Marvelous Monday News

Dear Parents,

I simply cannot believe that this is the last week of April and we are just a mere 23 school days away from the end of second grade!  This year has flown by!

Here's a peek into what we've been doing in class over the past week:

The second grade wrapped up our March Madness Dr. Seuss book tournament a few weeks ago and Wacky Wednesday was the grade level book tournament winner this year!

Thanks to Elizabeth Mangine for helping me come up with the idea of using Duck Hunt as the inspiration behind our 80's Dance Door Decoration...our class won FIRST PLACE out of the entire school!

We've been working hard on 3-digit addition and subtraction in math.  We took our learning a step further this week and worked on EXPLAINING our math strategies in words!  To write a detailed explanation that someone else could follow, we had to include the name of the strategy we used, math vocabulary, and specific transition words.

We finished learning about the life cycle of plants and also learned how to write a detailed step-by-step explanation of the life cycle of a bean plant!

This week, we're looking forward to watching our butterfly chrysalises turn into adult butterflies.  We'll also be learning about the Long E Vowel Teams in spelling/word study!  It's going to be a great week!

Love,

Mrs. Kidd

Welcome Spring!

Dear Parents,

Thank you so much to all of you who came to help us celebrate the end of our Poetry units in reading and writing by attending our Poetry Cafe on Wednesday.  Thank you to all who donated food and drinks and to Jessica Eaton for helping prepare our room on Monday afternoon!  It was a great event! If you took photos of your child/students from class in our Photo Booth...please e-mail them to me for our End of the Year Slideshow!

Thank you also to Frini Shah, who planned and hosted a fun Dr. Seuss Author Celebration on Thursday afternoon!  The kids LOVED celebrating with a "Lorax" theme!

We had a GREAT STEM day on Thursday, March 30th.  Students were tasked with creating a maze out of one building material, that included 6 turns and 1 trap.  Students then had to blow a marble through the maze with a straw in the fastest amount of time!  Our class was full of awesome teamwork and problem solving!

Have a wonderful, safe, and adventurous or relaxing Spring Break!  I look forward to seeing everyone for the last several weeks of second grade on April 10th.

Love,
Mrs. Kidd

A Week in Review

Dear Parents,

We have had a busy two weeks, since returning from February Break!  Thank you so much for sending your children to school Monday with precious handmade birthday cards.  I had a wonderful birthday celebrating with the class, and the students were excited to finally meet Joshua and see Anna Grace for a birthday visit!

We had a great field trip to Lego Land on Tuesday.  Thanks to Christy Mesimer, Ashley Mangine, Smitha Barki, and Cyndy Tham for volunteering as class chaperones.  Here's our class picture:

In math, we've been working hard on reviewing three-digit addition and subtraction and solving word problems involving two-digit addition and subtraction.  As a reminder of how we are methodically solving each problem, check out some pictures of our problem solving journal below!

We've also been working on learning spelling and reading rules for common vowel teams, like AI/AY and OA/OW. 

In science, we're learning about the sun, stars, and shadows.  Today, we went outside at three different times of the day to track and measure how our shadows were changing throughout the day, based on the position of the sun!  It was the perfect day for shadow tracking!

Last week, we celebrated Dr. Seuss' birthday, by making some Seuss-character ART!  Mrs. Edmondson and I have teamed together to create a Seuss-Inspired March Madness Book Tournament.  We are working in class this week and next week to read all of the Seuss books that were selected in the Sweet Sixteen.  Then, we will make a prediction bracket, and finally vote on the first sixteen books through Google Forms.  I would LOVE to have a few parent readers next week come into class to read one of our remaining Dr. Seuss books!  If you are interested, please e-mail me with your availability and I'll do my best to schedule you to come in and read!  Our Elite Eight will be announced early into the week of March 20th!

I hope you have a wonderful weekend!  Please remember to continue tracking the moon phases AND don't forget to set your clocks back this weekend!

Love,
Mrs. Kidd

Monday News

Dear Parents,

Thank you to Frances O'Brien, Lindsey Eipper, and Jess Eaton for acting as volunteers either in school or at home for our class last week!  Our class is so lucky to have such amazing help!

