your child is doing at school, both academically and socially.
Please make sure that your child is always prepared to change out of boots and into shoes to wear in the classroom. When the kids do not have shoes and wear their boots into the class, the snow melts and makes a puddle on the floor that someone always ends up sitting in. We’d like to keep everyone dry this year.
In math this week, we started chapter three. So far, we have talked about higher level addition strategies, some subtraction strategies and how to use in and out boxes. Can your child explain the 9 + another number rule / trick? Can your child tell you another trick that we have been talking about? The kids all brought home homework on Friday. Hopefully they showed it to you and have completed it.
Many of the kids wanted to know where I got our worksheets so that they could make some too. I told them that I would share the sites with parents, in case the kids couldn’t remember. This is NOT homework or anything that the kids have to do. This is for the kids who wanted the information.
math-aids.com
mateslibres.com
The kids were all introduced to Freckle this week. We use this for the math portion right now. I have assigned some sections for the kids to work on, based on what we are doing in class. This is something that the kids can work on at home, but they do not have to. The information to access Freckle was sent home with the other passwords that the kids have. Once we start English in January, they will also have some English language arts activities.
In reading, we have continued to talk about reading with expression. This helps kids who have a reading goal of fluency and the kids who have a reading goal of comprehension. I’ve continued to check in with some kids this week to see how they are progressing. It’s exciting to see how they have grown as reader!
Thank you to our families who have purchased some new books for the class! We have been reading them and sharing the joy of reading with others in our class. One of our new stories was “Los tres supercerditios”. The kids LOVED this story! It goes perfectly with the fairy tales that we have been studying.
In social studies, we have continued to talk about landforms and bodies of water. We will be transitioning this into our next science unit on how Earth changes over time.
Has your child told you about our fun activity with an art project? The kids all had to draw and color a monster. It had to be super secret and they couldn’t allow anyone to see it. They were told to use their imagination and make it as unique as possible. Then they had the opportunity to write a description about their monster. We wrote the introduction together, with each child making it unique for their monster. Then they went off to write the details and the conclusion. The monsters were all posted on the bulletin board in the hallway. On Friday, we had the chance to start on the final part of this. The kids all sat in the hallway. Each of the monsters were labeled with a number and the kids all received a list of the names of the kids in the class. Each child could read their description to the class (or I offered to read it, in case we have some shy kids in the class). As they read it, the kids had to guess which monster went with their description and write that number in the blank next to that child’s name. We will try to finish this up in the next couple of days.
If you ever have any questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to reach out to me. If you do not receive a response in 24 hours, please send me an email to make sure that I don’t let anything fall through the cracks.
Enjoy the rest of your weekend!
Janell
We have arrived in November! I can’t believe how quickly the year is going. I loved having the opportunity to sit down with so many families for conferences and look forward to seeing everyone else on Monday night. It’s so exciting to me to share how your child is doing at school, both academically and socially.
Please make sure that your child is always prepared to change out of boots and into shoes to wear in the classroom. When the kids do not have shoes and wear their boots into the class, the snow melts and makes a puddle on the floor that someone always ends up sitting in. We’d like to keep everyone dry this year.
In math this week, we started chapter three. So far, we have talked about higher level addition strategies, some subtraction strategies and how to use in and out boxes. Can your child explain the 9 + another number rule / trick? Can your child tell you another trick that we have been talking about? The kids all brought home homework on Friday. Hopefully they showed it to you and have completed it.
Many of the kids wanted to know where I got our worksheets so that they could make some too. I told them that I would share the sites with parents, in case the kids couldn’t remember. This is NOT homework or anything that the kids have to do. This is for the kids who wanted the information.
math-aids.com
mateslibres.com
The kids were all introduced to Freckle this week. We use this for the math portion right now. I have assigned some sections for the kids to work on, based on what we are doing in class. This is something that the kids can work on at home, but they do not have to. The information to access Freckle was sent home with the other passwords that the kids have. Once we start English in January, they will also have some English language arts activities.
In reading, we have continued to talk about reading with expression. This helps kids who have a reading goal of fluency and the kids who have a reading goal of comprehension. I’ve continued to check in with some kids this week to see how they are progressing. It’s exciting to see how they have grown as reader!
Thank you to our families who have purchased some new books for the class! We have been reading them and sharing the joy of reading with others in our class. One of our new stories was “Los tres supercerditios”. The kids LOVED this story! It goes perfectly with the fairy tales that we have been studying.
In social studies, we have continued to talk about landforms and bodies of water. We will be transitioning this into our next science unit on how Earth changes over time.
Has your child told you about our fun activity with an art project? The kids all had to draw and color a monster. It had to be super secret and they couldn’t allow anyone to see it. They were told to use their imagination and make it as unique as possible. Then they had the opportunity to write a description about their monster. We wrote the introduction together, with each child making it unique for their monster. Then they went off to write the details and the conclusion. The monsters were all posted on the bulletin board in the hallway. On Friday, we had the chance to start on the final part of this. The kids all sat in the hallway. Each of the monsters were labeled with a number and the kids all received a list of the names of the kids in the class. Each child could read their description to the class (or I offered to read it, in case we have some shy kids in the class). As they read it, the kids had to guess which monster went with their description and write that number in the blank next to that child’s name. We will try to finish this up in the next couple of days.
If you ever have any questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to reach out to me. If you do not receive a response in 24 hours, please send me an email to make sure that I don’t let anything fall through the cracks.
Enjoy the rest of your weekend!
Janell
Queridas familias, 10-13-2019
I hope that everything is going great at home! In class, we have been busy learning and growing.
The following is some information from our fantastic PTO.
PTO Meeting
Tuesday, October 17, 7:30pm in the AV Media Center, all are welcome!
Monthly Focus: Students and Mental Health
Come learn how to care for and help your child thrive this year mentally and emotionally. Discussion lead by:
Eric VanBuskirk, LMSW
District Liaison for Behavioral Health, Pine Rest Christian Mental Health Services
Sky Zone Outing
October 25
Looking for something fun to do on our next half day off? Join your friends at Sky Zone Grand Rapids!
Come anytime from Noon-5:00pm for a special group rate: $9.99/1 Hour, $12.99/90min, $15.99/2 Hours.
Scholastic Book Fair Coming!
October 29-November 4
The loved scholastic book fair is coming to Ada Vista at the end of October. Keep your eye out for details about volunteering! This is an awesome way to support literacy, plus teachers get 50% of the profits back in books and classroom materials.
All of the kids have started bringing home their reading homework. They have something to read each night. Is your child completing their reading homework each night? Does your child need you to remind them to get our their book and do their homework? Is it taking longer than 10-15 minutes to do their homework? If it is taking longer than this to read what is assigned, please let me know. If it takes longer than this, I need to make adjustments to their homework. I do not want our kids to spend all night trying to complete reading homework.
The kids also started to bring home math homework. They do not have math homework every day. Please get into the habit of checking your child’s homework folder to see if there is a math paper that needs to be completed. Several of our kids have been forgetting to do their homework or forgetting to bring it back. When this happens, they have to do it during their 15 minutes of choices time and I end up making an extra copy, which is a waste of paper. This homework should only take about 5 minutes per page. If it takes longer than that, it is a good indication that this is still a developing idea for your child.
