Kwasindiswa - Week 8 - October 15-19

Kwasindiswa is hello from Tanzania. I hope you enjoyed your three day weekend and this beautiful fall weather. I still can't believe that it is already October and Fall Festival is just around the corner (October 31)). This time of year is one of our busiest times in second grade with getting ready for two performances: Poetry In the Park (Thursday, November 8); and our Second Grade Program (Friday, November 16 @8:30am) which take place about one week apart. Please continue helping your child practice the poems for these performances. Copies are in his/her Take Home Folder.

Box Tops and Cash for Trash: Congratulations to Second Grade for winning the competition for the most Box Tops collected. Please continue sending in items that help earn dollars for our school. A big thank you to all who have brought items in this year. Keep it up!

Picture Re-take Day: Picture Re-Take Day will take place on Tuesday, October 23. Students must return their photo package to have a re-take. Students who were absent on Picture Day need to have their picture taken.

Dancing Mat Typing: Students began keyboarding today in the computer lab and really had a lot of fun. Your child can also practice at home. Please visit: http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/typing/

Spirit Day: Every Friday is Spirit Day. Students may wear any shirt with a Shorecrest logo, specifically Shorecrest Spirit Wear, camp intramural or uniform shirts. These should be worn with uniform, Spirit Wear or denim bottoms.

Book Fair: The Book Fair will take place the week of November 5 in the Student Center.

All School Pep Rally: There will be an All School Pep Rally on Friday, October 19 at 1:45 in the Crisp Gym.

After School Programs and Athletics/Intramurals: Session One ends this week and Session Two will begin the week of October 29.

This week Nick, Stella D, Auggie, Jackie, Ainsley, Aidan, Victoria, Will and Isabella, will be presenting their Current Event.

Our Parent Reader this week will be Kim B. Thanks for sharing your love of reading with the students.

Here is our week at a glance.

Literacy
* Phonics - r-controlled vowel: ar
* Spelling - carpet, charge, harmful, artist, pardon, plus five high frequency words (recorded on the back of the homework log sheet
* Vocabulary Words - Your child should be able to read and know the meaning of: shrugged, stained, pumped, clearing; which are from our story of the week, Owl Moon
* Reading - Owl Moon by Jane Tolen
* Reading Workshop - The students' will learn to use their Reader's Tool Kit, e.g. flagging unfamiliar words, making predictions, flagging parts of the story they liked. I will be sending your child's own Reader's Tool Kit that they can use and keep at home, once they become more familiar with how to use it
* Writing Workshop - Publishing our small moment narratives. The students will edit, type and illustrate their story
* Handwriting - Magic c to d; Golly Gee! I turned c into g; writing sentences using punctuation marks

Mathematics - Unit 2
* Frames-and-arrows routines
* What's My Rule" Routines (identifying missing numbers in number pairs that are generated by a rule, and determining the rule used to generate number pairs
* Counting strategies for subtraction
* Shortcuts for harder subtraction facts

Science  - Changes

Students will use two solids to create and investigate a mixture


Social Studies - Antarctica
* Antarctica is covered in ice and snow all year round. Discussion: Would you like to live in a place like that? Why or why not? What would you need in order to survive in such a cold climate? Location of Antarctica
* During this unit, we will get to follow a real life scientist's adventure in Antarctica - Ms. Ameilia. We will email and follow her blog and possibly Skype. This week the students will pose questions that they have about Antarctica and email Ameilia. If you would like to check out her blog it is:
http://ameliashevenell.wordpress.com/