Thanks For Your Help With The Homework Journals!

In science students conducted an experiment to study how water and land interact.

Room A-2 Families,

After this weekend it is clear that fall is here!  I hope you are staying warm.  Here are a few notes for the week:

Homework Journals
Thank you for getting those journals back to me today.  I was able to read them and write a simple note for every student this morning while students were in Spanish class.  I read through a lot of great student writing!  Thank you!

Science
In the picture above students are observing what happens when rain falls on a mountain.  In the students' experiments water flowed downhill in little rivers that collected at the bottom in what could be considered either lakes or oceans.  Also, as the water went downhill it took a lot of sand with it--we will be studying this idea of erosion more in the coming weeks.

Unicef Donation Boxes
The Silver Springs Second Graders decided that they wanted to participate in a Unicef fundraiser this Halloween.  You and your student can elect to take a handheld donation box out during trick-or-treating to collect spare change.  More information about this activity is in your Monday envelope.  This activity is totally optional.

Word Study With Mrs. Sepich
I mentioned last week that our class visits Mrs. Sepich once or twice a week to study words and vocabulary.  Mrs. Sepich has this information to share with you:  In word study, students have been working with word sorts each week.  We begin by meeting in small groups based on the initial spelling stage your child was in based on a pre-assessment that was given.  Some students are working with digraph sounds (ch, sh, th, wh), some students are focusing on the difference between long and short vowel sounds (words with cvc or cvce patterns/ consonant, vowel, consonant/) while some groups are working with long vowels (cvce or cvvc) and the different ways to get the long vowel sound.  Finally, some students are working with "other" ways to have long or irregular vowel sounds such as au, aw, ou, etc.

Each week we begin by meeting about the sort, explaining it so students understand the vowel patterns.  Students then cut and work the sort at their seat.  In following days, students work through a speed sort, a no peeking sort and a writing sort.  All of these sort activities should be internalized now.  When each sort comes home, your child should be able to explain how to do the activity at home.  This would be wonderful review for your child.

Curriculum Overview
Literacy - Identifying story elements in fairy tales and folktales: characters, setting, events, problem/resolution, and theme or message of the text.  Ask you students about The Lion and Mouse.

Math - Place value and numbers to 1,000.  Ordering numbers from least to greatest.  Adding and subtracting by tens and hundreds.

Writing - Writing about our lives, stretching out small moments into fantastic writing pieces.  This week we have been focusing on strong emotions, recalling moments from our life when were strongly happy, sad, proud, or worried.

Science - Earth Science, understanding that when it rains some rainwater soaks into the earth while other water flows downhill forming streams and rivers that eventually flow into the ocean.

Social Studies - Reading and using maps.

Leadership – Preparing our leadership notebooks.  Working on Habit 2: Begin with the End in Mind.