The kids had the opportunity to get together with Sra. Lowry’s class this week. We partnered up the second graders with the first graders. Our kids had the chance to practice reading with expression. Before they met with their first grade partners, I read with the class and asked them to note what kind of things I do with them to make the story interesting that they could do with their partners.
In math this week, the kids have continued to work on increasing their addition strategies. They learned about using groups of ten to add larger numbers. They also learned about almost doubles (5+6, 6+7, etc.). We have also been practicing how to identify, count and write out money amounts using both the cents sign and the dollar sign. Example: 102₵ and $1.02. 56₵ and $0.56. Many of our kids still are learning how to identify their coins. Please take some time with your child and see if he/she can easily identify the quarter, dime, nickel and penny. This step is needed before they can learn how to count coins. Also, can your child skip count by 25, 10, 5, and 1? These are both skills that kids need to count money. We have been working with these in class, depending on what each child already knows and what they need to learn.
In reading this week, the kids have been learning how to note things that are interesting in a story and what the author did to make it that way. I have been practicing this with the kids during our read aloud time. I also spent one read aloud time talking to the kids about how to read to someone else to make it interesting. Kinder kids lose attention easily if we are only reading the words to them.
During their read with a partner time, the kids have been working on identifying the tú form of verbs in their reading. At this time in the year, the kids are still frequently mixing up their verbs when they speak. The first step is to start identifying the different verbs and learning that it is super important to use them correctly. When the kids ask me, “¿Puedes ir al baño?”, I tell them that I don’t need to go to the bathroom. They are trying to ask, “¿Puedo ir al baño?” but in reality, they are asking me if I can go to the bathroom. Each time a verb is used incorrectly, I question them as to who they are talking about or deliberately misunderstand so that they can begin to see how it affects a listener. Spanish speakers will often drop the pronoun and if they use the wrong version of the verb, it confuses the whole thing.
In social studies this week, the kids have started to learn the vocabulary for the different bodies of water and the landforms. This also leads us into the next science unit that the kids will be learning; How Earth changes over time. What body of water and what landform did your child learn this week?
Please don’t hesitate to contact me if you have any questions, concerns or fun stories to share. I’m here to help in any way possible.
Enjoy the rest of your weekend!
Janell
I hope that everything is going great at home! In class, we have been busy learning and growing.
The following is some information from our fantastic PTO.
PTO Meeting
Tuesday, October 17, 7:30pm in the AV Media Center, all are welcome!
Monthly Focus: Students and Mental Health
Come learn how to care for and help your child thrive this year mentally and emotionally. Discussion lead by:
Eric VanBuskirk, LMSW
District Liaison for Behavioral Health, Pine Rest Christian Mental Health Services
Sky Zone Outing
October 25
Looking for something fun to do on our next half day off? Join your friends at Sky Zone Grand Rapids!
Come anytime from Noon-5:00pm for a special group rate: $9.99/1 Hour, $12.99/90min, $15.99/2 Hours.
Scholastic Book Fair Coming!
October 29-November 4
The loved scholastic book fair is coming to Ada Vista at the end of October. Keep your eye out for details about volunteering! This is an awesome way to support literacy, plus teachers get 50% of the profits back in books and classroom materials.
All of the kids have started bringing home their reading homework. They have something to read each night. Is your child completing their reading homework each night? Does your child need you to remind them to get our their book and do their homework? Is it taking longer than 10-15 minutes to do their homework? If it is taking longer than this to read what is assigned, please let me know. If it takes longer than this, I need to make adjustments to their homework. I do not want our kids to spend all night trying to complete reading homework.
The kids also started to bring home math homework. They do not have math homework every day. Please get into the habit of checking your child’s homework folder to see if there is a math paper that needs to be completed. Several of our kids have been forgetting to do their homework or forgetting to bring it back. When this happens, they have to do it during their 15 minutes of choices time and I end up making an extra copy, which is a waste of paper. This homework should only take about 5 minutes per page. If it takes longer than that, it is a good indication that this is still a developing idea for your child.
The kids had the opportunity to get together with Sra. Lowry’s class this week. We partnered up the second graders with the first graders. Our kids had the chance to practice reading with expression. Before they met with their first grade partners, I read with the class and asked them to note what kind of things I do with them to make the story interesting that they could do with their partners.
In math this week, the kids have continued to work on increasing their addition strategies. They learned about using groups of ten to add larger numbers. They also learned about almost doubles (5+6, 6+7, etc.). We have also been practicing how to identify, count and write out money amounts using both the cents sign and the dollar sign. Example: 102₵ and $1.02. 56₵ and $0.56. Many of our kids still are learning how to identify their coins. Please take some time with your child and see if he/she can easily identify the quarter, dime, nickel and penny. This step is needed before they can learn how to count coins. Also, can your child skip count by 25, 10, 5, and 1? These are both skills that kids need to count money. We have been working with these in class, depending on what each child already knows and what they need to learn.
In reading this week, the kids have been learning how to note things that are interesting in a story and what the author did to make it that way. I have been practicing this with the kids during our read aloud time. I also spent one read aloud time talking to the kids about how to read to someone else to make it interesting. Kinder kids lose attention easily if we are only reading the words to them.
During their read with a partner time, the kids have been working on identifying the tú form of verbs in their reading. At this time in the year, the kids are still frequently mixing up their verbs when they speak. The first step is to start identifying the different verbs and learning that it is super important to use them correctly. When the kids ask me, “¿Puedes ir al baño?”, I tell them that I don’t need to go to the bathroom. They are trying to ask, “¿Puedo ir al baño?” but in reality, they are asking me if I can go to the bathroom. Each time a verb is used incorrectly, I question them as to who they are talking about or deliberately misunderstand so that they can begin to see how it affects a listener. Spanish speakers will often drop the pronoun and if they use the wrong version of the verb, it confuses the whole thing.
In social studies this week, the kids have started to learn the vocabulary for the different bodies of water and the landforms. This also leads us into the next science unit that the kids will be learning; How Earth changes over time. What body of water and what landform did your child learn this week?
Please don’t hesitate to contact me if you have any questions, concerns or fun stories to share. I’m here to help in any way possible.
Enjoy the rest of your weekend!
Janell
Queridas familias, 10-05-2019
There are a lot of new things in this email, so please make sure that you read the whole thing.
I finally finished all of our running records! That means that all of the kids have brought home their first set of reading homework this week. If you did not receive an individual email from me explaining where your child is reading right now and their first reading goal of second grade, please let me know. I think I emailed everyone, but it was over a two week period. It’s possible that I missed someone. Along with this, the kids also brought home their access codes for some of the sites that we use at school. This includes RAZ-Kids and Xtramath. I have updated the kids’ RAZ-Kids’ accounts so that they have access to their current independent reading levels and their instructional reading level. Please check the return date on the sticky note on your child’s book. Depending on each child’s goal, their due date is different. You can help your child by reminding them to read their homework each night.
I have opened a family RAZ-Kids’ account. If you do not speak Spanish and want to help your child with their comprehension of the stories, you could quickly read the English version and then ask your child about the basics in the story. Please do not have your child translate specific words. This is a difficult thing to do. The kids start to think in Spanish. They may understand what the word is/means, but may not be able to come up with an English equivalent quickly. As an adult, I was asked to help with interpreting if someone needed help. It turned into translating a whole hour worth of Spanish into English and by the end, I was in tears.
