Feeling Great after Week 8!

Dear 2B Families,

Can you believe September is over?  I hope everyone enjoys their long weekend. There is no school tomorrow. October is upon us! We have SIX birthdays in 2B in October! WOW! We are looking forward to Fall Break, Half Days, Parent/Teacher Conferences, and Read-A-Thon Day! October is sure to be a busy month!

This week we spent some time reading a book about Citizenship. This was our virtue for September. Our virtue for October is Honesty. We talked a lot about setting a good example. I asked the students to think, "Am I setting a good example for others to follow?" We talked about how to be a good citizen of our classroom, school, home, and community. We worked on making classroom contributions by cleaning our own area and the area around us. We also practiced how to track the speaker. Am I listening/watching the people around me when they are speaking?

Next Week in 2B...

Language Arts: We finished reading Charlotte's Web! It was an emotional and beautiful ending for our friends Wilbur and Charlotte. Next up is Boxcar Children. We won't be starting this novel until the end of October so don't worry yet about needing to bring it to school. 

We did not get through all of the poem recitations for Something Told the Wild Geese this week so those will continue with those into next week. Our new poem is: Merry Autumn Days by Charles Dickens.

Spalding Words:
Monday: another, tripped, trip, list, people, ever, held, church, once, one
Tuesday: own, before, know, no, were, where, there, here, dead, leave
Wednesday: early, close, close, flower, flour, nothing, ground, lead, led, lead
*Please review phonograms for homework.

Please do one page of the Reading Reflection Log each night for the books that are sent home on Monday. Please return the books the following week so I can give your child a new one.

In Grammar we will practice labeling our nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs. In Writing, we will learn about commas in a series. We will also read Pippi Longstocking!


Math: Renaming in Subtraction has really posed a challenge for us this last week! We will continue to embrace the struggle next week and review this concept of three digit subtraction. 
Here are the rhymes/chants we are learning in class: 
No Renaming:
Numbers the same? Zero is their name! 
More on the top? No need to stop! 
Renaming the tens: More on the floor (in the ones column)? Go Next Door (to the tens column), Get Ten More! Cross it out, count one down, bring the tens (10 ones) over, it's big enough now SUBTRACT!
Renaming the hundreds: More on the floor (in the tens column)? Go Next Door (to the hundreds column), Get 1 HUNDRED more! Cross it out, count one down, bring the hundred (10 tens) over, it's big enough now SUBTRACT!

Please let me know if you or your child needs more help and support in this area. Notes on their homework is perfect! Mrs. Smith and I will read them.

Science: We will take some time to review the life cycles we've learned about so far. Your scientists will take a test on Thursday. A review guide will come home with them on Tuesday evening. See if your child can describe the stages of life for a chicken, frog, butterfly, and plant.

Check out our cool Lima Bean experiment! We built a mini greenhouse to explore the life cycle of a plant:

History: This week, we will continue learning about the rich culture of India. Students will learn that Hinduism is a widely practiced religion in India and explore the caste system. Please ask your scholar to show you India on the map and describe some of the important geographical features, particularly: the Himalayas, the location of the Khyber Pass and Mojenjo-Daro, as well as neighboring bodies of water.

Love,
Mrs. Dombrowski

Week 7

Dear 2B Families,

As one of the kids said to me this week, "Mrs. D, we are SO close to October!" I just can't believe it. The beginning of the year is truly flying by. Fall Break, Report Cards, and Parent/Teacher Conferences will be here before we know it! Let's enjoy our last week of September next week :-). Please don't forget about our Service Project for September: Donations of dog toys, treats, food, and beds for a dog rescue called Underdog Rescue! There is also no school next Friday, September 30th. The teachers have a professional development day. Enjoy the extra day off!

Please take some time to fill out this homework survey. We appreciate your feedback.

Thank you again for all of the amazing birthday wishes and treats! I appreciate it! Here are a few pictures to share...

We celebrated another birthday this week! Happy Birthday sweet Sydney!

Next week in 2B...


