Is It Time To Cry Yet?

The end of 2nd grade is almost here! I just wanted to take a minute and thank you for the opportunity to teach your children this year. It's been a wonderful, exciting year and I'm so sad to say goodbye to this class. They are a group of talented, compassionate, creative, smart learners and I know they will do a great job next year! I feel like the luckiest teacher ever right now!

We celebrated our accomplishments with an ice cream party and classroom awards celebration this afternoon (thanks to Mrs. Wozniak and Mrs. Abraham for their help!). This morning we played Bingo with our 3rd and 4th grade friends, and we also went to the K4 classroom to help them with some games they were learning. It was a very fun day!

We have some final things to learn tomorrow morning, and then we'll move onto our Mini-Fest (thanks Mrs. Abraham for putting that all together!). On Thursday, we have Mass, middle school awards, and then dismissal. If you want to take your child home on Thursday right after awards, that is fine - just don't forget your child's report card!

Please keep reading and practicing your math over the summer. If you get bored, Raz-kids.com and IXL.com are great reading/math resources.

Happy, happy summer to all of you and I will see you at the end of August!

Only A Few Days Left!

It's hard to believe the end of the year is here already! I sent out an e-mail today about some final reminders, so please check for that.

Our field trip is tomorrow - yay!!! It's going to be so much fun! Remember to bring a completely disposable lunch, and to wear your spirit wear top with uniform shorts or pants.

Keep bringing in bags and backpacks so we can send things home (no binders needed anymore).

Have a great weekend!

We're Nearing the Finish Line!

Our guided reading is officially over - our math homework is officially over after tonight. I know we're all sad about that!

Our Movie, The Lorax, was so fun today! We really enjoyed the popcorn and lemonade, too.

Our Father's Day presents went home today - please look for them!

Wear comfortable walking shoes tomorrow - we'll be walking for ice cream in the afternoon.

Please start bringing bags to school to carry things home.

Lastly - our field trip to Hoffer's Pet Store is Monday. Remember to wear spirit wear with uniform bottoms, and to bring a completely disposable lunch.

What is YOUR Carbon Footprint?

Today's Social Studies lesson focused on our personal carbon footprint. We learned that the smaller our "footprint", the better. We learned all of the things we do that make our footprint bigger (use disposable water bottles and paper plates, driving everywhere, using a lot of electricity, for example) and what we can do to reduce our carbon footprint (ride our bike instead of drive, use less water, download video games rather than purchase the package at the store). Then we traced our footprints and listed one way to reduce our footprint. We finished by illustrating our example. They had great ideas!

It's Spirit Wear day tomorrow (with uniform bottoms). Also, our ice cream field trip is Friday afternoon. Pray for good weather!

Lastly, starting on Friday we're going to start bringing things home: projects, supplies, etc. We'll send a little home each day so that they are not overloaded on the last day of school. Please feel free to send bags to school with your child so we can start sending things home.

Great Workers!

We're doing a great job at staying focused and on-task today! In math we're learning about translations, rotations, and reflections - or sliding, rotating, and flipping. They're doing a wonderful job with these new concepts.

Our state research project papers are very impressive! We're finishing them up this week and then they will read them in front of the class on Friday.

Please check your child's folder for their test results. They show where your child started in September and where they are now. We have a great group!

First Communion candles are also ready to go home. They are outside of the Hospitality Suite under the Knights of Columbus wall hangings in the gathering area.

Happy Tuesday!

LOTS Of Important Information Today!

We have so many things to say today!

1.  Another field trip permission slip is coming home today. Please sign it and send it back ASAP! K4-4th grade is walking down the street this Friday afternoon for ice cream. There is no cost for this trip, but we do need the permission slips returned NO LATER than Thursday - thanks!

2.  Pink Eye - We have a confirmed case of pink eye in 2nd grade, PLUS my own daughter was diagnosed yesterday with pink eye in both eyes (thankfully I do not have it...yet!). We are being extra-careful with hand-washing, hand sanitizer, and keeping our hands away from our face. This 2nd grade student is on antibiotics and is no longer contagious, but since the symptoms appeared last Friday, we are being careful. A notice about this is in your child's binder today.

3.  Signed May reading logs are due by Wednesday. As always, these count as a homework reading grade so please remember to turn them in.

4.  Our spelling test is this Friday and our words this week are:
caught  fault  thaw  auto  because  taught  talk  walk  launch  draw  August  chalk

Our extra-credit, challenge words are:  applause  awkward  audience

5.  We performed our play, "Saving Our Earth" with our first grade friends on Thursday and Friday last week. They did a great job!!!

