Picture Day!!  Tomorrow is picture day!!!  Hopefully we will have lots of smiles!  We will be visiting the gym in the morning, prior to recess, lunch and PE! 😉

Book Fair:  The book fair will be open during certain hours of the school day.  If yo are unable to attend the book fair during one of the Back to School nights, you are welcome to send money with your Second Grader, and we will make sure they have the opportunity to visit the book fair.

Back to School Night!!!  I can’t wait to meet the wonderful families of our second graders, on September 20th from 6:30-7)!  Hopefully you will have a chance to take a peek at our classroom, and to learn what your second grader will be experiencing this year.  This will also be an opportunity to ask any questions you may have about this upcoming year.

One of the activities we practice in the classroom is word sorts.  This is where students are able to recognize certain patterns in words.  Those patterns may consist of vowel sounds, or various spelling patters.  Students practice reading  the word, and sorting by different patterns.

This week, we practiced logging into the school computers.  We will have many opportunities to use these computers throughout the year.  2nd grade students participate in NWEA testing in the month of September.  This was good practice, to make sure that all students were able to login, and navigate some of the computer.

Last week we started to work on routines for math rotations.  Each week, our second graders will rotate through different math tasks, including: working with me, math games and some independent practice.  Last week, the kids impressed me with how well they practiced the routines of using iPads, and math games with manipulatives (math cards).  We continued to work on the app “Slide”, and played the game “Top-it” with number cards.  “Top-it” is similar to the card game “War”, where each player turns over the top card, and the player with the larger number takes both cards.  We will play this throughout the year; adding in addition and subtraction.  Students will eventually draw 2-3 cards, and flip them over.  They will either add or subtract the cards to find a sum or difference.  This would be a great game to practice home, either with a regular deck of cards, or number cards made from paper.