Language Arts: Students will recite the poem we have been working on (Something Told the Wild Geese) independently in front of the class. I am looking for great posture and eye contact with the audience during this recitation! We will also finish Charlotte's Web this week. Charlotte has been acting very strange and we will find out what Wilbur’s fate is! We will continue building interesting sentences in grammar! We have learned so many parts of speech! Ask your grammar pro to sing you our newest jingle about article adjectives!


Spalding Words: We only have 20 words due to No School on Friday 9/30...
Monday: right, write, wrote, date, road, rode, ride, March, march, next
Tuesday: indeed, four, herself, power, wish, because, cause, world, country, meet, meat

There will be a "Reading Reflection Log" sent home on Monday to be used with your child's book. This will take the place of the reading logs with book name and signature.


Math: We have been talking a lot about renaming 10 ones as 1 ten and10 tens as 1 one hundred. In math this week we will work on renaming one ten into 10 ones with subtraction. We will learn a rhyming chant to help us remember, if there’s more on top, no need to stop! More on the floor? Go next door and get ten more! This is a challenging unit, but with diligent practice and patience, we will have successful mathematicians on our hands in no time!


Science: Can you believe that so far we have been lepidopterists (through studying butterflies), herpetologists (through learning frogs), and even ornithologists (when we learned about the life cycle of a chicken). We are continuing with our study on life cycles and growing into our next topic: the life cycle of a plant! We will be doing an experiment with a lima bean. Time to add botanist to our list!

History: Mrs. Smith brought her Kimono this week and taught us more about Japan. Thank you Mrs. Smith!
Next week, our journey will continue to another Asian country: India!  Ask your scholar to identify the country on a map and tell you why the Indus River was important in the formation of the ancient Indian civilization.

Love,
Mrs. Dombrowski

Popsicle Party!

Dear 2B Families,

Thank you to everyone who came to Math and Phonics Night on Wednesday. In case you missed it, here is our presentation from the evening along with the Spalding packet we handed out. We were able to share many tips and tricks for helping with Singapore Math and Spalding. 

Here are some math games you can play at home. In regards to math homework, please have your child correct any mistakes by asking them to, "Look at #__ again, I'm not sure that's correct." Have them self-check and don't over-help. Embrace the struggle! Please let me know if you need help with homemade math manipulatives. 

Please make sure the Spalding spelling words are being read to your child every night. They need to write the words without looking three times (plus separate the syllables and include markings - underline phonograms). Please read through the entire list list once (have them self-check, make corrections), twice (self-check, make corrections), and three times (self-check, make corrections). This will help them remember and practice each word. On Thursday evenings they will write it for spelling like a practice test.

Leveled readers for book logs will be sent home on Monday. Please let me know if we need to adjust your child's book. The goal is to practice fluency and accuracy. I did my best to match your child with a "just-right" book based on our DIBELS test scores.

A Special Note From Mrs. Smith...Here is a picture of Mr. & Mrs. Smith at Mr. Smith's Gallery Opening last weekend in Santa Monica, California!

On Monday we celebrated our good choices in August (from spelling the word FRIENDSHIP) with lunch outside and popsicles! Here are a few pictures:

Our next virtue we are trying to spell out as a class is PERSEVERANCE! We can earn letters by receiving compliments from our teachers. Our school-wide virtue is citizenship. How is your child being helpful at home and at school?

Here are some of our amazing Island Projects (grades for those were sent home in Friday Folders today)...





Next week in 2nd grade...

Language Arts: The students are doing great with reciting Something Told the Wild Geese. Check out the link so you can hear your students reciting the poem as a class. We listened to this video and the students LOVED the chorale version! 

We will continue working on Spalding phonograms and spelling words! Please be practicing the phonograms with your child each evening.
Spalding Words Next Week:
Monday: watch, dash, fell, fight, buy, by, stopping, stop, walk, talk, chalk
Tuesday: grant, soap, news, new, small, smaller, smallest, war, summer
Wednesday: above, express, turn, lesson, half, father, anything, table, high, June

In grammar we will learn about adjectives and article adjectives! We have been learning fun, catchy songs to help us remember the difference between all the parts of speech. Ask you grammar professional to sing their favorite song to you this week! 