6.  Thank you to Ava for the wonderful birthday treat today - happy birthday!

A Sad, But Exciting, Day

It was really hard to say goodbye to our 8th grade friends today. They've done so much for our school. We'll miss them, but we know they'll do great things as they move forward. We started the day with a beautiful tribute Mass for our 8th graders. We ended our day watching our 8th graders pass the torch (or candle) with words of wisdom to our 7th graders. We wish them all well!

Have a great weekend!

$1 Dress Up Day Tomorrow

Don't forget to dress up tomorrow - it's a great way to respect our 8th graders, who are leaving us tomorrow. We have Mass at 8:00 to honor them, and then we say goodbye to them all.

We practiced a lock-out drill today where we left the building. Everyone did a great job!

In Math, we learned how to tell time to the quarter hour. This is a great skill to practice at home.

Remember - nine more days left! Keep focused and keep learning!

Wednesday's Updates

We switched things around a bit today and had Math in the morning, where we continued to learn about arrays. Here's an example:

 Then we combined a Math lesson with a Writing lesson and learned how to plan an ice cream party. They are great planners!

At the end of the day, we visited the 5th grade classroom to see their electromagnetic fishing experiments - how fun!!! Then we finished the day with our Social Studies lesson on Natural Resources of the Earth: Soil, Air, and Water.

If you still have library books at home, please return them as soon as possible. Only ten more learning days!

It's Great To Be Back!!

It's so good to see everyone back at school, ready to learn!

We had a classroom practice lock-out drill today where our class pretended we had an intruder inside the building. We walked to our designated spot safely. Our school-wide drill is later this week.

There are no spelling words this week. In fact, next week is our last week of spelling words.

As a reminder, library books are due tomorrow. There is no more library check-out this school year. Also, please return your field trip permission slip and money if you haven't done that already.

I know it seems like we should be done with school, but we're not! Please take a few minutes and remind your child the importance of finishing this year strong. It's not easy to focus and stay on-task, but we need to try our hardest because we still have a lot of learning left!

Have a great Tuesday!

A GREAT Day!

We pulled out the couch, dropped the beanbags, and enjoyed the last hour of the original Dr. Dolittle movie from 1967! They really enjoyed it, and the popcorn, too!

We also enjoyed Friday Fun Math using fruit Tootsie Rolls for a probability review lesson.

Last on our great news list...everyone enjoyed a yummy ice cream treat thanks to Mrs. O'Boyle. Thank you so much - we loved it!

Field trip permission slips were sent home on Thursday. Please return them by next Friday.

We have a math test on Tuesday.

Enjoy your holiday weekend!

Our Summer Bucket List

We had fun creating our bucket lists for this summer! Today we followed it up with a writing assignment where we chose one favorite item on our bucket list and wrote about it in detail. They are becoming wonderful writers!

In Social Studies we had a great lesson on the human impact to our environment. We studied four kinds of pollution: air, land, water, and noise. Then we made cards to remind people to unplug unused appliances at home.

Don't forget - tomorrow is Field Day! Be sure to wear your team color t-shirt. It's a free dress down day. It should be perfect weather for an afternoon outside!

$1 Dress Down Tomorrow!

We forgot to put $1 Dress Down in our assignment notebooks for tomorrow - hopefully everyone knows!

We had a wonderful debate today for current events! There is a national debate going on now about the new trend of schools rewarding kids with money and/or gifts for perfect attendance. We divided into two groups to debate whether or not that's a good idea or a bad idea. I'm amazed at the advanced thoughts in our class - great job!

In Math, we learned how to multiply by 3 today and we learned it's not as hard as we thought.

Tomorrow we start our "We are growing" chapter in Family Life.

Thursday is Field Day - students need to wear a t-shirt of their team color. Friday is our spelling test. Have a great night and enjoy this weather!

Many Fun Things This Week!

What a great week it's going to be!!! We have Field Day on Thursday (don't forget to wear your assigned t-shirt color & jeans/shorts). On Friday we're finishing up our read aloud book, Dr. Dolittle, and we're going to watch the original 1967 Dr. Dolittle movie on Friday afternoon.

Our spelling test is this Friday, and here are our "f" sound spelling words:
rough  puff  dolphin  phone  stuff  tough  giraffe  cough  photo  laugh  graph  cliff

Our extra-credit words are:  enough  physical  autograph

We also have a math test on Tuesday, 5/27 for lessons 110-119.

In Math, we're learning how to subtract three digit numbers using money. We also learned about parallel and perpendicular lines. In Writing, we're in the middle of printing our "sloppy copy" for our state report. In Science, we're finishing up erosion and moving onto studying layers of the earth. In Reading, we're focusing on comprehension this week, and in Social Studies we're talking about human impact on the earth's environment, both good and bad.