The kids also brought home their first page of math homework. This is something that we have been working on at school. I have been teaching the kids how to put all the sums of a number in order, starting with zero plus the number to make sure that they don’t miss any of them. Some of our kids still write backward numbers. If you see your child write one backward, please have them fix it. When it becomes solidified as backward, it is hard to start relearning how to write the number correctly. The homework is due on Monday.
The kids brought home their permission slip to go to the Nutcracker in December. The kids will be studying Russia in December and this is one of our first field trips of the year. I have attached the permission slip here as well.
On Friday, our internet decided that it wasn’t going to work. Ugh! I’m trying to get caught up on emails that I wanted to respond to yesterday. If you have emailed me and don’t hear from me by the end of the day, please send me a reminder email.
Sometimes parents email me during the day to let me know about changes in their child’s after school plans. There are times that I only have time to email a couple of words back to make sure that you know that I received your email. There are also times when I do not have time to look at my email because I am either working with kids or have recess duty. If you do not hear back from me, please contact the office to make sure that I send your child to the correct spot after school, especially if your child is unaware of the change.
The MAP results went home on Friday. Please keep in mind that this is only one small segment to show your child’s abilities. Second grade is the first year that the test is not read to them. The kids completed both tests in Spanish. Also, sometimes kids are not test takers and don’t understand strategies that we know as adults. There are other kids who had a bad day when we took the test. Their attention wandered frequently or they simply wanted to be done and start simply picking answers to finish up. I honestly find a computerized test to be frustrating because I do not believe that it is the most developmentally appropriate test for a second grader.
If you purchased a sign for the Caminata, please grab it over the next week. After Friday, all of the signs will be picked up and kept in the office for a bit. The kids are not allowed to bring things like this home on the bus because some of our buses do not have the space for it.
Our fantastic gym teacher, Marcio daSilva is sending you this message:
Hola familias de Ada Vista!
For the first time in what seems a lifetime, Monday October 7th and Tuesday October 8th, appear to be two days of DRY weather, which means we need to meet at the Ada Vista track and run for the Fall Fitness Assessments!! Please make sure your child/children have good running shoes that are not their gym shoes. Basically, make sure that they do not wear high heels, Uggs, flip flops, diving flippers, or monster slippers because that will make running extra difficult. Our gym time is on Tuesday, at 9:55. We welcome all family members to help us meet our goals. 1st-2nd run 4 times around the track for the half mile, while 3rd-4th run the mile. First grade families, I really need you to help me so that your child can remember their time.
See you Monday and/or Tuesday!
Gracias,
Sr. da Silva
P.S. Check out this cool video of a 9 year old accidently winning a 10k!! Share with your children!! https://www.cnn.com/videos/us/2019/10/01/boy-accidentally-wins-10k-race-orig-ll.cnn
We had some of our wonderful bus drivers come this week to talk to the kids about bus safety. What does your child remember about the rules that the bus has to help keep them safe?
This week in math, the kids cut out their play money for bills and had the opportunity to practice trading them for higher bills. The kids all have dollar bills, ten dollar bills, and hundred dollar bills. Most of our kids are still learning how to write out three-digit numbers in Spanish. We will be working on this heavily over the next week. This week, the kids have also been working a lot with sums of ten because knowing these will help them add higher numbers. They have also been working with doubles. Does your child know all of their doubles and sums of ten easily? The kids also started mad minutes. One part of math is knowing strategies to add and subtract quickly. This makes completing other math concepts easier. When the kids struggle with basic addition and subtraction, they end up needing to focus on that instead of the concepts that we are working with. The kids have also been working on Xtramath. This program gives them a quick assessment to find out what facts they already know well and which facts they need to practice. If your child is still learning their basic facts, you could access this site a couple of times a week to work on it. The round takes about 5-10 minutes. They keep pressing continue until it says to leave the site.
In social studies, we have been learning about maps. The kids have learned what a compass, symbols, grid and a key are. On Friday, they worked on developing their own treasure map, including a key, symbols and a compass. Then they needed to write directions for someone to find their treasure.
In reading, we have continued to read fairy tales. This week, the book we read was “Ricitos de moho y los tres babosos”. We haven’t finished this book, but what can your child tell you about it? It is a version of Goldilocks and the Three Bears. What is different about this book? What is similar? What is one new word that your child learned from this book? When we read a book, I go through the book and pick out new words that I think the kids can learn. As we read through the story, the kids raise their hand when they hear these words. This is one of the many ways that we are working to build vocabulary with the kids.
We have a program called Lucy Calkins that we use to help teach reading. This week, the focus was on a couple of different lessons. The kids learned about pausing, thinking and retelling the story, even while reading to themselves. Many times, kids get caught up in reading the words and forget to enjoy the journey of the story. We also learned about reading in larger phrases and that we breathe at periods. Another lesson was on increasing the time that we can focus on reading. Some of our kids can sit forever and read. Others are getting antsy after 5-10 minutes. Each one of these hits on the goals that the kids have in reading right now.
In writing, the kids started their own version of the Three Little Pigs and the Big Bad Wolf. They needed to choose different characters and different materials to build their houses. One day, they made an outline of what they were going to use in their story. Another day, they decorated the cover and wrote their introduction, where the mom sends her three kids off to build their own houses. On the third day, the kids wrote about how their characters acquired their materials and built their houses. What characters and materials did your child choose?
It’s been a super full week. If you have any questions or concerns about anything, please contact me. If you do not hear back within 24 hours, please send me a reminder email. Sometimes I check my email on my phone, but don’t have access to what I need to be able to respond immediately and then the email gets buried when I get to school. I’m so sorry if this has happened or if it does happen.
Thank you so much for all of your support!
Enjoy the rest of your weekend!
Janell
There are a lot of new things in this email, so please make sure that you read the whole thing.
I finally finished all of our running records! That means that all of the kids have brought home their first set of reading homework this week. If you did not receive an individual email from me explaining where your child is reading right now and their first reading goal of second grade, please let me know. I think I emailed everyone, but it was over a two week period. It’s possible that I missed someone. Along with this, the kids also brought home their access codes for some of the sites that we use at school. This includes RAZ-Kids and Xtramath. I have updated the kids’ RAZ-Kids’ accounts so that they have access to their current independent reading levels and their instructional reading level. Please check the return date on the sticky note on your child’s book. Depending on each child’s goal, their due date is different. You can help your child by reminding them to read their homework each night.
I have opened a family RAZ-Kids’ account. If you do not speak Spanish and want to help your child with their comprehension of the stories, you could quickly read the English version and then ask your child about the basics in the story. Please do not have your child translate specific words. This is a difficult thing to do. The kids start to think in Spanish. They may understand what the word is/means, but may not be able to come up with an English equivalent quickly. As an adult, I was asked to help with interpreting if someone needed help. It turned into translating a whole hour worth of Spanish into English and by the end, I was in tears.
The kids also brought home their first page of math homework. This is something that we have been working on at school. I have been teaching the kids how to put all the sums of a number in order, starting with zero plus the number to make sure that they don’t miss any of them. Some of our kids still write backward numbers. If you see your child write one backward, please have them fix it. When it becomes solidified as backward, it is hard to start relearning how to write the number correctly. The homework is due on Monday.
