October 13 Newsletter

September 15th Newsletter

Have an amazing weekend! If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me!

September 1 Newsletter

Week 1 Newsletter

Updated Specials Schedule

Below is an update specials schedule. The schedule that was attached to our daily schedule in your folder from open house is incorrect!

A Day: Media
B Day: PE
C Day: Music
D Day: Art

You can find the CPS specials schedule here: https://www.cpsk12.org/cms/lib/MO01909752/Centricity/Domain/70/2017-18%20Calendar%20ABCD.pdf

Thanks!

Before the First Week

Hello all!

I cannot wait to see everyone tomorrow morning for the first day of 2^nd grade! I hope this email finds your family well and your student ready to start an awesome year. This email will be a little lengthy, but please take time to glance through it all, as some of it pertains to the first week of school (even the first day!).

Family Photo

I am copying the information about Family Photos into this email 😊 * In your folder there was a paper asking for a family photo the first week of school. I like to build our classroom community from the very beginning by displaying these photos. As a friendly reminder, I am asking for 4x6 framed photo of your family. You will get these back at the end of the year. I cannot wait to learn more about your child and your family!

Seesaw

In your student information packet, there is a QR code to sign up for an app called Seesaw. We will use Seesaw as an online portfolio, and students will share work with you through the app throughout the year. Please join your child’s account using the QR code. If you need further instruction, please let me know!

Remind

Another app I use frequently is Remind. I added each parent to the class last week, but please let me know if this didn’t work for your account. I use this app frequently to communicate with parents, and want to make sure it is fully functioning.

Get the Scoop

Many of you have already taken the opportunity to sign up for a Get the Scoop time through the Google Sheet. Again, if this link does not work, or you cannot gain access, please just email me with what time you would like. If you have not signed up for a time, please do that soon. I am more than willing to coordinate with other teachers if your student has a sibling in another class. Also, please let me know if you will not be able to attend that evening. Here is the link to sign up: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1a5eUbna42hITDZD4-FkYrYUSYMhdV2jvDlq16Mhr1ao/edit?usp=sharing

I apologize again for misplacing the sign-up sheet!

Snack

I am copying the information about snack from the previous email. I am doing so because it is okay for you to send snack with your student tomorrow!

*In our classroom, I do an “open” snack policy. This means students are able to eat and enjoy snack during any work time throughout the day. We will build up to being “responsible snack eaters” throughout the first week, but you are more than welcome to send snack with your student on the first day of school. I do ask that you refrain from sending candy or foods that can create messes as a snack. Students are also more than welcome to bring water bottles to leave at their desk. Please only send water bottles containing water to avoid sticky messes!

Friday Folders

I am also copying the information about Friday Folder volunteers again in this email. Please email me if you are available! * One thing I know I will need help with each week is stuffing Friday Folders. If you are interested in volunteering your time, please let me know when you are available, and, if applicable, what you would like to help with!

I am looking forward to a great year! Please contact me with any questions (klister@cpsk12.org). This email will also be available on my blog!

Thanks!

Katie Lister

klister@cpsk12.org

Welcome!

Hello Amazing Parents!

It was so nice to meet so many of you at meet the teacher last night. If I didn’t get the chance to meet you, my name is Miss Lister and I am your child’s 2^nd grade teacher this year. This will be my 2^nd year teaching 2^nd grade at BEU. I’m so excited to watch your child  learn and grow this year, and also learn and grow with them!

I am using this email to cover a few topics that seem to be questions I get asked at the beginning of the year, so please read this email carefully! I will also post a copy of this email on my blog, teamlisterbeu.blogspot.com.

Family Photo

In your folder there was a paper asking for a family photo the first week of school. I like to build our classroom community from the very beginning by displaying these photos. As a friendly reminder, I am asking for 4x6 framed photo of your family. You will get these back at the end of the year. I cannot wait to learn more about your child and your family!

Get the Scoop Night

Last night there was a sign up for Get the Scoop. In the madness of Meet the Teacher, I failed to mention the sign up to multiple families. Get the Scoop is on August 31 from 3:30-7:30. If you know you did not sign up, I would appreciate if you could email me with a time (or a few times) that work for your family. I will do my best to accommodate to your schedule!

Remind

I use an app called Remind to stay in contact with parents about student progress and fun happenings within our classroom. This morning I sent out an invite to each of you. It should have automatically joined you to the class, but the website was having some issues, so this may not have happened. If your invite was broken or you did not receive an invitation, please let me know as soon as possible. As I said, I use this app to communicate with you! It is usually the easiest way to get ahold of me during the day, and even allows me to communicate with  you outside of school hours if needed.