In literature we are deep into Charlotte’s Web, we will follow the family as they attend the fair, and we will keep our fingers crossed for Wilbur as his fate is still unclear!


Math: In math will work on regrouping ten ones as one ten. While doing homework have your child articulate what they are doing (my answer is 14, so I will rename 10 ones as 1 ten, and leave 4 ones). We will work on recognizing even and odd numbers. We will also be adding 3 numbers together! The students are doing great with mental math, I am so impressed by the hard work and dedication!


History: This week, we will continue to journey through Japan, learning about the rich Japanese traditions in art and nature. Students will play a review game and take home a study guide for the unit test Friday.

Science: We are fluttering into our next life cycle study ~ can you guess what it is? It's the life cycle of a butterfly! Ask your young scientist if they can identify the stages of life in the animals we've learned about so far: a chicken, a frog, and now a butterfly.

Thank you! I hope you all have a wonderful weekend! I will be celebrating my 30th birthday with family, friends, and a food truck! Pictures to come on our post next week :-). Thank you for all of the warm wishes today! Have a great weekend!

Love,
Mrs. Dombrowski

Happy Grandparents Day!

Dear 2B Families,

It was heartwarming to see so many grandparents at school today! 

In honor of Grandparents Day here are pictures of my grandparents! I am blessed to still have one grandparent in my life today ~ my Abuela (in the tan jacket), now 82 years young! Grandparents are the BEST!


Shout out to TRENTON! He was recognized at our assembly today for showing RESPONSIBILITY all during August. We are so proud of you Trenton!

Math and Phonics night is taking place on Wednesday (9/14) in the evening from 6:00-7:30. Please plan on attending as we are ready to give you many tips and tricks on helping your child with our Singapore and Spalding curriculum! We look forward to seeing you here at school. 

Picture Day is on Thursday, September 15th. Order forms were sent home in your scholar's homework folder today. Please return these next week.

Here is what we will be learning next week in 2nd grade...

Language Arts...

Literature: We will continue to read Charlotte's Web. We will be reading chapters 14-16 this week. We will follow the animals as they travel to the county fair! We will also continue to be reporters and write newspaper articles about what is going on with Wilbur! Reading logs are looking great! Please continue signing as your child reads 20 minutes each evening. I will start sending home leveled books for the reading logs the week of September 19th.

Spalding Words Next Week:

Monday: peach, pole, queen, rope, season, sigh, space, wagon, wheat, window

Tuesday: catch, catcher, kitchen, butcher, black, warm, unless, clothing, clothes, clothe

Wednesday: began, begin, beginning, able, gone, go, done, do, suit, track

Writing: Our scholars will identify the central theme of a poem called My Shadow and we will continue to work on sentence dictation. 

Grammar: We will be introduced to prefixes, suffixes, and adverbs next week! We will review the topics learned in grammar so far, including classifying sentences, parts of a sentence, and capitalization rules.

Math: We will explore what happens when too many ones are in the ones column when we are adding, we will have to rename those ones into tens (if we have 12 ones in the one column we will rename 10 of those ones into 1 ten). Later the week we will talk about doing the reverse with subtraction. Students are doing great in math, and are working so hard on their math facts! I appreciate the diligence in practicing at home!

Working with number discs to build the problems:

History: This week in history, we will dive into Japan's unique geography. Can your scholar identify the landform that makes the country special? Also, we will talk about traditional Japanese cuisine, and compare our schools with theirs. I encourage you to find ways to celebrate Japanese culture at home! Did you know that Mrs. Smith, our very own Teaching Assistant, is half Japanese? We are excited to learn about some Japanese traditions from her. 

Our Island Projects looked awesome! Shout out to Alise for being the first scholar to present her island to the class. I will put a slideshow with ALL of our  projects on the blog next week!

Science: Next week we will continue with our unit on life cycles by introducing the life cycle of a frog (egg, tadpole, froglet, adult frog). We will learn about metamorphosis. Did you know that there are thousands of different kinds of frogs in the world and they don't all look alike? See if your 2nd grader can answer these to questions: Do you know what a group of frogs is called? Frogs live on every continent in the world except _____.