The kids brought home their permission slip to go to the Nutcracker in December. The kids will be studying Russia in December and this is one of our first field trips of the year. I have attached the permission slip here as well.
On Friday, our internet decided that it wasn’t going to work. Ugh! I’m trying to get caught up on emails that I wanted to respond to yesterday. If you have emailed me and don’t hear from me by the end of the day, please send me a reminder email.
Sometimes parents email me during the day to let me know about changes in their child’s after school plans. There are times that I only have time to email a couple of words back to make sure that you know that I received your email. There are also times when I do not have time to look at my email because I am either working with kids or have recess duty. If you do not hear back from me, please contact the office to make sure that I send your child to the correct spot after school, especially if your child is unaware of the change.
The MAP results went home on Friday. Please keep in mind that this is only one small segment to show your child’s abilities. Second grade is the first year that the test is not read to them. The kids completed both tests in Spanish. Also, sometimes kids are not test takers and don’t understand strategies that we know as adults. There are other kids who had a bad day when we took the test. Their attention wandered frequently or they simply wanted to be done and start simply picking answers to finish up. I honestly find a computerized test to be frustrating because I do not believe that it is the most developmentally appropriate test for a second grader.
If you purchased a sign for the Caminata, please grab it over the next week. After Friday, all of the signs will be picked up and kept in the office for a bit. The kids are not allowed to bring things like this home on the bus because some of our buses do not have the space for it.
Our fantastic gym teacher, Marcio daSilva is sending you this message:
Hola familias de Ada Vista!
For the first time in what seems a lifetime, Monday October 7th and Tuesday October 8th, appear to be two days of DRY weather, which means we need to meet at the Ada Vista track and run for the Fall Fitness Assessments!! Please make sure your child/children have good running shoes that are not their gym shoes. Basically, make sure that they do not wear high heels, Uggs, flip flops, diving flippers, or monster slippers because that will make running extra difficult. Our gym time is on Tuesday, at 9:55. We welcome all family members to help us meet our goals. 1st-2nd run 4 times around the track for the half mile, while 3rd-4th run the mile. First grade families, I really need you to help me so that your child can remember their time.
See you Monday and/or Tuesday!
Gracias,
Sr. da Silva
P.S. Check out this cool video of a 9 year old accidently winning a 10k!! Share with your children!! https://www.cnn.com/videos/us/2019/10/01/boy-accidentally-wins-10k-race-orig-ll.cnn
We had some of our wonderful bus drivers come this week to talk to the kids about bus safety. What does your child remember about the rules that the bus has to help keep them safe?
This week in math, the kids cut out their play money for bills and had the opportunity to practice trading them for higher bills. The kids all have dollar bills, ten dollar bills, and hundred dollar bills. Most of our kids are still learning how to write out three-digit numbers in Spanish. We will be working on this heavily over the next week. This week, the kids have also been working a lot with sums of ten because knowing these will help them add higher numbers. They have also been working with doubles. Does your child know all of their doubles and sums of ten easily? The kids also started mad minutes. One part of math is knowing strategies to add and subtract quickly. This makes completing other math concepts easier. When the kids struggle with basic addition and subtraction, they end up needing to focus on that instead of the concepts that we are working with. The kids have also been working on Xtramath. This program gives them a quick assessment to find out what facts they already know well and which facts they need to practice. If your child is still learning their basic facts, you could access this site a couple of times a week to work on it. The round takes about 5-10 minutes. They keep pressing continue until it says to leave the site.
In social studies, we have been learning about maps. The kids have learned what a compass, symbols, grid and a key are. On Friday, they worked on developing their own treasure map, including a key, symbols and a compass. Then they needed to write directions for someone to find their treasure.
In reading, we have continued to read fairy tales. This week, the book we read was “Ricitos de moho y los tres babosos”. We haven’t finished this book, but what can your child tell you about it? It is a version of Goldilocks and the Three Bears. What is different about this book? What is similar? What is one new word that your child learned from this book? When we read a book, I go through the book and pick out new words that I think the kids can learn. As we read through the story, the kids raise their hand when they hear these words. This is one of the many ways that we are working to build vocabulary with the kids.
We have a program called Lucy Calkins that we use to help teach reading. This week, the focus was on a couple of different lessons. The kids learned about pausing, thinking and retelling the story, even while reading to themselves. Many times, kids get caught up in reading the words and forget to enjoy the journey of the story. We also learned about reading in larger phrases and that we breathe at periods. Another lesson was on increasing the time that we can focus on reading. Some of our kids can sit forever and read. Others are getting antsy after 5-10 minutes. Each one of these hits on the goals that the kids have in reading right now.
In writing, the kids started their own version of the Three Little Pigs and the Big Bad Wolf. They needed to choose different characters and different materials to build their houses. One day, they made an outline of what they were going to use in their story. Another day, they decorated the cover and wrote their introduction, where the mom sends her three kids off to build their own houses. On the third day, the kids wrote about how their characters acquired their materials and built their houses. What characters and materials did your child choose?
It’s been a super full week. If you have any questions or concerns about anything, please contact me. If you do not hear back within 24 hours, please send me a reminder email. Sometimes I check my email on my phone, but don’t have access to what I need to be able to respond immediately and then the email gets buried when I get to school. I’m so sorry if this has happened or if it does happen.
Thank you so much for all of your support!
Enjoy the rest of your weekend!
Janell
Queridas familias, 9-20-2019
To start our newsletter, we have some information from our fantastic PTO.
School Picnic, Thursday, September 26, 6:00-7:30
Enjoy a relaxed and fun night with your family and ours! Bring your picnic dinner and a blanket and eat on the playground with Ada Vista Families.
Group games & popsicles provided, you bring the fun!
Don’t miss out! Sign up for the AV Directory
www.adavistapto.membershiptoolkit.com
Takes only a couple of minutes… connect to the NEW school directory and stay up-to-date on AV happenings!
**ALL families must sign-up for the new directory as the old website is discontinued. **
Bonus: You can choose what information is public or private and it easily connects to the directories at the other Northern schools.
The Caminata Color Walk is Next Week! Friday, September 27 at 9:00am!
Keep those donations coming, we are so grateful for the support of our community!
The deadline for ordering individual signs (you can see some already outside the school) is Monday, September 23rd.
And we’re looking for Caminata volunteers:
Please come join us to help facilitate the success of Caminata for Ada Vista's first and annual fundraiser! We are seeking volunteers along the route; it's very important that we have your support in assisting our students along the route!!!
*** NOTE: Route Volunteers are separate from teachers requests to have parents walk with the class.
Route Volunteer Sign Up: https://www.signupgenius.com/go/20f0c44a9aa2eaafe3-caminata
Website
As always, find most of the information you need on our website: www.adavistapto.com
See below the link for Caminata food request:
https://www.signupgenius.com/go/20F0C44A9AA2EAAFE3-caminata1
I hope that your child is coming home with wonderful things to say about school and the things that he/she is learning!
This week, we finished up our study of germs. The kids had the opportunity to celebrate Constitution Day. They listen to the story Duck for President. Then they made flags by ripping up pieces of red and blue paper and gluing them onto the white paper.