Supplies

Thank you to everyone who brought their supplies last night. If you didn’t bring supplies, please let me know if you need assistance in acquiring them! I am more than happy to help. We will do community supplies with everything EXCEPT folders, scissors, and headphones. That means each child will need their own pair of earbuds, 2 folders, and pair of scissors to use this year. I do have extras in my room if they get lost/broken. Thank you for your help making our classroom successful from the start!

Snack in the Classroom

In our classroom, I do an “open” snack policy. This means students are able to eat and enjoy snack during any work time throughout the day. We will build up to being “responsible snack eaters” throughout the first week, but you are more than welcome to send snack with your student on the first day of school. I do ask that you refrain from sending candy or foods that can create messes as a snack. Students are also more than welcome to bring water bottles to leave at their desk. Please only send water bottles containing water to avoid sticky messes!

Volunteering

One thing I know I will need help with each week is stuffing Friday Folders. If you are interested in volunteering your time, please let me know when you are available, and, if applicable, what you would like to help with!

I think I covered everything! Thank you for attending last night and I cannot wait to see everyone on Tuesday! If you have any questions, contact me by email (klister@cpsk12.org) or on Remind!

Katie Lister

Last Week Information!

Wow! Our final week of school is here; I cannot believe it! Thank you so much for your support this year. Everyone has been a huge contribution to our success!

Important! Monday Morning Meeting is moved to WEDNESDAY this week! Students should go to their classrooms in the morning.

Monday: Field Day

Field Day is Monday. We will head outside (weather permitting) in the afternoon! A few notes about field day.

1. Students should dress in weather appropriate clothing. Please use your best judgement based on temperature.
2. If possible, send a small hand towel (please no beach or bath towels, as they take up a lot of space) with your student tomorrow so they are able to dry off when we get back inside and do not have to ride home wet. They will not be sopping, and will NOT need a change of clothes, but will be damp/their hair may be wet.
3. If you choose to send sunscreen, we will make sure it makes it on your student before we head out. We will be outside for 1.5-2 hours, weather dependent.

Thursday: Last Day of School

We will dismiss at 12:45 on Thursday, the last day of school. Lunch will still be provided that day. 

If you have any questions about our week, please let me know! We have some fun activities planned for this week!

This week in 2nd grade... read aloud, time/graphs/early algebra, poetry

Upcoming Events

Tuesday, May 9: Gentry Choir Performance
Tuesday, May 9: Yearbook Pass Out (2:30)
Wednesday, May 10: PTA Meeting
Friday, May 12: School Drone Photo
Friday, May 19: Writing Celebration (1:45, details below)

2nd Grade Writing Celebration!
Beulah Ralph 2nd graders extend an invitation to you on May 19th to our writing celebration. This will take place at 1:45 in our classroom. We invite you to come check out some of the amazing writing we have done this year! We cannot wait to see you there :)

Now onto our week! 2.5 more weeks left, crazy!

Reading

We are working this week to finish up our read aloud book, Charlotte's Web. We also have a DOJO reward coming up, and we will use that opportunity to watch the movie and eat some popcorn!

Math

We are finishing up time and graphs this week. We will then do an exploratory unit to finish out our week and move into next week. It will cover early algebra and create some awesome conversations!

Writing

We will work hard this week on poetry! Our goal is to have our poetry unit done sometime next week! I cannot wait to see our published books!

As always if you have any questions, let me know! klister@cpsk12.org

This week in 2nd grade... point of view, time, poetry

Hello all! The countdown is on until 3rd grade in Room 335! I still say every day, I am blown away by the fact this year is almost over! We have some awesome things happening this week!

Upcoming Events

Monday, May 1: Monday Meeting in Gym

Friday, May 5: Runge/Central Dairy Field Trip (see below)

Friday, May 5: 3rd Grade Fun Run

Tuesday, May 9: Gentry Choir Performance

Runge Field Trip

We are super excited to take a trip to Runge this Friday! This will be an all day field trip, with us leaving when school starts and returning around 2:15. We will be spending our morning at Runge, eating lunch, then heading over to Central Dairy (a Ms. Lister FAVE) for a sweet treat!

Our class is currently short-handed on volunteers for this trip. If you are able to volunteer your time, even just the morning (until around 12/12:30) please let me know. 

3rd Grade Fun Run

There is still time to attend the fun run on Friday! The cost will be $5 at the "door" and the course will go through the Thornbrook subdivision. This is 3rd grade's service learning project. They are raising money for Make A Wish!

Our week this week...

Point of View

To go along with our poetry unit, we will be focusing on Point of View during our shared reading time this week. We will be working hard to identify what point of view a story is being told from, and using that knowledge to help us write point of view stories and poems.

Time

Our time unit will finish up this week. I encourage you to work with your student at home on telling time (to the 5 minute). We are great at identifying the time, but also working on terms such as "quarter till, half past, quarter after" and "_____ minutes before/after ___ o'clock" and seem to be struggling to understand the terms and their use. We will continue to work on telling time and identifying time in those terms in class as well!

