April 29-May 2

Welcome to second grade and another jammed packed week of learning and discovery.

If you have not already let me know that you will be joining us next week on our field trip to MOSI, please do so. The group rate is $8. We are planning on arriving at MOSI by 9:30 and the students will be exploring the museum before doing a hands-on lesson called, Ooey Gooey, where they will take ordinary things and make slime that will ooze through their fingers. Lunch will be 12:00 and we will be back at school in time for dismissal. It will be a fabulous day out.

Splash Day will take place on Friday, May 17th. The PE teachers will be sending home more details as the time approaches.

On Monday, May 20th, the students will be sharing their electronic portfolios after Town Meeting. The meeting place will be the computer lab. Come sit with your child as they share some of the work they have done this year in second grade.

Parent Reader this Friday will be Matt Emerson.

This week will be open sharing and no Current Events scheduled. Please check the new sharing calendar in your child's Take Home Folder for the day they will be scheduled to share in May.

In language arts this week we will be reading Bill and Pete Go Down the Nile by Tomie de Paola. We will continue examining the structure of Folk Tales and doing more Readers Theater using Folk Tales from Africa. The students will continue writing reflections and working on their electronic portfolios to share with you soon. Spelling words this week are homonyms. Today I read a book called, Homonyms (Hair and Hare and other Words that Sound the Same but Look as Different as Bear and Bare) by Joan Hanson. The students will work on creating their own books about Homonyms.

In math, we will finish off Unit 7. The students will make a frequency table, line plot, and bar graph for a set of data and find the median of a set of data. We will review the big concepts/skills taught in this unit and the students will do their Unit 7 Assessment on Friday. Please review doubling and halving at home with your child.

In social studies, the students will do an A to Z scavenger hunt on Africa using various resources including the internet and non-fiction texts.

In science, the students have become very familiar with the life cycle of one special animal. Now, they will apply the life cycle concepts to other plants and animals within their experience. Students will apply a concept they have learned in this unit to new situations; expand their knowledge of the life cycles of other plants and animals and realize that cycles are regenerative: life begets life.

                                The class mural the students created during Celebrate the Arts week.

Electronic Portfolio Sharing and Field Trip to MOSI

On Wednesday, May 8th, second grade will be going on a field trip to MOSI (http://www.mosi.org/). The buses will leave school at 8:30am and return in time for dismissal. If you are interested in accompanying a small group of students around the museum, please contact me by next Friday, May 3.
The special group rate for anyone who wants to attend will be $8, which needs to be paid at the same time I will be paying for the group upon entering the museum. Because of limited space on the buses, we ask that you make arrangements to meet us there at MOSI. Last year several parents travelled together and followed the school buses to MOSI. Thanks for your support and understanding.

On Monday, May 20th, the students will be sharing their Electronic Portfolios with you after Town Meeting (8:15am).You will get to view samples of work from technology, art, Spanish, math, and language arts. Come celebrate your child's achievements.

April 23-26

The students and I had a fantastic time last week Celebrating the Arts. From hoola monsters, to participating in a drum circle, we all had a terrific time.

Hoola Monsters

Creating a mural

The fun does not stop with our Lunch time Science Activity tomorrow. The students will be involved in an activity entitled, Eat a Plant, as well as create their very own terrariums. 

Last Friday, we released out Painted Lady Butterflies in the garden. It was difficult for some of the students to say goodbye, but realized that they were better off in their natural environment where they have room to fly, can find a variety of foods and can mate and then lay eggs to produce the next generation. 

We now have two monarch butterflies that have emerged from their chrysalis that we are comparing to the Painted Lady Butterfly. The students will also review this unit by revisiting all the work they have produced. After reviewing the materials, students will use their own data to answer their questions about the life cycle of the butterfly.

Our parent reader this week will be M. Davis and the students will continue presenting Current Events, so please have your child check their calendar for April (that is in their take home folder).

In math, we will continue reviewing doubles and halves, measure length to the nearest centimeter and inch, sort numerical data and arrange data in ascending or descending order, and find the middle value (median) for a set of numerical data.

Our story of the week in language arts is a folk tale from Africa, Why Do Mosquitoes Buzz in People's Ears by Verna Aardema as we begin to look at folk tales. The students are continuing to work on their electronic portfolios, including writing and recording their own reflections.