We finished the week by starting our next chapter in social studies. This chapter talks about the three different kinds of communities: rural (rural), suburban (suburbana), and urban (urbana). We have been talking about the different things you can do in each community and why it would be interesting to live in that community. Soon, the kids will each write about which community they want to live in and why.
In math, we have continued to talk about number patterns. The kids did number patterns to 100 last year. This year, they need to be able to extend the number pattern to 1,000. They should be able to skip count by 2’s, 5’2, 10’s, and 100’s. Can your child do this? We have also been reviewing money and we have talked about the penny, nickel and quarter. Can your child identify all of the coins up to a quarter? If not, you can lay out some coins in front of them at home and have them start picking out the coins that you call out for them. We have also been stressing the doubles sums and the sums of 10. Does your child know all of these, if not, they can work on this at home with a die and the attached math form.
We completed our MAP for both math and Spanish language arts. There are still a few students who need to finish up a section, but we are almost done. Please don’t be surprised if it looks like your child has a lower score now than they did at the end of the school year. The kids tend to go back slightly over the summer. The results will not be sent home for another couple of weeks yet because the testing window has not closed yet.
Our read aloud this week was the story “Un caso grave de rayas”, With this story, we are able to combine what the kids learned about germs, with the idea of always being your true self. We have also been talking about characters, setting, introduction, problem and solution.
I have been putting a ton of effort into completing running records with all the kids, but I still need to read with at least 10 kids. I always forget how long these take to do with the kids in the fall. We need to read at least two books with each child to find the right independent level and the right instructional level. Hopefully, we can finish this up and get reading homework home by the end of next week.
Each day, the kids have the opportunity to read with partners and to read by themselves. During partner reading time, the kids have been looking for yo verbs in the present tense. Almost all of them end with the letter “o”. Be careful though! Verbs that end with an accent over the “o” go with the pronouns he, she, and it in the preterit tense.
I have been stressing to each and every child that to get better at something, we need to practice it, even if it isn’t easy. If we want to be able to speak Spanish well, we need to stop using English with our friends and practice our Spanish. If we want to do math well, we need to practice. Reading? Practice. Being a good friend? Practice. In Spanish, there is a phrase that basically says, “Practice makes the teacher.” I like this better than Practice makes perfect. I’m not looking for perfection in anyone, even myself. We are just looking for everyone to do their best each day and to try and get better.
Please let me know if you have any questions or concerns about anything regarding school. I’d love to clarify things and be of any help possible.
Thank you!
Have a wonderful weekend!
Janell
To start our newsletter, we have some information from our fantastic PTO.
School Picnic, Thursday, September 26, 6:00-7:30
Enjoy a relaxed and fun night with your family and ours! Bring your picnic dinner and a blanket and eat on the playground with Ada Vista Families.
Group games & popsicles provided, you bring the fun!
Don’t miss out! Sign up for the AV Directory
www.adavistapto.membershiptoolkit.com
Takes only a couple of minutes… connect to the NEW school directory and stay up-to-date on AV happenings!
**ALL families must sign-up for the new directory as the old website is discontinued. **
Bonus: You can choose what information is public or private and it easily connects to the directories at the other Northern schools.
The Caminata Color Walk is Next Week! Friday, September 27 at 9:00am!
Keep those donations coming, we are so grateful for the support of our community!
The deadline for ordering individual signs (you can see some already outside the school) is Monday, September 23rd.
And we’re looking for Caminata volunteers:
Please come join us to help facilitate the success of Caminata for Ada Vista's first and annual fundraiser! We are seeking volunteers along the route; it's very important that we have your support in assisting our students along the route!!!
*** NOTE: Route Volunteers are separate from teachers requests to have parents walk with the class.
Route Volunteer Sign Up: https://www.signupgenius.com/go/20f0c44a9aa2eaafe3-caminata
Website
As always, find most of the information you need on our website: www.adavistapto.com
See below the link for Caminata food request:
https://www.signupgenius.com/go/20F0C44A9AA2EAAFE3-caminata1
I hope that your child is coming home with wonderful things to say about school and the things that he/she is learning!
This week, we finished up our study of germs. The kids had the opportunity to celebrate Constitution Day. They listen to the story Duck for President. Then they made flags by ripping up pieces of red and blue paper and gluing them onto the white paper.
We finished the week by starting our next chapter in social studies. This chapter talks about the three different kinds of communities: rural (rural), suburban (suburbana), and urban (urbana). We have been talking about the different things you can do in each community and why it would be interesting to live in that community. Soon, the kids will each write about which community they want to live in and why.
In math, we have continued to talk about number patterns. The kids did number patterns to 100 last year. This year, they need to be able to extend the number pattern to 1,000. They should be able to skip count by 2’s, 5’2, 10’s, and 100’s. Can your child do this? We have also been reviewing money and we have talked about the penny, nickel and quarter. Can your child identify all of the coins up to a quarter? If not, you can lay out some coins in front of them at home and have them start picking out the coins that you call out for them. We have also been stressing the doubles sums and the sums of 10. Does your child know all of these, if not, they can work on this at home with a die and the attached math form.
We completed our MAP for both math and Spanish language arts. There are still a few students who need to finish up a section, but we are almost done. Please don’t be surprised if it looks like your child has a lower score now than they did at the end of the school year. The kids tend to go back slightly over the summer. The results will not be sent home for another couple of weeks yet because the testing window has not closed yet.
Our read aloud this week was the story “Un caso grave de rayas”, With this story, we are able to combine what the kids learned about germs, with the idea of always being your true self. We have also been talking about characters, setting, introduction, problem and solution.
I have been putting a ton of effort into completing running records with all the kids, but I still need to read with at least 10 kids. I always forget how long these take to do with the kids in the fall. We need to read at least two books with each child to find the right independent level and the right instructional level. Hopefully, we can finish this up and get reading homework home by the end of next week.
Each day, the kids have the opportunity to read with partners and to read by themselves. During partner reading time, the kids have been looking for yo verbs in the present tense. Almost all of them end with the letter “o”. Be careful though! Verbs that end with an accent over the “o” go with the pronouns he, she, and it in the preterit tense.
I have been stressing to each and every child that to get better at something, we need to practice it, even if it isn’t easy. If we want to be able to speak Spanish well, we need to stop using English with our friends and practice our Spanish. If we want to do math well, we need to practice. Reading? Practice. Being a good friend? Practice. In Spanish, there is a phrase that basically says, “Practice makes the teacher.” I like this better than Practice makes perfect. I’m not looking for perfection in anyone, even myself. We are just looking for everyone to do their best each day and to try and get better.
Please let me know if you have any questions or concerns about anything regarding school. I’d love to clarify things and be of any help possible.
Thank you!
Have a wonderful weekend!
Janell
PTO Picnic Time on Thursday, September 26 Correction:
The Ada Vista Family Calendar for this week has an incorrect time listed. The PTO Picnic will begin at 6:00 pm and last until 7:30 pm. Bring your meal, your blanket, and get ready for lots of fun!
Caminata Update:
The PTO will have a Caminata Swag Sale starting tomorrow, Tuesday, through Thursday during lunch times (and Friday during the Caminata if inventory is still available).Inexpensive items offered to help your child be a rainbow of colors for the Caminata walk. Make sure to send your child with money if you want them to purchase anything.