Have a wonderful and relaxing weekend!

Love,

Mrs. Dombrowski

September is here!

Dear 2B Families,

Can you believe September is here? Give a big cheer! We are one step closer to cooler Fall temperatures, football season, and pumpkin spice lattes! I hope your family has a wonderful long Labor Day weekend. Rest, relax, and enjoy! There is no homework this weekend.
On a personal note, September is one of my favorite months. Not only because it is my birthday month (I'm turning the BIG 3-0 this year) but it's also Childhood Cancer Awareness month and my very own niece, Elizabeth, is a retinoblastoma survivor! My heart feels so grateful during this month that Elizabeth beat this rare eye cancer. I hope that we can keep the children and families affected by childhood cancer in our thoughts always, but especially this month.



Testing & Tutoring: Your children did a great job this week with DIBELS testing and reciting our poem from August: Bed in Summer. We still have a few more to finish next week and I will send home their scoring rubrics next week. I also look forward to communicating the results of our DIBELS testing very soon. It was a great opportunity to sit one-on-one with each scholar to hear them read out loud to me. If I feel that your child is a candidate for tutoring, I will reach out to you on an individual basis. We will use BURST reading intervention during our academic day and I am planning math tutoring after school two days a week.


Shout Out: Yay Lilah! She was our very first scholar who volunteered to recite Bed in Summer! She showed courage!

Wish List Item Highlight:



The students would love to have a basketball to play with at recess.

Here is a preview of what we will be learning next week (9/6-9/9):

Language Arts: Literature: In Charlotte's Web the students will continue to watch Wilbur and Charlotte's friendship blossom and the Avery family travels to the fair! We will identify Charlotte’s talents, our own talents, and talents in our friends! Students will take a close look at spider webs, to see how intricate they are, and how they are formed!
We created a Friendship Web this week! We threw a ball of yarn to each classmate telling them how they show friendship. We also SPELLED out FRIENDSHIP and earned a class celebration/reward.

Time to move on to our next classroom virtue: PERSEVERANCE - WOW! Let's see when we can earn all 12 letters!

Spalding: Due to the short week we will only have twenty spelling words this week. 10 will be given on Tuesday and 10 on Wednesday. We will continue to learn about punctuation rules and discuss why they are needed.
Tuesday: stamp, light, coming, come, night, pass, shut, easy, ease, bone
Wednesday: cloud, draw, drink, garden, goose, hopping, hop, knife, mouth, oak

Poem: We will be practicing stanza two from Something Told the Wild Geese.

Math: We will continue to practice our mental math within 1000 through practice, practice, and more practice! Singapore's coined saying is "practice makes permanent". This week we will be working hard to make those math facts permanent!

Students have been modeling problems with place value discs. It has helped us to visualize each math problem. Here are two pictures...


History: Island Projects are due on Wednesday, September 7th and we are excited that these will be presented during class. Your young geographers will be also be recalling facts about North, South, and Central America through playing a trivia game next week. On Friday there will be a "Geography of the Americas" quiz. Afterward, we will briefly introduce the next stop on our travels: Japan! Our scholars will locate Japan on the map and identify Japan as a country made up of four main islands. We are excited that Mrs. Smith will share some of our knowledge about Japan since she is half Japanese!

Science: Next week we will move from learning about the seasonal cycle to learning about life cycles. We will begin by studying life cycle of a chicken. What came first, the chicken or the egg?Here is our new "Seasons" bulletin board:



Other announcements: We will be focusing on a new virtue for the month of September! We will be talking about Citizenship, and doing our part. We will introduce a service project for the month of September on Tuesday. We will be requesting dog toys, treats, food, and beds for a dog rescue called Underdog Rescue!

Wishing you a safe & relaxing Labor Day Weekend!

Mrs. Dombrowski

Salutations!

Salutations 2B Families!

In Chapter 9 of Charlotte's Web Charlotte told Wilbur, "Slowly, slowly! Never hurry and never worry!" What a great mantra to live by. We tried to adopt this as we were entering and exiting the classroom door this week.