We will begin our journey to Africa by locating it on the world map and recording interesting facts found online and in various non-fiction texts on a graphic aid.

Lunchtime Science

This Wednesday, we are celebrating science by having the students participate in Lunchtime Science. If you are interested in volunteering between 11-1, please contact Gina White. We are also in need of empty two liter bottles for our terrariums, so if you have not sent one if with your child, please do so tomorrow (Tuesday). If you have any extra bottles, please send these in too.

Last Thursday, your child came home with a note listing an item they will need to bring into school tomorrow for our lunchtime science activity. Please contact me if you have any questions.

April 15-19

I really enjoyed Teacher Appreciation Day, which seem to run all week, with breakfast each morning, special lunches, fruit baskets, gift cards and flowers. Thank you so much for making my week special. As I wrote before, it is such a pleasure coming to school each day to teach your children.

A big thank you for coming out last Friday to support the students as they shared information about people who have made a difference in the world. From Doctor Martin Luther King Junior and Pele, to Queen Elizabeth I and Cleopatra, the students transformed themselves and did an amazing job.

This week we Celebrate the Arts. I found an interesting article online about 10 skills children learn from the arts:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2013/01/22/top-10-skills-children-learn-from-the-arts/

Various activities have been organized for the week including a presentation by a rock band on Tuesday and Drumming Group on Thursday.

The Celebrate the Arts Teach-in will be on Friday from 9-10:35. The Musical Program by the students will begin at 11:00 with a picnic lunch to follow. The students will need to wear a plain white t-shirt to school with Shorecrest bottoms (pants, shorts, or skort).

If you haven't bought tickets to see the Upper Division musical, The Music Man, I would encourage you to do so. The musical is a fun one, with great dancing and music. You are in for a treat. I am also a very proud mom, with my daughter Grace returning to the stage playing Gracie, the mayors youngest daughter.

Current Events presenters this week are: Auggie and Jackie on Tuesday; Ainsley and Aidan on Wednesday; Victoria and Will on Thursday and Isabella on Friday.

The next meeting for the ADHD Support Group is April 24th from 6:30-7:30pm in the Children's Studio. The topic will be health impact of ADHD.

There is no school on Monday, April 22. Relax and have fun (as I am planning on doing).

Feeding the Children Everywhere starts at 9am and ends at 2pm on Sunday, April 29.

This week the students are reviewing spelling words for the last four weeks. This morning I gave the students a pre-test to see what words the students needed to still practice. Please check the back of the homework log for words your child still needs to memorize and I will quiz them on these words this Friday. I will also be quizzing the students recall of doubles and halves, which is part of our math lesson this week. These facts are recorded on the back of the homework log. One of the major ways to solve problems is by using mental math.

This week we are reading non-fiction books related to the arts, to coincide with Celebrate the Arts. Our non-fiction unit is coming to an end, and we will do some reflecting this week. We will recap text features of non-fiction books and the students will have some time writing up and presenting their book recommendations.

The students will continue writing and recording reflections in their Voice Thread, that you will have a chance to view in May (an invitation will be coming your way soon). This Voice Thread showcases some of the work they have completed this year.

In math, we will continue to practice the trade first subtraction method as well as help build up mental arithmetic skills for adding three or more 1 and 2 digit numbers. The students will also practice repeated doubling and halving. and revisit equal sharing of money.

In science, we are continuing to observe the chrysalis and observe the butterflies emerging from them. The will also observe some distinct butterfly body parts (proboscis, abdomen, six legs). We will also compare the Painted Lady Butterfly to the Monarch Butterfly (in Venn Diagram form).

We will finish our study of Asia with some research about the panda (from China) and work on our A to Z book (compiling facts we have collected along the way in our study).

I wish you a wonderful week. Thanks again for all your support -

Ms. O'Mullane

April 8-12

Thanks to the warm birthday wishes. I really loved the clay pot the students helped decorate for me, flowers, gift cards and cards. I felt very loved on my special day. It is such a pleasure coming to school each day and working with your children.

Tomorrow is our second field trip for the year. We will be learning about clay art form at the Morean Arts Center of Clay from 9:30-10:45am. The students will also have a chance to work with clay after the demonstrations. We will return for lunch at school. 