Important Parent Pick Up Alert for Caminata Day:
For the students' safety, the driveway used for Parent Pick Up off of Rix St.will be blocked until 11:10 am for the completion of the Caminata. Please do not arrive to line up until 11:10 am. Also, remember that drivers in the parent pick up line are not to leave their cars unattended so that we can have an efficient dismissal of students at 11:20 am.
The Ada Vista Family Calendar for this week has an incorrect time listed. The PTO Picnic will begin at 6:00 pm and last until 7:30 pm. Bring your meal, your blanket, and get ready for lots of fun!
Caminata Update:
The PTO will have a Caminata Swag Sale starting tomorrow, Tuesday, through Thursday during lunch times (and Friday during the Caminata if inventory is still available).Inexpensive items offered to help your child be a rainbow of colors for the Caminata walk. Make sure to send your child with money if you want them to purchase anything.
Important Parent Pick Up Alert for Caminata Day:
For the students' safety, the driveway used for Parent Pick Up off of Rix St.will be blocked until 11:10 am for the completion of the Caminata. Please do not arrive to line up until 11:10 am. Also, remember that drivers in the parent pick up line are not to leave their cars unattended so that we can have an efficient dismissal of students at 11:20 am.
Queridas familias, 9-15-2019
I hope that everyone is having a wonderful weekend!
Caminata envelops were sent home and we still have three that were left behind and are unclaimed. If you need one sent home, please let me know. Thank you so much to everyone who has already donated to our Caminata! Remember that no amount is too small or too big.
This week, the kinder colors are: Monday is orange, Tuesday is brown, Wednesday is purple and white, Thursday is black, and Friday is yellow.
We ended up having another four-day week, but we also managed to pack a ton into those four days! The kids are getting into a routine and doing a great job. In the afternoon, their minds start to get a bit tired and we typically do more independent work during that time.
In math, the kids have been working on games and hands on activities with number lines and hundreds charts. We also worked with quick look cards. These cards have two groups of tens. Each is divided up into two rows of five. The kids only get three seconds to look at them. Then they need to decide how many dots are on them. We talked about how sometimes we count what’s there and other times we count what isn’t there and subtract it from the total. The kids also learned how to do the name collection boxes. This is when they are given a number and they need to come up with other “names” for their number. They can use addition, subtraction, tally marks, dice, dominos, multiplication, roman numerals, the word of the number, and base ten blocks. Can your child to an example of this at home for you? They also played broken calculator. They are given a number and need to come up with several ways to make that number with addition and subtraction, but the trick is that one of the buttons is “broken” and they can’t use it. So, if they have the number 23, the 2 might be “broken” and they can’t use it in the formula. Then they check the addition or subtraction on the calculator.
In science, we have been learning about germs. We talked about when is a good time to wash your hands and why. We learned about how germs can come into our bodies through our mouths, eyes, noses, ears, and cuts in our skin. The kids made a germ with modeling clay and then wrote about it. They named their germ, told us how it gets into the body, what it affects in our body and how to get rid of it. The kids know that there are two types of germs: bacteria and virus.
In reading, the kids have been working hard on extending the time that they read independently and with partners. They have a list of expectations for these times and focus on the one that they think will be hard for them. While the kids have been reading by themselves and with partners, I have been completing running records. It is always slow at the beginning of the year. We have to do a minimum of two books with each kids to find an independent level and an instructional level. As soon as I have found a level for your child, I will be emailing you about it. My goal is to have as many done by the end of the week as possible so that we can start reading homework, reading groups and working on reading goals.
In partner reading, the kids have the same partner for about a month. They read and discuss what is happening in a story with this partner. Next month, the kids will be partnered with someone who is working on the same reading goal. This week, the kids learned that an infinitive verb in Spanish ends with an r. They all had a sheet of paper that they divided into three columns; one for the –ar verbs, one for the –ir verbs and one for the –er verbs. As they read, they needed to find these verbs and write them down in the correct column of their paper.
That about wraps up our week. I hope that your child is coming home with great things to say about class. Please let me know if you ever have any questions, concerns or stories to share. I would prefer to address any problems when they are small and more manageable, but I'm also here for the bigger issues too.
Have a wonderful rest of your day!
Janell Bruin
Second Grade
Ada Vista
I hope that everyone is having a wonderful weekend!
Caminata envelops were sent home and we still have three that were left behind and are unclaimed. If you need one sent home, please let me know. Thank you so much to everyone who has already donated to our Caminata! Remember that no amount is too small or too big.
This week, the kinder colors are: Monday is orange, Tuesday is brown, Wednesday is purple and white, Thursday is black, and Friday is yellow.
We ended up having another four-day week, but we also managed to pack a ton into those four days! The kids are getting into a routine and doing a great job. In the afternoon, their minds start to get a bit tired and we typically do more independent work during that time.
In math, the kids have been working on games and hands on activities with number lines and hundreds charts. We also worked with quick look cards. These cards have two groups of tens. Each is divided up into two rows of five. The kids only get three seconds to look at them. Then they need to decide how many dots are on them. We talked about how sometimes we count what’s there and other times we count what isn’t there and subtract it from the total. The kids also learned how to do the name collection boxes. This is when they are given a number and they need to come up with other “names” for their number. They can use addition, subtraction, tally marks, dice, dominos, multiplication, roman numerals, the word of the number, and base ten blocks. Can your child to an example of this at home for you? They also played broken calculator. They are given a number and need to come up with several ways to make that number with addition and subtraction, but the trick is that one of the buttons is “broken” and they can’t use it. So, if they have the number 23, the 2 might be “broken” and they can’t use it in the formula. Then they check the addition or subtraction on the calculator.
In science, we have been learning about germs. We talked about when is a good time to wash your hands and why. We learned about how germs can come into our bodies through our mouths, eyes, noses, ears, and cuts in our skin. The kids made a germ with modeling clay and then wrote about it. They named their germ, told us how it gets into the body, what it affects in our body and how to get rid of it. The kids know that there are two types of germs: bacteria and virus.
In reading, the kids have been working hard on extending the time that they read independently and with partners. They have a list of expectations for these times and focus on the one that they think will be hard for them. While the kids have been reading by themselves and with partners, I have been completing running records. It is always slow at the beginning of the year. We have to do a minimum of two books with each kids to find an independent level and an instructional level. As soon as I have found a level for your child, I will be emailing you about it. My goal is to have as many done by the end of the week as possible so that we can start reading homework, reading groups and working on reading goals.
In partner reading, the kids have the same partner for about a month. They read and discuss what is happening in a story with this partner. Next month, the kids will be partnered with someone who is working on the same reading goal. This week, the kids learned that an infinitive verb in Spanish ends with an r. They all had a sheet of paper that they divided into three columns; one for the –ar verbs, one for the –ir verbs and one for the –er verbs. As they read, they needed to find these verbs and write them down in the correct column of their paper.
That about wraps up our week. I hope that your child is coming home with great things to say about class. Please let me know if you ever have any questions, concerns or stories to share. I would prefer to address any problems when they are small and more manageable, but I'm also here for the bigger issues too.
Have a wonderful rest of your day!
Janell Bruin
Second Grade
Ada Vista
Queridas familias, 9-6-2019
I know that this is a super long email, but please take a couple of minutes to read this email so that you are informed about important upcoming events and the things that your child is working on in class. The blue section is general information to know. The green section lets you know what we are working on in class.
