Weekly Update 11/2

Thank you again to all who volunteered and/or donated to our Harvest Party on Friday.  The celebration was a big hit and the children had so much fun eating, dancing, making bookmarks, and playing games together.  Mrs. Sperry and Mrs. Fruscione did a fantastic job organizing the party for us!

It's hard to believe that we are already beginning the month of November. Term 1 ends on November 6^th and conferences are coming up on November 23rd and 24^th.  In preparation for progress reports and conferences, we will begin doing some end of term assessing this week.

For spelling this week the rule will be on the 3 sounds of long “a”- ai, a_e, and ay.  Spelling lists will consist of words with these long “a” sounds.  We teach the children that the best way to learn which spelling pattern goes with which word is to PRACTICE and READ.  The more you see the words, the better the chances of remembering the spelling.  Also this week we will assess the children on the 100 High Frequency Words for 2^nd Grade.  This list can be found in your child's Take Home folder.

The children are really impressing us with their writing skills.  Many of them have finished at least one personal narrative story.  We have begun the editing process, learning about adding to and changing our writing to make it more clear for the reader, as well as how to grab our readers by using a “Lively Lead”.  We will have more opportunities to show what we've learned about personal narrative writing this week.

We began Unit 3 last week in math.  This week we will touch upon how addition and subtraction are related to one another.  The children will be bringing home Fact Triangles to help them practice their addition/subtraction math facts.  We will also begin to look at some useful strategies for subtraction.  Our hope is that by introducing the various strategies, each child will click with at least a few they can use independently.  While we ask them to practice and give these strategies a try, children are always encouraged to use what works best for them on a daily basis.

Upcoming Dates:

• Monday, November 2^nd- Conference Forms Go Home
• Friday, November 6th- Conference Forms Due Back to School
• Wednesday, November 11^{th -}No School (Veteran's Day)