Poetry

We are working on poetry in writing after finishing up our opinion unit. We are creating poetry books that will be published and sent home before the end of the year! It has been awesome, even just in the two days we've been doing poetry, to see how creative these kids can be! They are such amazing writers and SO incredibly creative. I cannot wait to see the poems they create this week :).

That's all for this week! If you have any questions, email me at klister@cpsk12.org or on Remind! Again, if you are able to volunteer Friday, it would be greatly appreciated!

Here are some photos from last week!

This week in 2nd grade... theme, measurement, opinion writing, Service Learning

Upcoming Events

Monday, April 17: Pledge Money DUE

Wednesday, April 19: Service Learning Celebration (Begins at 11:30, will conclude around 1:30)

Monday, April 24: MAP testing (third through fifth grades)

Service Learning

Thank you so much to everyone who pledge money for our Math-A-Thon. We are so excited to announce final numbers and are watching our total rise as more money come in.

Remember: This Wednesday, the 19th, we will have our final part of our service learning. This will include a Brown Bag Lunch and silent auction, as well as a presentation including singing, announcing the top mathematicians, and revealing our final total! A green information sheet went home last week detailing the afternoon. We hope to see you there!

Now on to our week...

Following suit with last week, we will finish up theme and measurement this week. We will also be testing over opinion writing towards the end of the week. This week marks our wrapping up of our writing curriculum, meaning we have the last few weeks of school to learn about poetry! Knowing how creative each of these kiddos are, I am sure we will have some awesome poems to share!

Catching Up:

We have quite a few papers that have missed going home over the past few weeks. I am going to do my best to get these home ASAP, and apologize for any confusion this may have caused!

We have a busy week ahead with deadlines, due dates, and lots of fun! As always, please let me know if you have any questions! klister@cpsk12.org

Math-A-Thon

WOW! We had some awesome, amazing mathematicians in our class yesterday. Congratulations to all the students for working SO hard and doing SO well! We celebrated with some cookies and juice. Here's a few quick notes about pledges.

First, if you have not yet pledged, THERE IS STILL TIME! Just send back the green sheet that went home last night with your contribution. You can choose to do an amount per problem, or a flat rate if that is easiest.

Next, if you are worried about the amount you pledged, please feel free to just give as you are able.I realize it was hard to determine how much was "enough" and how much was "too much"!

Finally, cash or check is accepted. See below for check details!

Make Checks Payable to: Beulah Ralph PTA

In the memo write: 2nd grade service learning

Thanks for all your help! We are off to an amazing start. Also, for the presentation next week, please feel free to invite friends/family to come watch and bid on baskets! We have some amazing items up for auction!

This week in 2nd grade... theme, measurement, opinion writing

Upcoming Events

Monday, April 10: Lunch with the Principal

Tuesday, April 11: Math Tournament (Service Learning Part 1)

Tuesday, April 11: PLEDGE SHEETS DUE

April 19: BBL, Baskets, Awards Ceremony (Service Learning Part 2)

Service Learning

This Tuesday, we will be hosting our math tournament for the first part of our service learning project. As a reminder, parents are not invited to this part of the project but are encouraged to come to the second part on April 19. Please continue to practice fast facts (basic, single digit addition facts) at home with your children to prepare them for Tuesday! After the tournament is over, we will be contacting pledges to collect money.

The second part of our service learning project is April 19. Parents are encouraged to come. Please continue to watch for information to come home. 

Science Center Field Trip

We had a blast at the STL Science Center. See below for pictures. 

Reading

This week in reading we will continue working to find the theme or the message of a story. We are doing such an AMAZING job finding theme! 

Math

We are continuing measurement in math this week. We will learn about centimeters, meters, and comparing measurements. We have also talked about inches previously as well as estimated lengths.

Writing

We are continuing our monster piece in writing. Next week will be our testing week for opinion writing. We are doing an awesome job forming and writing about our opinions

As always, contact me if you have any questions, klister@cpsk12.org

Thanks!

Email Tuesday 4/4

Find the email I sent on 4/4 regarding important information for the week.

Hi Parents,

Lots of important information! This email takes place of our weekly blog post!

Tie Dye:

*We are tie dying today. Thank you for all your support in sending shirts!

*We will be wearing our shirts to the Science Center and the Runge Center in May.

Field Trip on Friday:

*We will be wearing our tie-dye shirts to the field trip.  These will come home Thursday night and will already be washed and ready to go. Please make sure your child comes dressed in the shirt on Friday morning. This is how we will ensure our group stays together!

*If you signed up to bring a lunch please write your name on the outside to make it easier to pass out.