I hope that your child is coming home and telling you all about the different activities and books that we are reading. I hope that your child has had two great weeks. Next week, as we gear up for a whole week of school, please keep in mind that your child might need a bit more sleep than normal. The kids tend to go home mentally and physically exhausted the first few weeks of school.
A handful of our kids are still learning how to tie their gym shoes. If your child is in this group, please set aside a bit of time at home to work on this skill. The faster the kids can tie their shoes, the more we can learn and play!
Just a reminder that we do have a nut/peanut allergy in our class. These items are okay for the kids to have at lunch, but not for a snack in class. Please make sure that if you are packing something with nuts or a nut butter that your child knows not to bring this into our classroom. We need to make sure that everyone is safe in our classroom family.
If you typically pick up your child from school, please make a sign to stick in the window with your child’s name. This helps the teachers get kids loaded into cars faster. Many kids are busy talking to their friends or playing while they wait and don’t realize their families have arrived to pick them up. Thanks!
The kids took home envelopes for Caminata de colores today. I found four on the floor after the kids left. If your envelop didn’t make it all the way home, please let me know and I will send one home from the ones that were left behind.
The first week of school, I always forget how much time we end up spending talking about expectations and helping to set a routine with the kids. I tried to space those with some fun activities for the kids.
The kids also drew color cards to decide which one of our houses that they will be in. These houses are intended for the kids to start thinking of themselves as a second grader as well as a student in our class. The kids will be eating lunch with their houses on Fridays. We will also be doing some activities with our houses throughout the year. The kids line up after recess in their house line to earn points for their houses. Throughout the day, the kids can earn points for helping others, doing their best all week, being kind, and so much more. These points are to help the kids see how their positive actions can influence others. The colors they chose go with the color of their house. The houses are the black house “Altruismo”. In this house, the kids will be focused on being giving to others. No, we aren’t talking about gifting our friends with material items, but giving kindness and friendship. The red house is “Amistad” and focuses in on being great friends and building friendships. The green house is “Isibindi” and focuses on having courage. It deals with doing the right thing, even when it takes courage to do so. The blue house is “Reveur” and focuses on being dreamers. This is making dreams into reality. Which house is your child in?
Speaking of colors, kinder is starting their color week next week. Second graders can participate if they want to. We’d love to support the kinders as they learn their colors in Spanish, but please do not feel the need to go out and buy something special for this.
Monday - red
Tuesday - blue
Wednesday - pink and gray
Thursday - yellow
Friday - green
We read several books in the last two weeks. All of these books are about being helpful, being different, making friends, and asking for help. We read Tacky el pingüino, Pastel para enemigos, El abusón del pantano negro, Un poquito más, El pez cachetón va a la escuela, and Armadillo el chismoso. Can your child tell you about one of these books? Which one was his/her favorite? What was the lesson that the author was trying to convey with the book? That has been our focus for these past two weeks.
The kids all have a book box with five books. They should be picking out two easy books, two perfect books and one difficult book for their box. These books are the ones that they hold onto for one full week before they get to choose another set of books. The kids are learning how to open a book and check which category the book fits into by reading part of it.
We have done a few writing activities as well. The kids started with a list of things that are unique about them. Then they had the opportunity to share these with others in the class. Another writing activity we did was to focus in on the phrase “Yo tengo” (I have). Many times the kids mix this verb with the verb form for a different pronoun. In an attempt to fix this, we make a class book of this phrase that the kids can read over and over again. They used the phrase yo tengo and then described the thing that they had. What did your child write about?
In math, we started my color coding the hundreds chart that is located in our math book. We also did an activity that involved the kids making a number line. To help provide differentiated instruction, I gave the kids three different numbers to start at. They had the opportunity to choose which number they thought was best for them. Which number did your child start on? 32, 232 or 2,232?
In math, we also practiced making tally marks and counting them by 5’s. Some of our kids are still having difficulty counting by 5’s. This is something that we will work on in class, but this is something that you can also have your child practice at home. It is important for the kids to be able to fluently count by 5’s. It is used in counting money, telling time, adding and so much more! Today, we transitioned the tally marks into helping them count money (dimes, nickels and pennies). The kids received the whiteboard that they will be using this year. Can your child tell you the rules that we discussed when it comes to using the whiteboard?
Next week, I will start running records with kids. As soon as I find a reading level for your child, I will write you an email to let you know what I found. I will provide you with your child’s level, reading goal and some ways to work on that goal. The kids do have homework every night. Their homework is to read for 20 minutes a night. There are so many studies that show that kids who spend this time reading each night become better readers.
We started studying communities this week. The kids learned that a community is a place where people work, live, play and solve problems. The kids were put into groups of three and planned an invented community. Then they used this plan to make a large poster of their new community. What did your child include in their community for these four categories?
If you ever have any questions, concerns or fun stories to share about your child, please do not hesitate to contact me. I want to do my best to make sure that your child’s second grade year is the best year possible. To do that, I sometimes need your help. At times, your child will tell you more about something that is bothering them than they will tell me.
I hope that everyone has a wonderful, relaxing weekend! I’m looking forward to seeing all the kids bright and early on Monday!
Thanks!
Janell
I know that this is a super long email, but please take a couple of minutes to read this email so that you are informed about important upcoming events and the things that your child is working on in class. The blue section is general information to know. The green section lets you know what we are working on in class.
I hope that your child is coming home and telling you all about the different activities and books that we are reading. I hope that your child has had two great weeks. Next week, as we gear up for a whole week of school, please keep in mind that your child might need a bit more sleep than normal. The kids tend to go home mentally and physically exhausted the first few weeks of school.
A handful of our kids are still learning how to tie their gym shoes. If your child is in this group, please set aside a bit of time at home to work on this skill. The faster the kids can tie their shoes, the more we can learn and play!
Just a reminder that we do have a nut/peanut allergy in our class. These items are okay for the kids to have at lunch, but not for a snack in class. Please make sure that if you are packing something with nuts or a nut butter that your child knows not to bring this into our classroom. We need to make sure that everyone is safe in our classroom family.
If you typically pick up your child from school, please make a sign to stick in the window with your child’s name. This helps the teachers get kids loaded into cars faster. Many kids are busy talking to their friends or playing while they wait and don’t realize their families have arrived to pick them up. Thanks!
The kids took home envelopes for Caminata de colores today. I found four on the floor after the kids left. If your envelop didn’t make it all the way home, please let me know and I will send one home from the ones that were left behind.
The first week of school, I always forget how much time we end up spending talking about expectations and helping to set a routine with the kids. I tried to space those with some fun activities for the kids.
The kids also drew color cards to decide which one of our houses that they will be in. These houses are intended for the kids to start thinking of themselves as a second grader as well as a student in our class. The kids will be eating lunch with their houses on Fridays. We will also be doing some activities with our houses throughout the year. The kids line up after recess in their house line to earn points for their houses. Throughout the day, the kids can earn points for helping others, doing their best all week, being kind, and so much more. These points are to help the kids see how their positive actions can influence others. The colors they chose go with the color of their house. The houses are the black house “Altruismo”. In this house, the kids will be focused on being giving to others. No, we aren’t talking about gifting our friends with material items, but giving kindness and friendship. The red house is “Amistad” and focuses in on being great friends and building friendships. The green house is “Isibindi” and focuses on having courage. It deals with doing the right thing, even when it takes courage to do so. The blue house is “Reveur” and focuses on being dreamers. This is making dreams into reality. Which house is your child in?