We will be having our class Valentine Exchange tomorrow!  If your child would like to bring in Valentines for his/her classmates, please send in 25 valentines...one for each student in our class!  We will be making valentine bags in class tomorrow to collect our treats, so there is no need to send in a box or bag.

Also, we are having a local author visit our second grade tomorrow.  Mrs. Diane Shore is coming to speak to our classes.  Order forms will go home today in HOOT binders if you would like to order any of her books.  Order forms will need to be returned tomorrow!

Also, please accept my apologies for late "thank you" notes going out from the class holiday gifts to me.  I found my stack last week, which I forgot to send out.  They will be coming home with students today...my apologies for being tardy with my gratitude!

We will continue to work on hornet words for spelling this week, as several schedule changes last week kept us from getting to work on those words to the depth and degree I had planned.  Therefore, we will maintain the same spelling rule for this week and test over these words on Thursday!

I'm looking forward to another great week in second grade and a much needed winter break rest next week!  If you are travelling, I hope you and your family stay safe!

Love,
Mrs. Kidd

Student examples of two place-value based strategies for addition.

Levels of Government Flipbook we made last week!

Example of how to mark/code hornet words when dividing syllables!

100th Day Recap and Monday News!

Dear Parents,

We had a GREAT 100th Day of School on Friday!  Check out some pictures of our class dressed like 100 year olds and completing the 100 cup stack challenge at the bottom of this post.

This week, we're continuing to learn about Civil Rights and Jackie Robinson, the first African-American to play major league baseball.  We're having a speaker visit the 2nd grade on Tuesday to talk to us about African-American history, and we're looking forward to this presentation!

In math, we'll be solving word problems involving money up to $5.00.  Students will need to be able to compare amounts of money, add up combination of bills and coins, and determine if someone has enough money to buy an item of a specified price.  Students do NOT need to understand making change at this time!

In reading, we're learning about determining the lesson/moral of the story and using text evidence to support our thinking!

I can't wait for the great week we have ahead!

Love,
Mrs. Kidd

Tuesday News

Dear Parents,

I hope you enjoyed your second long weekend in a row!  We had an awesome day today, and I'm so looking forward to celebrating the 100th Day of School with your children on Friday.  Thank you again to Ashley Mangine for volunteering to be our Weekly Helper last week!  Please check our Shutterfly site to see how you can help!

Here are a few upcoming events:

• East Side's International Festival
  When-  Saturday, January 21, 2017 4:00-6:00 PM in the East Side Cafeteria
  The International Festival is a fun, family event to learn more about cultures and traditions from all over the world. You will watch exciting performances while sampling delicious traditional food from many countries.
  Purchase tickets online through the PTA website before January 18^th for $7.00. Tickets will also be available at the door for $10.00. Children 3 and under are free.

• East Side’s Annual Family STEM Night:  Please join us for our annual Family STEM Night this January 31^st or February 1^st from 6:00-7:30! Cheer your child on as they make paperclips fly, build roller coasters, play with robots, and much more!  Families whose last name begins with the letters A-M will join us Tuesday, January 31^st and families whose last name begins with the letters N-Z will join us Wednesday, February 1^st.  Pizza will be sold by the slice beginning at 6:00!  Mark your calendars and bring your whole family for this fun-filled STEM Night!  **Please note: this is not a drop-off event**

Here are a few pictures of what we've been doing in class!  Please read your newsletter, which was e-mailed out today and can also be found under News You Can Use, to read more specific details about what we're learning!

Place Value Snowman to represent a number in many ways!

We can represent numbers through 1,000 in each of these ways!

We have been learning how opinion reviews are organized with a clear opinion, at least three reasons/examples, and a closing sentence that restates our opinion.

We read real reviews written by kid critics and wrote down what we noticed about how they were alike, so that we could match these traits in our own writing.

As you can see, last week was a busy and fun week!  This week we'll continue to learn about Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., start learning about counting and solving word problems involving money to $5.00, and continue reading folktales and fairy tales!  We're growing smarter every day!

Love, 

Mrs. Kidd