*Students need to ride the bus to the field trip, but parents may sign their own child out afterwards and drive them home themselves. Please make sure you sign out before leaving for my sanity J 

*Our bus is pulling out of the parking lot at 7:30am.  Unfortunately we cannot wait for students who are late, or we will not have enough time to explore the center. Please plan to have your child at school between 7:00-7:20 to allow for enough bathroom time. There will not be someone here to open the doors before 7 am, though.

*Electronics are allowed for the bus ride.  Students are responsible for their own items, though. We will leave them on the bus while in the center.

*If you are volunteering for this field trip (Thank you!!), you will receive an agenda for the day, Science Center map, and the students in your group on Friday morning. I will also have directions for you already printed out!

Service Learning Project:

*We are collecting the Math-a-thon pledges on Friday, April 7^th (just leave it in their backpack and we will get to it after the field trip). Please let me know if you need an additional pledge sheet.

*We have been practicing our math facts daily using Rocket Math. We are taking our math fact test for our “Math-a-thon for Hurricane Matthew” on Tuesday, April 11^th.   This is only for students. We will score these as quickly as possible and let you know the scores.  We will then send emails out to everyone on the pledge sheet letting them know how the child they pledged for did!  Cash and (most likely) checks will be accepted.  We will let you know who to make the checks out to once we get to that point.

*Thank you so much for the silent auction items.  Please continue to send in items :O) 

*Students wrote to several businesses and have heard back from Sparky’s and Flat Branch!!!  Sparky’s gave us 5 $20 gift cards, and Flat Branch donated a $50 gift card!  We are still working on responses from the other businesses.

*We will send you more information about April 19^th once we have everything planned out.  Here is what we have so far: At 11:30, the doors to the gym will open for you to come look at and bid on our silent auction baskets.  At 11:50, students will join us for a “Picnic in the gym.”  Feel free to bring lawn chairs, blankets, and even a special lunch for your child!  You may continue to bid on baskets at this time.  You will also get a chance to look at business letters students wrote, listen to a few kiddos speak about helping others, and hear who the top mathematicians were in each class.   It should be a fun event!

I think that’s it.  :O)

Thanks so much! Let me know if you have any questions

Katie

VERY IMPORTANT INFORMATION

Sorry there is so much... Thank you for reading!

STL Field Trip

• Please return the lunch forms by Thursday (yellow piece of paper sent home today)
• If you have not already, please return the permission slips
• Please send in a PLAIN WHITE T-SHIRT by FRIDAY, March 24 (sorry for the typo on the letter)
• $2 T-shirts at Marshalls OR "Super Cheap" at Jo-Anns
• Let me know if you cannot get one, I can grab one for you.
• As a heads up: personal technology will be allowed on the bus to STL. Please understand this is your child's responsibility and we are not liable for lost items. 

Service Learning

• Thank you for all the awesome support with our field trip and also our service learning. We are still looking for items for our silent auction baskets. We have gathered some really awesome donations so far, keep it coming! A letter will be going home in Friday Folders that can be used to ask businesses for donations. Remember, this is for an amazing cause and we are donating 100% of the funds raised directly to a corporation in Haiti that helps first-hand with relief efforts. If you have any unused items sitting around at home that you think would fit well in a basket, we would highly appreciate your donation.

Library Field Trip

• Please return the permission slip by FRIDAY
• Our trip is April 5th (Wednesday of the week we return from Spring Break)

Thank you all SO MUCH  for all you have done. These past few weeks have been hectic and I apologize for all the things we have asked you to do. Please let me know if you have any questions about any of this information. I will be happy to answer!

This week in 2nd grade... Theme, 3-digit +/-, Opinion Writing Wk 3, Culture/Communities

Upcoming Events

Monday, March 20: Spring Picture Day

March 27-31: Spring Break
Wednesday, April 5: Field Trip to Daniel Boone Library
Friday, April 7: Field Trip to STL Science Center

FIELD TRIP NEWS

We are so lucky to have an amazing opportunity to take a field trip to the St. Louis Science Center at the beginning of April. Our trip will be April 7th. 

PLEASE NOTE: There is a letter going home about bringing in a white t-shirt to tie-dye for our field trip the week after spring break. Please make sure you send in a plain white t-shirt by Friday, March 24!We will wear these the day of the Science Center field trip AND again in May for our Runge Trip!

SERVICE LEARNING NEWS

We are looking for items to put in baskets for our silent auction! Please email me if you have any questions!

One more week until Spring Break!

Reading

This week in reading we will be talking about the theme (the message) of a story. We will be examining various fiction text to try to find the theme, concluding with finding the theme of a book of our choice on Friday!

Math

This is our final week of 3-digit addition and subtraction. We have been working so hard on understanding how to add and subtract large numbers, as well as stack numbers to add and subtract! We will conclude this unit with a test on either Thursday or Friday (depending on how confident we feel come those days).