Speaking of colors, kinder is starting their color week next week. Second graders can participate if they want to. We’d love to support the kinders as they learn their colors in Spanish, but please do not feel the need to go out and buy something special for this.
Monday - red
Tuesday - blue
Wednesday - pink and gray
Thursday - yellow
Friday - green
We read several books in the last two weeks. All of these books are about being helpful, being different, making friends, and asking for help. We read Tacky el pingüino, Pastel para enemigos, El abusón del pantano negro, Un poquito más, El pez cachetón va a la escuela, and Armadillo el chismoso. Can your child tell you about one of these books? Which one was his/her favorite? What was the lesson that the author was trying to convey with the book? That has been our focus for these past two weeks.
The kids all have a book box with five books. They should be picking out two easy books, two perfect books and one difficult book for their box. These books are the ones that they hold onto for one full week before they get to choose another set of books. The kids are learning how to open a book and check which category the book fits into by reading part of it.
We have done a few writing activities as well. The kids started with a list of things that are unique about them. Then they had the opportunity to share these with others in the class. Another writing activity we did was to focus in on the phrase “Yo tengo” (I have). Many times the kids mix this verb with the verb form for a different pronoun. In an attempt to fix this, we make a class book of this phrase that the kids can read over and over again. They used the phrase yo tengo and then described the thing that they had. What did your child write about?
In math, we started my color coding the hundreds chart that is located in our math book. We also did an activity that involved the kids making a number line. To help provide differentiated instruction, I gave the kids three different numbers to start at. They had the opportunity to choose which number they thought was best for them. Which number did your child start on? 32, 232 or 2,232?
In math, we also practiced making tally marks and counting them by 5’s. Some of our kids are still having difficulty counting by 5’s. This is something that we will work on in class, but this is something that you can also have your child practice at home. It is important for the kids to be able to fluently count by 5’s. It is used in counting money, telling time, adding and so much more! Today, we transitioned the tally marks into helping them count money (dimes, nickels and pennies). The kids received the whiteboard that they will be using this year. Can your child tell you the rules that we discussed when it comes to using the whiteboard?
Next week, I will start running records with kids. As soon as I find a reading level for your child, I will write you an email to let you know what I found. I will provide you with your child’s level, reading goal and some ways to work on that goal. The kids do have homework every night. Their homework is to read for 20 minutes a night. There are so many studies that show that kids who spend this time reading each night become better readers.
We started studying communities this week. The kids learned that a community is a place where people work, live, play and solve problems. The kids were put into groups of three and planned an invented community. Then they used this plan to make a large poster of their new community. What did your child include in their community for these four categories?
If you ever have any questions, concerns or fun stories to share about your child, please do not hesitate to contact me. I want to do my best to make sure that your child’s second grade year is the best year possible. To do that, I sometimes need your help. At times, your child will tell you more about something that is bothering them than they will tell me.
I hope that everyone has a wonderful, relaxing weekend! I’m looking forward to seeing all the kids bright and early on Monday!
Thanks!
Janell
Hola familias, 8-13-2019
I am so excited to be starting a new school year with your child! Is your child getting nervous and excited? Me too! My goal is to make your child’s second grade year the best year yet at Ada Vista.
My name is Janell Bruin. This will be my 17th year of teaching at our school. My first four years were spent in first grade and the rest of the time I have been teaching second grade. I have a strong background of teaching the building blocks of reading, writing, and math. I am looking forward to challenging each child in our class at his/her individual level and seeing how far he/she will go this year. I love to read and some of my biggest goals are to get each child self-motivated to learn and to enjoy reading.
For my undergraduate studies, I attended GVSU and graduated with a degree in Spanish and psychology. I went to Aquinas and received my Masters in Education. During my time at GVSU, I spent six months in Spain, studying at the University of Seville. After receiving my masters, I spent three weeks in Costa Rica at a private institute, studying culture and grammar.
Please bookmark out class website at http://janellbruin.weebly.com/ . Please note that you do not use www at the beginning. This is where I will post a weekly newsletter. Any other important information that you will need to know for our class will be there as well.
A weekly newsletter will be sent out by way of email blasts once a week as well. I also send out email blasts to let you know about any important reminders that you will want to know. Please email me at jbruin@fhps.net and introduce me to your child. You can include information about what motivates your child, any academic or social struggles, what your child excels in, if your child has any allergies that I need to be aware of, areas of interest for your child, and any other information that you think I should know. The sky is the limit. When you email me, I will add your email to the list for the email blasts. If you would prefer to not be on that list, please let me know.
Throughout the school year, please do not hesitate to contact me if you have any concerns or questions. Nothing is too small. If it is bothering you, I’d like to address it as soon as possible to help resolve issues.
I look forward to working with you this year to make your child’s second grade year a memorable, exceptional, positive experience. You know your child best and you are his/her best advocate. I appreciate all communication between school and home to make each child’s experience at school the best it can possibly be.
Gracias,
Sra. Janell Bruin
Open House: Monday, August 19th, 3:30 – 5:00
I am so excited to be starting a new school year with your child! Is your child getting nervous and excited? Me too! My goal is to make your child’s second grade year the best year yet at Ada Vista.
My name is Janell Bruin. This will be my 17th year of teaching at our school. My first four years were spent in first grade and the rest of the time I have been teaching second grade. I have a strong background of teaching the building blocks of reading, writing, and math. I am looking forward to challenging each child in our class at his/her individual level and seeing how far he/she will go this year. I love to read and some of my biggest goals are to get each child self-motivated to learn and to enjoy reading.
For my undergraduate studies, I attended GVSU and graduated with a degree in Spanish and psychology. I went to Aquinas and received my Masters in Education. During my time at GVSU, I spent six months in Spain, studying at the University of Seville. After receiving my masters, I spent three weeks in Costa Rica at a private institute, studying culture and grammar.
Please bookmark out class website at http://janellbruin.weebly.com/ . Please note that you do not use www at the beginning. This is where I will post a weekly newsletter. Any other important information that you will need to know for our class will be there as well.
A weekly newsletter will be sent out by way of email blasts once a week as well. I also send out email blasts to let you know about any important reminders that you will want to know. Please email me at jbruin@fhps.net and introduce me to your child. You can include information about what motivates your child, any academic or social struggles, what your child excels in, if your child has any allergies that I need to be aware of, areas of interest for your child, and any other information that you think I should know. The sky is the limit. When you email me, I will add your email to the list for the email blasts. If you would prefer to not be on that list, please let me know.
Throughout the school year, please do not hesitate to contact me if you have any concerns or questions. Nothing is too small. If it is bothering you, I’d like to address it as soon as possible to help resolve issues.
I look forward to working with you this year to make your child’s second grade year a memorable, exceptional, positive experience. You know your child best and you are his/her best advocate. I appreciate all communication between school and home to make each child’s experience at school the best it can possibly be.
Gracias,
Sra. Janell Bruin
Open House: Monday, August 19th, 3:30 – 5:00