Come meet some famous people who have made a difference in the world this Friday, April 12, at 8:20am. Please have your child come to school dressed as their person they have written their All About Book on. You do not need to buy a costume. Be creative! They will need to bring their uniform to change into after the celebration.

Your child will be presenting as if they are that person. Homework this week is memorizing facts about this person.

Celebrate the Arts is the week of April 15-19. On April 19, we invite you to the Children's Celebrate the Arts performance at 11am. This share will be followed by a picnic lunch with your child.

On Sunday, April 28, we are asking for volunteers from the Shorecrest community to help pack food bags in the new Athletic Center. The event is called Feeding Children Everywhere. It starts at 9AM and ends at 2PM. I hope to see you there. It is another way we can come together to make a difference in the lives of children.

There is no school on Monday, April 22.

Current Event Sharing this week will be Claire and Matthew on Tuesday, Noah and Stella DeFrain on Wednesday, Nico and Rose on Thursday, and Nick and Stella Davis on Friday.

Please take a look at new Unit 7 Math Family Letter coming home today. In Unit 7, children will concentrate on number patterns, computational skills, and the application of mathematics through the use of data. They will continue to use the 100-grid to support their numeration skills and also explore the patterns of doubling and halving numbers, which will help prepare them for multiplication and division.

This Family Letter lists vocabulary and Do Anytime Activities to help support your work with your child on the concepts taught in this unit and in previous units. Please keep this Family Letter for reference as your child works through Unit 7.

In science, we will continue to watch our caterpillars undergo an amazing transformation - turning into a chrysalis, the third stage in its life cycle.

Will's mom will return to show us a model of a dolphin and answer some of the questions we have about them. 

In social studies, we will continue building up our fact files about the continent of Asia.

I wish you a wonderful week, in all that you do. 

Ms. O'Mullane

April 1-5, 2013

RELAY FOR LIFE
Teachers and students may wear their Relay shirts or purple shirts Monday - Friday 4/1-4/5. Students must wear their uniform bottoms with their purple shirt. This year's Relay event will commence at an all school assembly kick off lap, at 9am on Friday at the track with the students walking the track during the day with their PE classes. 

FIELD TRIP
As part of "Celebrate the Arts", we will be learning about clay art form at the Morean Arts Center of Clay on Tuesday, April 9 from 9:30-10:45am. The students will also have a chance to work with clay after the demonstrations. We will return for lunch at school. It is a very small building; so if you would like to meet us there, please let me know if advance in case space is an issue.

CELEBRATE THE ARTS
Celebrate the Arts is the week of April 15-19. On April 19, we invite you to the Children's Celebrate the Arts performance at 11am. This share will be followed by a picnic lunch with your child. The children are expected to sit down and eat lunch. They will have recess at another time during the day. Please don't let your child run around or play on the playground.

FEEDING CHILDREN EVERYWHERE
On Sunday, April 28, we are asking for volunteers from the Shorecrest community to help pack food bags in the new Athletic Center. The event is called Feeding Children Everywhere. It starts at 9AM and ends at 2PM. I hope to see you there. It is another way we can come together to make a difference in the lives of children.

There is no school on Monday, April 22.

CURRENT EVENT SHARING this week will be Auggie and Jackie on Tuesday; Ainsley and Aidan on Wednesday; Victoria and Will on Thursday; and Isabella on Friday.

Parent Reader this week will be Gina White.

The students are in for another fun and busy week ahead. We will continue reading biographies in Reading Workshop and study non-fiction text features. The students will study the information they collected and organized in a graphic aid and make an All About Book about this amazing person who made a difference in the world. They will also create a simple visual aid that represents this historial figure. In math, the students will practice  the partial sums addition method and trade first subtraction method. In social studies, the students will continue exploring Asia, including the people and culture. In science, the students will continue observing their caterpillars and learn more about them, including watching how they molt. Also, we are excited that Will's mom, a marine biologist, will be visiting as a guest presenter on Thursday.

If you have any questions about what we are doing in class or ways you can support your child at home, please don't hesitate to contact me any time.

I wish you a wonderful week. Enjoy this spring weather.