Thank you to all of the families who have donated Wish List items. I appreciate it so very much. It might not seem like a big deal but it makes a BIG difference in the life of a teacher. I thank you from the bottom of my heart. There are still a few things on our list if you are able to donate...please see the sidebar :-).

Happy Birthday Francesca and John Paul 8/22

Your children did a great job on their MAP Testing yesterday! It was their first time taking a computer assessment like this one and we are so proud of how hard they worked. They have memorized how to fill in the missing words when I say, "I will do my BEST...I will WORK HARD...I won't GIVE UP!" It's a beautiful thing to hear! They have also been working diligently on our classroom pledge each morning.

MAP Testing

MAP Testing

MAP Testing

Grandparent's Day ~ RSVP here: http://www.signupgenius.com/go/30e084da5a929aa8-grandparents

As a grandparent of an Archway Arete student, we hope you can join us for our first annual Grandparents Day Event! Coffee and refreshments will be served in our new library with the headmaster at 8am. An assembly begins at 8:30am where you can enjoy a song and poem recitation by our students. Virtue awards will also be presented. After the assembly you will have the chance to sign up for our special "Heritage Society" and have a tour of our campus. We hope you can join us for this special event!

Reserved parking in the front of the building will begin at 8am and please sign in at the front office desk before proceeding to the library or assembly. Overflow parking will be available at "The Falls" event center just East of our campus on Baseline Road.

DIBELS testing will begin next week. DIBELS is done three times to a year to measure your child's growth in reading. This is when we will assess nonsense word fluency (looking for phonemic awareness), oral reading fluency (reading out loud ~ 60 seconds timed), and retell (comprehension). I am looking forward to this one on one time with each of your children to listen to them read out loud to me. I should be able to identify areas for growth. I will communicate results with you when we are finished. It will take a little over a week to complete. 

Curriculum Next Week 8/29-9/2:

Language Arts:
Poetry: The students will recite Bed in Summer in front of the class this week! As you can tell from the audio clip, they are doing great! I can't wait to hear the recitations again this week! On Monday, in your child's red folder, you will receive our next recitation: Something Told by the Wild Geese by Rachel Field. Please start to work on memorizing stanza 1 with your child this week!

Literature: We will continue to read Charlotte's Web chapters 10-12 this week. We will talk about what character traits make a good friend, and identify friendships in our lives that have virtuous character traits! We will create a "class web" by throwing a ball of yarn to a classmate while telling them why they are such a great friend!

Spalding: Please continue to practice phonograms and handwriting at home with your child (3-5 minutes of phonogram practice each evening is a great goal). Handwriting is looking great! Thank you for your diligent support with it!

Spelling words for next week...

Monday: move, delay, pound, behind, around, burn, camp, bear, bare, clear
Tuesday: clean, spell, poor, finish, hurt, maybe, across, tonight, tenth, sir
Wednesday: these, those, club, seen, see, felt, full, fail, setting, set

Writing/Grammar: Mrs. Smith has been doing a great job teaching Writing & Grammar! Next week we will work on central ideas of a narrative passage, commands, and questions. We will also review the rules of punctuation and capitalization. 
Mrs. Smith also wanted to share the Grammar Jingles with you that we have been using in class. Here they are: 

Sentence Jingle: https://youtu.be/RglRL1w_Umw
Noun Jingle: https://youtu.be/cSJizZdGG0k
Verb Jingle: https://youtu.be/bPGuiUmuY9g

Math: This week students will review addition and subtraction of one digit numbers using mental math strategies. We will also explore word problems, and work on mental math where renaming occurs. Please help your child "visualize" math by asking them their math facts in the car and encouraging them not to use their fingers. Talk about "breaking apart" the number, for example; eight can be broken down in to 5 and 3, or 6 and 2. In the problem 4 + 8 we will talk to the students about breaking down 8 into something that can help the 4 make 10, so now our new problem is 10+2.

Rocket Math is going well! Please continue to practice flashcards at home to build fact fluency.