Writing

This week we will finish up publishing our first piece on the True Story of the Three Little Pigs vs. The Three Little Pigs. We've been working so hard on forming opinions and coming up with examples to support our opinions. On Wednesday, we will begin a new piece after reading 3 monter books and choosing our favorite, while defending our opinion. (We will be reading: "The Monstore", "I Need My Monster", and "The Monster's Monster")

Social Studies

We are continuing our study on cultures and communities. We will talk about needs vs. wants, traditions, and heirlooms this week while relating these topics to our own families.

This week in 2nd grade... Note Taking (NF), 3 Digit, Opinion Writing Wk 2

Upcoming Events

Tuesday, March 14: Math Night (6-7:30), come and go as you please

Thursday, March 16: Planetarium Field Trip

Monday, March 20: Spring Picture Day, more details coming soon

March 27-31: Spring Break

FIELD TRIP NEWS

We are so lucky to have an amazing opportunity to take a field trip to the St. Louis Science Center at the beginning of April. Our trip will be April 7th. 

SERVICE LEARNING NEWS

We are looking for items to put in baskets for our silent auction! Please email me if you have any questions!

Now onto our week..

Reading

Last week we took notes on fiction books using Venn Diagrams. This week, we will take notes on Non-Fiction books using a biography chart. We are going to practice taking notes while we are reading. We will use our biography chart/notes to write a short summary at the end of the week. 

Math

This week in math we will continue our work with 3-digit addition and subtraction. We are doing a great job tying what we know about 2-digit into our understanding of 3-digit. We are also learning how to stack and add numbers throughout this unit. 

Writing

We will continue with opinion writing this week and begin to draft our first piece. We have worked hard at planning and understanding how to back up our opinions with facts to convince our reader. This week we will continue to refine our opinion and work on being persuasive.

If you have any questions about field trips, service learning, or what we are learning in class, please let me know!

This week in 2nd grade... Note Taking, 3 Digit Addition/Subtraction, Opinion Writing Wk 1, Important Events

Hello All! This blog post has some important updates, please read all the way to the end. :)

Upcoming Events

Tuesday, March 7: Early Release, classes dismissed 2 hours early (12:45)

Thursday, March 9: TimberTonix Practice in Am

Thursday, March 9: Lego Club at 3:30

Thursday, March 9: Countdown to Kindergarten (4:30-6:30 PM)

Tuesday, March 14: Math Night (6-7:30), come and go as you please

Thursday, March 16: Planetarium Field Trip

Field Trip News

We are taking a trip to the planetarium at Rockbridge HS on March 16. Please return the permission slip as soon as possible. Due to lack of space, volunteers are not requested on this trip. 

We are so lucky to have an amazing opportunity to take a field trip to the St. Louis Science Center at the beginning of April. Our trip will be April 7th. A letter went home in Friday Folders last week detailing parts of the trip, and more information will come home as the trip comes closer. Please return the permission slip as soon as possible, and also feel free to mark that you will loan a cooler or volunteer your time to accompany us! Please know if you do accompany us, you will have to drive separately, and it is $10 to park. Thanks in advance!

Service Learning News

We are looking for items to put in baskets for our silent auction! Please see the note in your Friday Folder, or email me if you have any questions!

Math Night

Math Night will be March 14th. Please return the RSVP even if you do not want to buy pie. Please also know that pie is $3 if you purchase ahead of time and $4 at the door.

Now onto the learning...

Reading

This week we will focus on taking notes and using graphic organizers to understand what we have read. Our focus will be on Venn Diagrams. We will spend our week collecting information from a text (fiction) and using a graphic organizer to show our thinking.

Math

We will begin 3-digit addition and subtraction this week. After spending so long on 2-digit addition and subtraction, I don't foresee this unit being challenging at all. We are great critical math thinkers and I know we will be able to apply our learning from 2-digit to help us this month. This unit will continue through the end of March (tentatively) depending on our understanding!

Writing

This week we will begin our first opinion piece. We will spend a lot of the week understanding our organizer/planning sheet, and drafting will begin next week.  We will be looking at the story of the Three Little Pigs in comparison to the True Story of the Three Little Pigs, and picking our favorite book/sharing our opinion on which is better. 

This week in 2nd grade.... Character Traits, Place Value, Letter Writing/Fact & Opinion

Reading

Last week we focused on traits to begin looking into character traits. We created a chart together and talked about different ways to classify characters in books. This week we will begin talking about characters in books we read, and seeing if we can identify their character traits based on the story and what we learn. 

Math

This week in math we will continue place value to 1,000. Our test is scheduled for this Friday, March 3. If you would like to practice at home, please focus on praciticng the place value of numbers (i.e. 356 has 3 hundreds, 5 tens, and 6 ones), as well as practicing expanded, standard, and number word form of numbers (see below).

