The Toucan Squawk, Sept. 23 - 27

Hello families...I hope everyone has had a great week!  This week we have been working our way through double digit subtraction with regrouping, as well as reviewing addition with regrouping.  You'll start to notice both concepts being included in the homework starting next week.  This will really help cement the concepts to carry through the school year.  The students learned three different chants to help them with double digit addition and subtraction.  I'll send home a copy of these chants to help with the upcoming homework. 

We have also been working on a new writing craft- a candy corn project centered around writing about a book.  The writing will be finalized tomorrow, and the pieces will be put together tomorrow and Friday.

News

 

Oct. 11               Teacher in-service, 1/2 day early release at 11:30.

Oct. 14               Columbus day

Oct. 14 - 18        Fall Break, no school

Oct. 25               Report cards sent home

Oct. 30               Teacher in-service, 1/2 day early release at 11:30.      

Birthdays

10/9                    Illiyanna
10/25                  Alex
10/27                  Cristian


Thank you for all you do!

Elizabeth Townsend
PDS
Second Grade
Elizabeth.townsend@svps.k12.az.us

Spelling words

It seems I may have not included the spelling words in everyone's mailboxes for today...my apologies about that.

Here they are!

• good
• book
• when
• soon
• what
• too
• took
• school
• who
• shook

 

Elizabeth Townsend

www.townsendtropicaltoucans.blogspot.com
PDS
Second Grade
515-2970

The Toucan Squawk, Sept. 16 - 20

Hello families...I hope everyone has had a great week!  We will be painting the class t-shirts tomorrow!  I'm so excited for this, and I hope the students are excited about it too.  Please send them to school either wearing something they can get paint on, or something they can put over their regular clothing (larger t-shirt or an apron for example).  We will be using permanent fabric paint, and I don't want to get any of it on any clothing that is special.  The t-shirts will stay in the classroom over the weekend to dry and everyone can take them home on Monday.

This week we have been working on a small moment writing for everyone's writing portfolio.  We have also started, and will finish tomorrow, on a pumpkin craft using the three types of nouns- person, place, and thing.  These along with the scarecrows the students finished last week will be displayed in the classroom.  We have also been continuing to work on double digit addition with regrouping.  Next week, admittedly, will be tougher.  We'll be working on double digit subtraction with and without regrouping.  We may use an extra week to cover this unit depending on how everyone does.  I'm keeping my finger crossed all of the students will feel successful and confident in this tough unit!  We covered a new Beanie Baby reading strategy- Foxy.  This Beanie covers figuring out word families to read new words.  Word families like words which begin with br, tr, th are all words which can be tricky for a lot of students.  Working with Foxy is really helpful for everyone.

The students will be taking their next Galileo benchmark on the computers next Monday the 23rd.  This is the same test they took earlier this month.  The next time the students will take the test will be at the end of the second quarter, the week of Oct. 11th.  The 23rd is also picture day!  We will be taking both the class pictures and the single pictures.  The students took home the flyer last week.  Please turn this in or order online. 

News
Sept. 23           Picture day!
Sept. 25          Teacher in-service, 1/2 day early release at 11:30.

Birthdays
Sept. 23          Holly
Sept. 24          Isaac



Thank you for all you do!

Elizabeth Townsend
PDS
Second Grade
elizabeth.townsend@svps.k12.az.us

The Toucan Squawk, Sept. 9 - 13

Hello families!  I hope everyone has had a great week.  We have been reviewing maps this week and will continue into early next week.  We have also started on double digit addition with and without regrouping- which has been a tough yet exciting unit for the students.  I will be pulling intervention groups next week during afternoon math rotations to reteach this unit- I really think that's going to help a lot of the students to review it and gain more confidence in this tough unit.  We started on working with science- starting and completing the science books which will carry the students through their science for this quarter.  We completed the experiment today- which was a lot of fun!  We will be continuing science through the quarter, using the same science book to be sent home with grades at the end of the quarter.  These grades will be based on the rubric scoring.

We have had another case of lice in the classroom.  Please check your students to verify if they do not have lice.  If they do, they cannot come to school until the lice and eggs (nits) have been treated.


News

Sept. 25        Teacher in-service, 1/2 day early release at 11:30.


Birthdays

Sept. 23        Holly
Sept. 24        Isaac

Thank you for all you do!

