Monday News!

Dear Parents,

Please don't forget that tomorrow is Election Day, which is a student holiday!  Enjoy an extra day with your kid(s)!

Please sign-up on our class Shutterfly page to donate items for our Thanksgiving basket and STEM Bin supplies.  Our school will be making Thanksgiving food baskets again this year for families at East Side and our sister school Fair Oaks Elementary, who are in need of food during this holiday season!  Over the past few weeks, I have been putting together STEM Bins for our students to use during morning work, free time, and for enrichment!  I will post pictures of our STEM bins soon, but we are in need of extra supplies to use as refills when the consumable supplies are used up!

This week, we'll be studying the same spelling pattern and sight words as last week, as we did not have time in my opinion to practice enough in class last week.  I did not feel like our class was quite ready to be tested over this rule last week, because due to lots of schedule changes, we didn't have enough instruction time for that skill in class!  We'll practice more this week and test on Thursday!

Please check out this week's edition of The Weekly Hoot, which you can also download from the News You Can Use!  Students have been asked to do some research for their EXPERT books at home this week!  Please do some research on-line at home or even take your child to the library!

Copies of our addition and subtraction strategies are being sent home to help you better understand the place value based strategies we are learning in class.  You can download an additional copy of the strategies under our Homework Resources tab!

I'm looking forward to another great week with the Outstanding Owls!

Mrs. Kidd

What a Week!

Dear Parents!

We had an AWESOME week in second grade!  Our Fall Party and Centers were GREAT...thank you to all of those who sent in donations and/or came in and volunteered to help out and spend time with our sweet class.  Thanks to our great room moms for organizing the afternoon for our owls!

We've been learning new addition strategies for adding 2-digit numbers.  These are based on the place value concepts that we've been learning all year.  While these strategies may be new to us adults, they build strong mental math skills and true understanding of the concepts of addition and subtraction.  Explanations and examples of these addition strategies were sent home on Friday to help with next week's homework!

We have been learning all about energy and how energy makes matter move and change.  We made flipbooks all about energy in class!

We started our first EXPERT BOOKS.  Students chose topics they know all about and can teach others about!  We have started writing chapters, or paragraphs, that have a clear topic sentence, three supporting details, and a concluding sentence.  While it takes some practice for students to include these elements in their writing, this format will help students to organize their thoughts.  Better yet--this corresponds to work we will be doing in reading workshop as we move towards identifying the main idea and supporting details of nonfiction text!

In Reading Workshop, we started learning all about nonfiction text features!  It's important that students learn how to locate the text features AND more importantly, how to use them to dive deeper into the comprehension of nonfiction text!  We'll be learning about:  table of contents, headings, subheadings, photographs, captions, timelines, maps, diagrams, charts, bold/highlighted words, glossaries, and more!

It's been a GREAT week!

Mrs. Kidd

Mrs. Kidd is BACK!

Dear Parents,

I've had a wonderful two days getting to know your children!  They have been very flexible making some changes to routines and our classroom layout!  We are working so hard to finish our place value unit, learn about FORCE & MOTION, and study nonfiction text!  Your children are so smart, funny, creative, and sweet...they are a wonderful group to come "back" to after a nice maternity leave!

Please check our classroom shutterfly site as our room moms are finishing up plans for our Halloween Party on Monday, October 31st!  Our party will be from 12:45-2:00.  We will definitely need help from at least 5 people, but all parents are welcome to come by if you are free!

I loved seeing many of our students in Tie-die today for Red Ribbon Week.  Tomorrow students should dress for their future careers!  I can't wait to see what all of the Outstanding Owls want to grow up and do!

Thanks for a great start to the school year for me!

Love,
Mrs. Kidd

Good morning! I hope everyone had a marvelous Monday!
This week is a busy week for the Owls! Since it is conference week and early release, we are having  to fit a lot into our short days! We will not be learning any new sight words or spelling rules this week.
Please make sure you know your scheduled conference time. Please try not to be late as conferences are only twenty minutes long and we do not want to keep those scheduled after you waiting!

As my time here with the Owls comes to an end, I wanted to tell you all what a pleasure it was to meet you and your children! I could not have asked for a better class to work with! I will miss the Owls so much. I cannot wait to see what the future holds and hopefully I will be able to come back and visit!

Have a great week!
-Ms. White

Do you want to help us duct tape our principals to the wall, get your teacher a $50 gift card, or win a party for your child’s class? This Friday, October 14, every student who has brought in a donation to the Capital Campaign will receive a piece of duct tape to help tape Ms. Mavity, Mr. Jones, and Ms. Hardy to the wall. It’s not too late to donate! All donations count. Your child can bring in a donation of $1, $5, $20, $100, or any other amount by Friday and be able to participate. You can send in cash, donate online (www.eastsideelementaryfoundation.org), or make a check payable to “East Side Elementary Foundation.” Every class with over 80% participation will receive a $50 gift card to Lakeshore Learning for their teacher. The highest participating class in each grade level will win an ice cream party for the entire class.

Good afternoon!
I hope everyone enjoyed the beautiful fall weather this weekend!
We had a blast on our field trip to the Fire Safety Village on Friday! We learned about all kinds of safety! We will continue learning about safety this week by talking about peer pressure and medicine safety.
Don't forget that tomorrow is Walk to School Day! Also, the non-fiction Pumpkin Project is due this Friday, October 14th, so don't forget to bring those in! I did send home another instruction sheet in the homework packet as a reminder. I also sent a math facts practice sheet home. Please continue going over these with your child each week.
Lastly, parents if I sent home an assessment with an orange slip attached to it, please do not forget to send those back in with your child! I will need these back as soon as possible!
I hope everyone has a wonderful week!
-Ms. White

Happy Friday eve everyone!
Tomorrow is going to be a very fun day for us as we go on our Fire Safety Field Trip! Please make sure your child wears their class t-shirt that they received before Fall Break.

I wanted to give everyone a quick update on whats coming up next week! Firstly, please make sure you have signed up for a date and time for your conference! If you have not gotten an invitation yet, please let me know!

This week we wrapped up units like seasons, personal narratives, and using context clues! Next week we will begin learning about asking and answering questions using non-fiction texts, writing "All About..." pieces using non fiction texts, and will also be reviewing place value using three digit numbers! As always, please make sure you are reviewing sight words and making sure your child is reading at least twenty minutes each night.

P.s.
The Owls had "sweet" time investigating Matter using their soda and ice cream floats!