Welcome to our Neighborhood!

We had a really fun Social Studies lesson today on neighborhoods. We learned about the similarities and differences between cities, suburbs, and rural (or country) areas. Then we created our own 1st and 2nd grade neighborhood. They did a fabulous job - thanks, Nathan, for letting me show your house!

In Math we learned about finding the median, or middle, number, and in Religion we practiced for Friday's Mass. Hope to see you all in church on Friday!

Tuesday's Teachings

I hope everyone had a wonderful long weekend! We're back to learning.

A note is in your child's OCEAN binder today about our March 4th Mardi Gras celebration. We are asking each family to donate 12 cupcakes and one cake for our Cake Walk game that 1st and 2nd grade has chosen. Please drop them off on March 4th in the morning. For Mardi Gras, we are also looking for parent volunteers as well as bottled water donations. Your child will need to bring quarters to play games. That day the children can wear jeans along with Mardi Gras colors of purple, green, and/or gold. We're looking forward to a fun time!

In math, we're continuing our unit using base 10 blocks. With these blocks, we're learning place value to the hundreds and how to use pictures to create three digit numbers. Our math test is next Wednesday, March 5th. We'll have a practice test next Monday, Mardi Gras on Tuesday, and our math test on Wednesday.

In Writing, we're telling about our best memory. We have five sentences due on Friday. They are very creative, and I love hearing them read what they wrote!

Library books are due tomorrow - please send them to school with your child. Thanks!

Ready for a long weekend!

Our second graders have worked hard this week and they are ready to rest!

In Religion, we talked about the importance of First Reconciliation. We discussed that in order to take First Communion, we must be free from sin, and we do that through this sacrament. We started discussing the Act of Contrition prayer (which does NOT have to be memorized) and we looked at an "Examination of Conscience" which gives us ideas of what our sins might be. Please check your e-mail for important information about March 15th.

In Math we're using base 10 blocks to help us find the place of three-digit numbers, and second grade loves that!

In Science, we're finishing up our animal life cycle unit.

Reminder: our second grade is hosting Mass next Friday morning, Feb. 28th. Parts went home today. Please have your child practice their part so they are ready to practice on Tuesday next week.

Have a FUN long weekend - I will see everyone on Tuesday!

Whew! Busy, busy busy!

We started a new Social Studies unit today, and we learned how we are just a teeny, tiny, speck in a much larger world:

In Math, we learned about a gallon, half-gallon, quart, pint, and cup. We practiced measuring and guessing how much containers could hold.

In Religion, we watched a short video explaining what to expect at First Reconciliation.

Our Mardi Gras celebration is coming up on March 4th. We'll be sending a note home with all of the details, but 1st and 2nd grade will be hosting a Cake Walk game at the event. We are asking each 1st and 2nd grade family to donate 12 cupcakes plus 1 cake for that day's game prizes. It doesn't need to be fancy store-bought...homemade treats are wonderful! No nuts, strawberries or raspberries, please!

We enjoyed the nice weather today - hope you did, too!

Tuesday Happenings

We continued writing about the life cycle of a butterfly today, and we finished our life cycle posters.

In math we worked with base-10 blocks and had a fun time! The rest of this week we'll start on our subtracting 5 facts, and we'll learn about measurement with gallons, quarts, pints and cups.

Tomorrow is Library so everyone will need their library books. It's also $1 Dress Down Day.

Updates for 2nd grade...

We have our spelling words - but our test is not until Friday, Feb. 28th because we have two short weeks. That gives us LOTS of time to study! Our regular list words are:

put   cook   stood   full   wood   July   shook   push   pull   brook   hook   hood

Our challenge words are: pudding   cushion   footprint

We have Mass coming up on Friday, Feb. 28th for 2nd grade. We'll assign parts toward the end of this week so that your child can bring their reading home and practice over the long weekend. I hope all of you can make it!

Just a reminder - it's a good idea to send a healthy snack with your son or daughter in the morning. They have snack time at 10:15 each day and they get pretty hungry!

What a FUN Friday!

Happy Valentine's Day everyone! A huge THANK YOU to Mrs. Abraham and Mrs. Molitor for a fantastic party this afternoon - we all had a wonderful time!

Here's what we did in Science today when we learned about the life cycle of a butterfly. We learned all about the eggs, larva, pupa, and butterfly stages in the life cycle of a butterfly.

Our writing assignment was to write an opinion about why you think St. Joe's school is the best. Their opinions were great and it made us proud to be a part of St. Joe's when we listened to everyone's responses.

We are happy to be outdoors again, but we are also struggling to remember the playground rules to ensure we stay safe. We don't allow "King of the Hill" type games, no throwing snow or ice, and no pushing or shoving out on the playground with all of the ice out there. It would help if you could continue this discussion at home. We're also working on our character education philosophies at St. Joe's, particularly inclusion and kindness. We're concentrating on not leaving anyone out and making an extra effort to include everyone what we do. We also talked a lot about "T-H-I-N-K". Before we say something to someone, we should ask ourselves if it is:
T - True
H - Helpful
I - Inspiring
N - Necessary
K - Kind

If not, we shouldn't say it. Mrs. St. Louis came to talk to our class today, as well, about making sure we are being kind to others at ALL times. We know we can do it!

Have a great weekend everyone!

Great Landforms!