Our Character Education Team talked to us about manners again today, and we're asked to remember to hold doors for people, to listen to people when they talk, and to make eye contact with people as they are talking to you. We're going to practice those manners this week!

Fab Fun Friday

It was a very fun day in second grade today! We worked on our research projects, learned about erosion in science, and we're getting the the really good parts in our book Doctor Doolittle! We also loved our Friday Fun Math - we used mini Starburst candies to work on multiplication problems, and then we ate our answers! We also played math games at the end of the day.

Next Thursday, May 22nd is Field Day in the afternoon. We need volunteers to help us if you can. Also, everyone is asked to wear a specific color t-shirt on Thursday to identify each team. Your child's assigned color is written in their assignment notebook. It's a free dress down day on Thursday, too.

Have a great weekend everyone!

Getting Ready For Third Grade!

We are making sure that we're ready for next year! It's difficult this time of year - the weather is nicer (well, usually!) and we are already thinking about summer vacation. We're working on being ready for next year both with our behavior and our learning.

Today's reading goal was EXPRESSION! We have a few students who are great at reading with expression, and we're all learning how fun it can be.

In math, we're continuing our multiplication lessons. Now we're learning how to draw story pictures for these problems.

Our 5th grade Girl Scout troop is coming to talk to us about recycling today, and our 3rd grade Girl Scouts came to talk to us yesterday about water conservation. Thank you to both groups - it's a great addition to our Social Studies recycling unit!!!

Tuesday's Teachings

We're learning about multiplication in math, and it can be tricky! Today we reviewed multiplying by 2, and we learned that when we multiply by 2, we simply double the other number. (ex: 2 x 6 means we double the 6, so 6 + 6 = 12. That means 2 x 6 = 12)

In Writer's Workshop, we wrote letters to St. Joe's future second graders to tell them all about 2nd grade and what they can expect next year. We re-visited some fun memories!

We're starting the writing portion of our state research project. They have a good start!

We talked a LOT today about not "checking out" yet - we still have more than 20 days of school left and some of us are struggling to focus and stay on-task. Parents, please help remind your children that we still have many days of school left and it's important to make each one count. Thanks for your help!!

This Week's Adventures

We had our spelling test today and we won't have a new list this week because we want our focus to be on our writing (our state research paper) and on math (it's getting harder!). We'll pick up spelling again next week.

In Science we're starting a unit on weathering and erosion. We looked at examples today and will continue that through next week.

Congratulations to Sam on his Knights of the Round Table award today! He earned it for picking up other people's scrap paper without being asked. He enjoyed a root beer float at lunch today!

At this morning's Gathering, we continued our manners work by learning even more manners:

1. When someone asks you how your day was, answer their question and then ask them how their day was (or how they are doing).

2. When someone invites you to do something at their house (or somewhere else), remember to thank them for inviting you.

Today we also talked about how difficult it is to stay focused this time of year. The weather is FINALLY nice, we had a late Easter vacation which makes it hard to get back into studying, and we're staying up later because it's light out later and we have more going on now at home. However, it's important to remember that we have 22 more days of school so we need to continue to do our best. We want to be completely ready for 3rd grade and we can only do that by putting in our best effort until the last day. We can do it!

There Aren't Enough Words...

There simply aren't enough words to tell you how awesome these second graders are. They had a beautiful Mass and May Crowning service this morning AND our class won the "Minute to Win It" games at the end of the day!!! The three classes who collected the most change last week participated in fun games at today's Scattering in the gym, with help from students. Nathan, Sam, and Ceili were great helpers and WE WON!! Thank you!

Also, thank you to you awesome parents, too. I received so many heartfelt cards and gifts this week for Teacher Appreciation week - I'm overwhelmed and filled with gratitude. Thank you, thank you, thank you!

Happy Mother's Day to all the moms - have a great weekend!

What a Beautiful Day!!!

We've waiting a long time for weather like this, and we really enjoyed the outdoors today!

We're ready for our big Mass tomorrow and our May Crowning ceremony. We'll be lining up at 7:45 a.m. so we're looking forward to seeing everyone bright and early, ready to go. Feel free to stop down in the second grade room as early as 7:30 - I'll be there.

Father Dick came to talk to our class today about the host, the Monstrance, the Luna, the Blessed Sacrament, and the Tabernacle. We also learned why the alphabet is called the alphabet!

An e-mail came home this afternoon saying that we've moved our spelling test to Monday. We've worked very hard this week and we decided we need extra time to study. If anyone wants to take their test tomorrow, they can. Otherwise we'll take it on Monday.

Enjoy this beautiful weather!