Rocket Math

History: We are traveling to South America is history this week! We are going to learn about Simon Bolivar, and why he is was so important to the people of South America. We will learn about life in the central Andes and discuss how it is different from lifestyles in other places. The students will locate and describe the four countries that make up the southern cone.
Don't forget about the Island Project (due September 7th). Here are the directions and rubric: (See the blog post from last week for example pictures)

Rubric

Science: Next week we will conclude our unit on the Seasons of the Year. Be sure to ask your young scientist about "The Reasons for the Seasons" and see if they can tell you about the tilt of planet earth. We will explore more closely the affect each season has on the weather, humans, plants, and animals.

Seasons

Thank you for the Sunday newspaper donations. We were able to do our Science activity of leaf rubbing with no problems at all...

Leaf Rubbing

Wishing you all a beautiful weekend!

Love,
Mrs. D

Week Two Flew!

Dear 2B Families,

Thank you for attending Curriculum Night on Wednesday! It was wonderful getting a chance to meet with you and talk about the exciting things in store this year for your young scholars. Mrs. Smith and I are grateful for you taking time out of your evening schedule to attend. We will be sure to answer your questions and hopefully address any concerns you have throughout the year. Here is the presentation from Curriculum Night (in case you missed it). For those who could not make it, I sent home the information in your child's homework folder.

***Please don't forget to send in a spiral notebook for French class.***
A note about MAP testing:

Today your children took a practice MAP (Measures of Academic Progress) test on a laptop. Please click here to learn more. The goal in 2nd grade is to spend time learning and troubleshooting the test. We want to ensure that our students are well prepared academically and are familiar with computer assessments for the AZMerit they will take in 3rd grade. We will be taking the real MAP test on Thursday. Please tell your children not to worry and just do their best on their test! Mrs. Smith and I will be available to assist when needed.

We celebrated two more birthdays this week!

Happy Birthday Leilani! 8/16

Happy Birthday Alise! 8/20

Curriculum Updates for Next Week:

Literature: We will continue reading Charlotte's Web this week. In chapters 7-9 we will continue to watch Wilbur and Charlotte's friendship unfold. We will learn the phrase "back to the drawing board" as Wilbur tries and fails to spin a web.

Poetry: We will practice Bed in Summer stanzas 1-3 this week, and the students will be reciting the poem for the class next week!

Spalding: We will continue with 10 words each day, and a 30 word spelling test on Friday. Please continue to closely monitor your child's handwriting!

Monday: first, sent, cent, mile, seem, even, without, afternoon, Friday, hour
Tuesday: our, wife, state, July, head, story, open, short, lady, reach

Wednesday: better, water, round, cost, price, become, class, horse, care, try

Grammar: We will add a new jingle to our list! The verb jingle! We will also learn capitalization and punctuation rules and apply them to our writing. Ask your child to sing the SENTENCE jingle they learned!

Math: We will review unit 1 (numbers to 1000) Monday and Tuesday and test over unit one on Wednesday, Tuesday nights homework will provide wonderful practice for Wednesday’s test. We will review comparing and ordering numbers, place value, writing numbers in various forms and symbols ( <, >, =). Then we will jump into unit 2! In unit 2 we will learn strategies for mental math using addition and subtraction!

I would love to purchase a classroom set of Base 10 Blocks or Place Value Disks for the students to use at their desks. Please let me know if you'd be interested in helping donate these items as we may need a group of parents to help :-).

History:

Our journey will go on as we continue discussing basic facts about Canada and then head South to Mexico and Central America. We will learn about the origin of the West Indies, languages, symbols as well as review the history of the Aztecs and Mexico City.

As requested, here are some Island Project examples from last year (Due September 7). The goal is to be creative and have fun!

Science: Your young scientists will continue learning about the seasons of the year. Students will to be able identify characteristics of each season and explore how plants, animals, and humans are affected. We will review how the seasons change by the earth's tilt and its revolution around the sun (ask your young scholar about the demonstration we did with a globe and a lamp). Mrs. Smith helped us understand it better...

If you could help us out with our leaf rubbing activity by donating your Sunday newspaper to the classroom we would greatly appreciate it! You can send those in on Monday or Tuesday morning.

Have a wonderful weekend!

Love,

Mrs. Dombrowski