Our beautiful landform cookies were a huge hit! We finished off our landforms unit by creating United States landforms using chocolate chips (mountains), toasted coconut (desert), green coconut (plains), blue candies (Great Lakes), and the Mississippi River (cherry licorice). They did a fabulous job, and then had fun eating their projects!

Tomorrow is red, pink, white and/or purple dress day with jeans. Happy almost Valentine's Day!

We are getting ready for our First Communion. We learned about First Reconciliation and we discussed repenting, confession, and reparation. We had some great discussions!

Last reminder - our spelling test is tomorrow. Be ready!

Lots and Lots of Landforms

Our 1st and 2nd graders are studying landforms and today we made salt dough landforms of what we would find in the United States. They did a beautiful job! Thank you Gianna and Tim for letting me post your work!

In math we talked about subtracting 10 from a number, and tomorrow we will measure and draw line segments to the nearest 1/2 inch.

Friday we're all looking forward to our Valentine's Day party! Also, Friday is the last day of our candygram sale. See yesterday's post for more information.

Don't forget about our spelling test on Friday - these are challenging words and we might need to spend extra time on them.

Enjoy your Wednesday!

It's Beautiful Outside!

We FINALLY were able to go outside for recess today - yay!!! If we did not have snow pants or boots, we had to stay on the blacktop today. If we have these items, we can go play in the snow.

There is new login information taped to the front cover of your child's take-home binder. Your child's user name and password are now the same for both sumdog and storybird. Also, you can get to storybird through our blog now!

We have a Valentine's candygram sale happening through this Friday. Hershey Kisses are 10 cents each and lollipops are 25 cents each. Your child can send them to anyone else in the school, and your child can sign the candygram or send it anonymously. The sale is in the lunch room from 11:40 - 12:00 noon through Friday. Candygrams are delivered each afternoon.

We have Library tomorrow so please remember to return your books.

Lastly, our February theme is "Love others as God loves you." We're talking a lot about this in class and you may want to continue that conversation at home:)

Hello Monday!

Guided reading is back! We are back to reading our group books and we're all doing a great job at reading!

Our spelling test is this Friday, Feb. 14th. Our regular words are all -er and -est words:

busier    busiest    fatter    fattest    happier    happiest    hotter    hottest    smaller    smallest    sooner    soonest

Our challenge words are: neighbor   question   laboratory

Today we started writing stories on the computer by using www.storybird.com - be sure to ask your child about it! They had a good time using it and they can practice it at home, too.

We have our Valentine's Day party this Friday afternoon -look for a note about the party in your child's binder.

Lastly, if you would like a conference about your child and didn't get a chance to sign up, just e-mail me and I'll be happy to set that up for you.

Happy Monday!

It's The Weekend!!!

Here's our continents and oceans project we completed last week:

Great job Eli!

Our Valentine's Day party is Friday, Feb. 14th in the afternoon. If you want, you can send a Valentine's exchange treat with your child on Friday. The second graders are excited about their party!

Coming up next week:
Math: We start our subtraction facts this week! We'll begin by subtracting two small numbers. We'll talk about solving a problem by guessing and checking, we'll learn how to create overlapping geometric shapes, and we'll measure and draw line segments to the nearest half-inch. Finally, we'll add two-digit numbers with a sum greater than 100.

Social Studies: We'll continue our unit on landforms and we have a fun project planned for Thursday!

Science: We are learning all about animal adaption and we're studying big words like mimicry and camouflage.

Religion: Our focus is preparing for First Communion. This past week we learned about the Communion host representing the body of Christ, and next week we'll continue with learning about the wine as the blood of Christ.

Writing: We'll continue with letter writing and transition into writing an opinion.

Have a fun weekend everyone!

We are getting ready for our First Communion - here is a picture of the Chalice and Host project we worked on yesterday. We talked about what they mean and how the Host represents the body of Christ. We talked about the importance of Communion and how it is one of the sacraments. If you would look under the white host, you would see a picture of Jesus. They did a wonderful job!

In Math we learned how to tell temperature to the nearest 2 degrees today, and also how to add 3 two-digit numbers. We have a test on Friday and our practice test is tomorrow. We'll bring it home so we can study.

Today we started a unit on landforms in Social Studies. We can now tell you all about mountains, valleys, deserts, plains, plateaus and coasts. We have a booklet we're completing on landforms as we learn about them.

We're having fun learning how to write letters using the date, greeting, body, closing and signature. We're writing letters to our parents and to our friends!

Our spelling words are all the long i sound and we're learning what letters make that sound. We'll be ready for our spelling test on Friday.

The students have a substitute teacher tomorrow because I will be a reading conference all day. I won't be updating my blog tomorrow, but feel free to e-mail me if you have any questions. Have a great night!

Kicking It Into High Gear!

We're kicking it into high gear to finish the year strong!

In preparation for First Communion, we started talking about the wine and the host, and how they represent the body and blood of Christ in communion. We started a beautiful chalice and host project that goes along with our studies. Please remember to keep working on the First Communion packets that all of you have at home.

In Writing - we started learning how to write letters using the date, greeting, body, closing and signature. We're writing letters to you parents about what we're learning in school!

In Math we're learning the difference between a.m. and p.m., and the difference between a dozen and a half-dozen.

Tomorrow (Wednesday) we have library and gym, so please remember to bring library books and gym shoes to school. Also, our January reading logs are due this week. Please have them signed and turned in by Thursday. New February logs are coming home today.

Thanks for your help in continuing the reading homework at home!