Merry Christmas to all....

...and to all a good night!

Wishing you the happiest of holidays from Mrs. Richard's 2nd grade! See you in 2014!

Click here to sign up to help with our winter celebration!

Our class winter celebration will be held on Friday, December 20th from 9:30-11:00. Please click on the link above if you are able to help out by volunteering in class or donating supplies for our craft. We will be making a winter craft, making holiday cards for friends and family, and listening to a winter story. As with Fall Festival, your child will be bringing home a special bag earlier that week. On the 20th they should use that bag to bring in a special snack to eat during the celebration. Don't forget that we are a nut free class!

November Volunteers

Click here to sign up to volunteer in our classroom in November!

Please click on the link above if you are interested in volunteering in our classroom during the month of November. Please be sure that you have a valid CORI check on file in the school office if you plan to come in and help out in class. Thank you!

Fall Festival

Our Fall Festival will be held on Friday, November 1st from 1:00-2:30 pm in room 205. Please click on the link below if you are interested in helping out during the Fall Festival or if you are interested in donating supplies to the class for this day.

Sign up here to help out with our Fall Festival!

We will be having an apple tasting at Fall Festival. If you have not already done so, please send me an email that either reads, "Yes, my child may participate in the apple tasting." or "No, my child may not participate in the apple tasting." Thank you to everyone who has already gotten back to me about this!

We are no longer allowed to have snacks for the students during classroom celebrations due to the district wellness policy. Students will be bringing home a paper lunch bag next week. If you would like, your child may bring a special snack to school on Friday using that bag. Each child will eat his/her own snack during Fall Festival. Please make sure that the snacks do not contain any nuts!

Thank you so much for your help!

Math Facts

The second graders at Floral Street School have been hard at work on math facts since our first week together. Knowing our math facts fluently helps to ensure future success in mathematics. Both a paper and an electronic version of the image below will be going home to all second grade families in the very near future. This communication contains information about why learning math facts is important, expectations broken down by each trimester, ways you can help support us at home, and three math websites that students can use to practice. 

Additionally, information on the XtraMath online math fact practice tool will be going home in next week's homework folder. As of right now, I don't have an expectation that all students use XtraMath once it is up and running because there are many different ways to practice facts and what works well for one student may not work well for another. However, it is an option that many students have found success with in the past, so I wanted to make sure that your students had access to that program this year as well. Be on the lookout for XtraMath login information early next week!

Read to Self and Read to Someone

This week we started learning about the first 2 of our 5 Daily 5 routines. We spent some time during reading practicing Read to Self and Read to Someone. We talked a lot about the purpose of these activities and decided that we Read to Self and Read to Someone to help build our fluency, to learn new words, to become a better reader, and because it's fun! We also spent some time talking about the teacher's job and the students' job during this time. During Daily 5, the teacher is usually working with a reading group, so the students job involves working quietly, staying focused on their book, and staying in one spot. We will continue to work on both Read to Self and Read to Someone next week as we build our reading stamina.

Sheariah practices Read to Self

Pranidhi practices Read to Self

Semaj and Pranav practice Read to Someone

Parent Conferences

Click here to sign up for a parent conference on Tuesday, November 5th!

Parent conferences will be held on Tuesday, November 5th this year from 8:30-4:30. Please click on the above link, which will direct you to Sign Up Genius where you can sign up for a 15 minute conference. Times are scheduled in 20 minute blocks to allow for transitions between the conferences. I realize that due to our large class size this year we will be unable to fit in every conference on the 5th. Plans are in the works for an alternate day/time. I will be in touch with you as soon as I receive this information. Thank you for your understanding!

Calling all volunteers!

Sign up here to volunteer in class starting in October!

If you are interested in volunteering in our class beginning in the month of October, please click on the link above. I am looking for volunteers to come in and help us with math facts, reading, and communication folders. If you are unable to come in during the day, but would still like to help out in some way, I am looking for a few parents who would be willing to help out with clerical tasks at home. This would include typing up student stories, assembling packets, and cutting out materials for use in class. If you are interested in helping out by doing some work at home, just send me an email at hrichard@shrewsbury.k12.ma.us and let me know you are interested.

I am also looking for one or two parents to serve as our room parent(s). This job involves organizing volunteers for class celebrations, including Fall Festival, Winter Celebration, Valentine's Day, and the end of year celebration. No food is allowed at any school celebration this year, so room parents would be asked to help out with gathering supplies for the activities and coordinating in class volunteers for the celebrations. Again, please send me an email if you are interested!

Thank you so much for helping to make our year a successful one!