Our Number: 356

Expanded: 300 + 50 + 6 = 356

Standard: 356

Number Word: Three Hundred Fifty-Six

Writing

In writing this week we will finish up persuasive letter writing with a few more fun activities. We will move into opinion writing beginning with facts vs. opinion. We touched on this some time ago in shared reading, so we will spend a few days on it then move on to planning our writing. We are jumping right in this week!

Science

We will look at Volcanoes and other landforms this week in Science to wrap up our Earth Surface unit.

Upcoming Events

Monday, February 27: Monday Morning Meeting

Thursday, March 2: TimberTonix Practice in AM

Thursday, March 2: Dr. Seuss Day! Dress up like your favorite Dr. Seuss character!

Tuesday, March 7: Early Release, classess dismissed 2 hours early (12:45)

Thursday, March 9: TimberTonix Practice in Am

Thursday, March 9: Lego Club at 3:30

Thursday, March 9: Countdown to Kindergarten (4:30-6:30 PM)

Service Learning

Thanks so much to Jada for volunteering to help with our silent auction for service learning! If you would like to help, please reach out to Jada at hallmarkjada@yahoo.com

If you have any questions, let me know! klister@cpsk12.org

This week in 2nd grade... Author's Study, Money/Place Value, Letter Writing

I hope everyone is having a wonderful weekend! Here is your weekly update:

Reading

We are going to begin an author's study for shared reading. We will explore the work of Chris Van Allsburg, who has written titles such as Jumanji, Zathura, and The Polar Express. He is one of my favorite children's authors so I'm very excited his work ties in with our lessons! His books are very easy to infer and read beyond the words on the page. His wonderful stories are also accompanied by lots of beautiful artwork.

Our book it goal for February is 180 minutes!

Math

We will be finishing up money this week with a review/test on Monday. This was a very short unit, as it really is just a follow-up to two-digit addition and subtraction. We spent some time this past week being problem-solvers, and even tried a math talk discussion in small-group. It was amazing to watch each student begin really talking and thinking about the "why" behind math. This is my area of research for my master's program, and is something I am very excited about! We will begin place value to 1,000 this coming week. 

Writing

We will work on letter writing throughout the next week. We are going to begin tying in persuasive letter writing, which will flow seamlessly into opinion writing. Monday we will be writing letters to businesses for donations to help with our service learning (see below). We will begin planning and writing letters on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday where we try to persuade our reader. 

Upcoming Events

February 13: Monday Morning Meeting at 8:20

                     Parent Teacher Conferences from 3:30-7:30 

February 14: Spring Party at 2:15-3:00 in our classroom

February 15: Sick day (wear sweat pants/t-shirt, bring stuffed animal)

                     Lunch with the principal day

February 16: Parent Teacher Conferences 3:30-7:30

February 17: NO SCHOOL

February 20: NO SCHOOL
February 21: Summer School Registration Opens
                      February Book Orders submitted

February 24: 2nd grade music performance

Spring Party

We will hand out Valentine's during the day before the party. I am asking that students decorate boxes/bags with their name on them at home and bring them in to collect their valentines. Feel free to send the valentine boxes/bags beginning Monday, February 13th. I will have a place to store them in the classroom. 

Parent Teacher Conferences

A note went home in Friday folders outlining your time for your conference. If this time does not work, please contact me or the school office to reschedule your time. 

Sick Day

Our class DOJO celebration will be Wednesday February 15th. The students chose a sick day. I am asking for donations of "sick food" for our day. Students may wear sweat pants and t-shirts, and are allowed to bring in a stuffed animal or blanket/pillow to read with that day.

Service Learning

2nd grade students have chosen to help Hurricane Matthew victims in Haiti as our service learning. More information will be coming home soon, but I wanted to get something on everyone's minds. We are going to hand out information about a silent auction that will take place the day of our awards ceremony for our math competition. We will ask for donations for specific baskets soon, but I am opening the door if anyone has any basket items/ideas they would like to contribute, or sponsor a basket on their own! Please know if you are an independent distributor of a certain product, you are more than welcome to include your advertising information in the basket as well!

We are going to have an awesome (and fast, I'm sure) week! Please let me know if you have any questions. klister@cpsk12.org

I'm going to try to start adding a few pictures to my blog posts each week. This past week I only took 1 picture, busy week! Here, group 4 is working on writing meaningful predictions using what they see/know!

This week in 2nd grade... Infer, Money, Letter Writing

Hope everyone has had a wonderful Superbowl Sunday! I know I always look forward to the good food and great company. This blog post will outline our week this week, and some important events coming up soon!

Reading

Our shared reading time this week will focus on making inferences. We will talk a bout making inferences in 3 different ways: using text clues, using what you know, and using multiple clues to help infer. We will also make inferences about the characters in a book. Guided reading or reading group times are up and running again. Each group has an individual focus such as note taking, making predictions, or summarizing what they have read. If you have questions about what your child's focus of their specific group is, please feel free to ask!

Math

We have finished up subtraction and I am so proud of how hard everyone worked. We had some wonderful discussions and amazing conversations about math, subtraction specifically, that allowed us to truly grow our math brains! This week we will focus one more time on money. Now that we know how to count money, we will learn how to add, subtract, and be money problem solvers. This is a short unit, only spanning 4 total days. With how well we did with addition and subtraction, I am expecting huge success in this unit as well. We will test Monday, February 13.

If possible, allow students to see you make money decisions this week. It will be very helpful for them to witness making change or adding amounts to find a total. Thank you in advance for your help at home!

Writing

We have officially finished informational writing. This week we will begin a short unit on letter writing before beginning opinion writing. We will talk about the basics of letter writing such as how to write a greeting and how to format a piece of letter paper. 

Science

We are looking at Earth's Surface in science over the next few weeks. We will talk about topics like erosion, effects of wind and water on land, and different types of land. 

Upcoming Dates:

February 6: NO SCHOOL

February 7: Monday (Tuesday) Morning Meeting at 8:20

February 8: PTA Meeting at 6:30 in the Media Center

February 10: Progress Reports go home today

                     Puzzle Day to conclude Problem Solver week

                      MS. LISTER OUT in the afternoon (after lunch)

February 13: Monday Morning Meeting at 8:20

                     Parent Teacher Conferences from 3:30-7:30 

February 14: Spring Party at 2:15-3:00 in our classroom

February 15: Sick day (wear sweat pants/t-shirt, bring stuffed animal)

                     Lunch with the principal day

February 16: Parent Teacher Conferences 3:30-7:30

February 17: NO SCHOOL

February 20: NO SCHOOL

February 24: 2nd grade music performance

Spring Party

We will hand out Valentine's during the day before the party. I am asking that students decorate boxes/bags with their name on them at home and bring them in to collect their valentines. Feel free to send the valentine boxes/bags beginning Monday, February 13th. I will have a place to store them in the classroom. 

Parent Teacher Conferences

A note went home in Friday folders outlining your time for your conference. If this time does not work, please contact me or the school office to reschedule your time. 

Sick Day

Our class DOJO celebration will be Wednesday February 15th. The students chose a sick day. I am asking for donations of "sick food" for our day. Students may wear sweat pants and t-shirts, and are allowed to bring in a stuffed animal or blanket/pillow to read with that day. 

As always, feel free to contact me if you have any questions! You can reach me at klister@cpsk12.org or on Remind!

This week in 2nd grade...

This is for the week of Jan 30th!

Reading

This week we will be activating our background knowledge, like we did this past week, to help us understand how to use context to understand the meaning of a word, use text features to identify important words, identify key vocabulary, check the meaning with similar words, and explore similar words meaning. 

Words of the Week

We began words of the week this past week. Our words were would, very, your, its, around. This week our words will be don't, right, green, their, call. Each day we work with spelling the words and using them sentences to practice. We are also using our words of the week to help us practice our handwriting.

Math

In math, we are doing a quick unit over 2 digit subtraction. Along with addition, our goal is that students understand the place value behind the numbers, and can correctly break apart numbers and use what they know to help them subtract. In future grades, they will learn how to stack and subtract, and while we will cover that for a day, our focus will be on: using a hundreds chart to subtract, subtracting tens, ones, and adding the differences (when it applies), using place value blocks, and making numbers friendly (we are calling these landmark numbers) to help them subtract (ie. 59- 42 is the same as 59-40= 19 --> 19-2 = 7). 

Our math test will be Friday, February 2nd. I will send home a review for students to practice on Thursday evening. As always, feel free to have students practice. For the test, they will need to be able to use the strategies subtract the tens, ones, and add the differences (like the break apart of subtraction), and hundreds chart to solve problems. There will be one question per each of those strategies as they both focus specifically on place value. Similarly to addition, there will be 7 subtraction problems they will be asked to solve in any way they feel comfortable. The test will end with 3 word problems, as we are working on picking apart word problems and using the problem to help us find the answer! They did SO AMAZING on the post test for addition, I'm sure subtraction will be no different!

Writing

We will conclude our informational writing on Wednesday with our writing test. We have published one piece thus far, taking it through the writing process and explaining each part, and are working on planning and drafting our hornworm piece, in the hopes it is finished by next week. I am blown away by how hard they focus during writing each day!

As a hornworm update: a large majority of our worms are in their pupa! This means they will emerge in apprx. 21 to 28 days as moths!

As always, please follow me on Twitter @msklister and if you need to get ahold of me, email me at klister@cpsk12.org or message me on Remind!

Math Test, Spelling Bee, and Friday Folders

Hi everyone! Just a couple exciting events coming up this week!