Second Grade, Week 1

We now have one (very short) week of second grade behind us. It was exciting. It was hot and humid. It was a lot of fun. Did I mention that it was exciting?! Second graders are a unique group. Caught in the middle between the newness of first grade and the confidence of third grade, second graders attack each day with excitement and enthusiasm unlike any other age group. I just wanted to take a minute and share a few observations I made this week with you.

1. Your students are excited to be at Floral Street School. They came to school ready to learn and happy to be here.

2. They are enthusiastic about learning. Your students want to listen carefully to the story we are reading together. They want to get their math tools out and give them a try.

3. They are kind. Kind to one another and kind to themselves. Just in the past three days I saw students invite those who were playing alone to join their game and I saw students helping others clean up a mess that wasn't even theirs. Second graders are incredibly kind little people.

4. Your students truly want to try their best. I saw lots of evidence of great minds at work this past week. Lots of thinking and understanding and hard work. This class is going to do great things!

5. They cooperate. We talked a lot about that word this past week and I was lucky to see lots of evidence of cooperation in action. These kids understand teamwork and are willing to share with one another.

For second graders, school is very much an exciting and still sort of new place. I feel so lucky that I get to witness that enthusiasm each and every day. Thank you for sharing your children with me. We are going to have an amazing year together...I can already tell. 

Second Grade Supply List 2013/2014

SECOND GRADE SUPPLY LIST 2013/2014
**If you are participating in the Floral PTO Supplies
program – please ignore**
All items are for community use – no names on any materials.

• #2 pencils, 2-24 packs, SHARPENED
  
• 3 black marble composition notebooks
  
• erasers - unscented, white magic rub-type
  
• 9-12 glue sticks
  
• colored pencils (24 pack) Crayola-type
  
• washable markers (8 pack)
  
• crayons (24 pack) Crayola-type
  
• 1 hand pencil sharpener, with cover
  
• Expo-type, low-odor markers, 2-8 packs - thick) BLACK
  ONLY
  
• 2 yellow highlighters
  
• 4 packages - square (3x3) sticky notes
  
• 4 pocket folders with prongs, solid colors only, no designs
  please 
  

Reader's Theater

This week during our reading time we are doing reader's theater with the Peterson class! We are working on our fluency while reading fairy tales and fables at our instructional reading levels. Today we got both classes together for our first practice. Groups assigned roles and began practicing reading their parts with good fluency. Everyone had a great time and we can't wait to get together again!

More Field Day Fun!

We had such a good time on field day last week and had so many great pictures, I just had to share a few more with you! Enjoy!

Field Day

Second grade had an AWESOME time at field day today! There was rock wall climbing and basketball shooting, noodle hockey and relay races, water tag and hoola hooping, and we even had one friend jump rope 250 times!!! We ended the day on the field with popsicles and then relaxed with a story. It was a great day all around!

On Staying Focused...

This can be a tough time of the year for students. Summer vacation is thisclose and every cell in their bodies knows it. However, we still have work to do in school. Staying focused can be a challenge. We make sure to review expected behaviors often, but sometimes we just have to mix things up a bit to keep it interesting enough to hold our attention when the warm weather comes and heats up our classroom. This week we mixed things up a bit in math by working in teams to create posters reviewing 2 second grade math skills. The groups got to choose which skills they focused on and we even got to put our new knowledge of non-fiction text features to work by using our Everyday Math student reference book to find out more about our chosen topics. Groups brainstormed ideas, created rough drafts, cooperatively worked on their posters, and finally presented to the group before we sat down to do our last math assessment of the year. Focus was everywhere. Groups were engaged in their work and took pride in their final product. Be on the lookout next week for pictures of our next math project-graphing the dates pennies were minted! (And don't forget to bring in a baggy of at least 10 pennies for Monday if you haven't already!)

Jazie and Sarayu add information about patterns to their poster.

John and Sameer included multiplication on their poster.

Ranjani looked up information in the student reference book.

One of the final products!

Floral Goes Green

Today we celebrated Floral Goes Green, which is our annual celebration of the environment. We all had a great time learning about what we could do to help the environment. Take a look at what we did today!

We learned about Asian Longhorned Beetles!

We made terrariums!

We adding pebbles, soil, and water first.

Adding rocks to a terrarium

Adding soil to a terrarium

We learned what it would feel like to have to carry our water to our village.

And checked out a frog!

We took notes on endangered animals.

And studied a pond ecosystem!

We need to do this more often!

Note-taking in the hallways

One of our class endangered animal posters!

We made projects with our fourth grade reading buddies.

We had a great time at Floral Goes Green today!