Math Test

We will be taking our math test tomorrow. I sent home a review this evening that covers all the strategies we learned. Please note: Break apart and hundreds chart will be specifically asked about on the test. There is one problem for each. Beyond that, the rest of the problems will just ask students to solve, so as long as they have ONE strategy to use, they should be set. Please don't stress! We will review quickly in class tomorrow and my posters will stay up for reference during the test!

Spelling Bee

On FRIDAY we will be doing our spelling bee as a 2nd grade. A packet of words went home this evening in their Friday Folders. Feel free to practice at home as you feel necessary. We will use the traditional spelling bee style on Friday in our classroom. The parents of the top 2 spellers will be invited to our Citizen of the Month assembly!

Friday Folder

As a last note, I sent Friday Folders home this evening. I understand 1 day can be a quick turn around, and I apologize, but please send back the folders and checklists at your earliest convenience. Also, please return reading logs so I can log time spent reading for Book It! I got quite a few back today :)

Have a wonderful week!

Updates: Math Test, Book It Goal, Book Orders, Yearbook Orders, Music Performance

I figured I would post a quick blog update with a few important pieces of information!

Math Test

I had our test over 2-digit additions scheduled for tomorrow, but with the impending weather and myself feeling we need a bit more practice, we will instead test next week. I do not want to test the first day back after a 4-day weekend, so chances are the test will be Wednesday! I have tentatively written this down. If you need an outline of the strategies we are using in our room, please let me know! I would be more than willing to send pictures or scan in the document I made at the beginning of the unit. Thanks!

Book It Goal

I have set our January Book it Goal at 180. That means your child should have at least 60 minutes of reading time recorded each week, or 20 minutes/3 nights. Remember, the school goal is to read 20 minutes each night. Please remember to send in reading logs on Friday morning! I will record the times then, but if they are not turned in, I have no way of knowing how long your child has read. When they meet 180, I will send home the pizza pass. My apologies for being 1 night late this week!

Book Orders

January book orders went home last week! Order online or send in the order form by January 27th. If you have any questions, let me know!

Yearbook Orders

Yearbook orders went home yesterday, 1/11, and are due back February 10th. They are $8.25, and money is turned in to me! I will take it anytime you choose to send it in.

Music Performance

We have a 2nd grade music performance in February! Permission slips went home for speaking parts. Please return those ASAP. Keep an eye out for more information!

If you have any questions, contact me at klister@cpsk12.org or on Remind!

This week in 2nd grade...

It's our first full week back from winter break, and I am so excited to get started!

Reading

This week in reading we will be focusing on making connections. We have talked about connecting to text a few times this year, so I see this week being a review. Our focus was on making connections with ourselves to the books we are reading, but this week we will extend to making connections between texts, and making connections to the world around us (current events, etc).  I will also be administering the STAR test, DRA (to select students), and AIMS this week. If you have any questions about these assessments, let me know!

Math

This will be our final week on 2-digit addition. I am very confident that every student has at least one, if not more, strategies to solve problems! This will make solving 3-digit addition problems that much easier. Next, we will move on to two digit subtraction! As they say, practice makes perfect, so practicing at home with your student helps to refine their skills. I have a copy of all the addition strategies we learned; if you would like a digital or printed copy, let me know!

Writing

We are starting a new writing project this week. It is surprise though, so more to come soon :)

If you need to reach me, contact me by email at klister@cpsk12.org, or on Remind!

Thank You!

I just wanted to post a quick \ for the wonderful presents I received this Christmas. I am sending home written thank you cards tomorrow, but some of the cards didn't have names on them, so I'm sure I'm forgetting a few people! Thanks so much for making this year so far a blast. I am so enjoying the opportunity to work with your wonderful kids! Thanks as well to everyone who helped at the Winter party!

Katie

This week in 2nd grade...

WELCOME BACK! I am so excited to begin the second half of the school year with such a wonderful class of 2nd graders. Can you believe it, in 5 short months, they will be in 3rd grade?! WOW

This week will mostly be used to get back into our routine and remember our expectations.

Reading

In the coming weeks, I will be giving our benchmarks for AIMS and testing students with the DRA. Both of these were given at the beginning of the year, so we are looking to see growth in these numbers. The best thing you can do with your child at home is continue to read every night!

Reading logs will go home next Monday. I am not sending them home this week, but if you would like to keep track on a slip of paper and send it in, that is okay with me!

Math

We are continuing to work on two digit addition strategies. When we have completed all of our strategies, each child will have 5+ ways to solve problems! If you would like a copy of the strategies we are using, let me know!

Writing

This week we are focusing on completing our writing about something we know a lot about. This is an informational style writing, so we will be adding text features this week and next week, when we begin publishing. Our specific focuses this week will be writing body paragraphs, introductions, and conclusions. Together, we are writing an informational piece about dogs. 

Thanks for all you do with your child at home! If you have any questions, contact me at klister@cpsk12.org or on Remind!