Elizabeth Townsend
PDS
Second Grade
elizabeth.townsend@svps.k12.az.us
             

The Toucan Squawk, Sept. 3 - Sept. 6

Hello families!  This week has simply flown by!  We've been pretty busy working on even and odd numbers for the past week.  This unit will continue into next week with math rotations in the afternoons, including intervention groups.  The students have finished writing their final copy for their small moment writing.  They have started making their scarecrow craft which will go with their writing, and then put up on the walls.  I'm also planning on pulling intervention groups next week to review maps, continents, and oceans.  Depending on how your student does on the interventions, this may or may not change the current social studies grade.  At that point, whatever the grade is will remain for the rest of the quarter and will be on the grade report for quarter 1.  This coming week will also include a science experiment- we will be covering the scientific method and some vocabulary words.  The experiment should prove to be pretty fun for everyone!  This week we will also be continuing to work on our Beanie Baby reading strategies- I'll be sending home the list of the Beanie Babies and their strategies tomorrow in everyone's homework folders.  This green sheet can stay in the folders to help with homework completion.  I'm also sending home the official progress report- this will be your copy to keep at home.  I should be getting the ParentVue login information for you either tomorrow or sometime next week- I will also send this home.

Next week will also be- finally!- the start of our reading groups.  This grade will also be included in everyone's reading grade for the coming weeks.  I'll be meeting with the students twice a week to read together, discuss reading strategies, and grammar.  The other days of the week the students will be buddy reading.  These reading groups will not only help your child achieve their AR goal for the week, but it will also help them become a better and more confident reader.  I'm really looking forward to meeting with everyone during the coming weeks!


News

Sept. 6         1/2 day early release at 11:30.
Sept. 11       1/2 day early release at 11:30, teacher in-service.
Sept. 25       1/2 day early release at 11:30, teacher in-service.

Birthdays

Sept. 23       Holly
Sept. 24       Isaac



Thank you for all you do!

Elizabeth Townsend
PDS
Second Grade
Elizabeth.townsend@svps.k12.az.us

The Toucan Squawk, Aug. 26 - Aug. 30

Hello families!  I hope everyone had a great week.  The students finished up place value this week and have moved into skip counting- which has been really fun once they figured out it can help them with multiplication.  We don't cover multiplication in second grade, but letting them know it's something they'll see in third grade kept them motivated for the unit.  We also covered compound words with various activities and work pages.  This coming week, we'll be covering ABC order to the 2nd letter.  Some of the work will also be on to the third letter, which can be challenging.  For math, we'll be covering identifying even and odd numbers.  This will be a great unit since we just covered place value to the thousands- something which will come into play this coming week. 

The students are finishing up a writing craft- about a small moment- and then making a scarecrow to go with that writing.  It's a super cute craft the kids will be able to have up on the walls- hopefully some of them will be up for this coming week's conferences.

Speaking of conferences, if the time I sent home doesn't work please let me know as soon as possible.  I can reschedule accordingly- and if a phone or email conference is best, please let me know.  I will, unfortunately, be able to give you any login information for the online grade book Synergy- the district office hasn't passed on any of that information to us yet.  I should be getting the information I need to pass on to you sometime the week of Sept. 9th.

This coming week the students will also be taking their pretest on the computers on a program called Galileo.  The students will be taking pretty much the same test each quarter and at the end of the school year.  It will be on reading and math- and should take about 2 hours.  I'm anxious to see how they can handle sitting at the computers for 2 hours- but I'm sure they'll be able to handle it.

Today I also found out we have a case of lice in the classroom.  I told the kiddos that if they are itching their heads a lot they need to let me know.  I can send them to the nurse at that point.  I always figure, better safe than sorry.  The nurse did come in this morning and check the student's friends and they were ok.


News
Sept. 2           Labor Day, no school.
Sept. 5           Parent/Teacher Conferences, 1/2 day early release.
Sept. 11         1/2 day early release at 11:30, teacher in-service.
Sept. 25         1/2 day early release at 11:30, teacher in-service.


Birthdays
Holly             9/23
Isaac              9/24



Thank you for all you do!

Elizabeth Townsend
PDS
Second grade
elizabeth.townsend@svps.k12.az.us

Spelling Words, Aug. 19 - 23

OPPS!  I forgot to give the kiddos their spelling words for the week-  my apologies about that.  They'll get a list tomorrow morning.  I will give them some time to do that spelling homework tomorrow morning, and then they can turn it in afterwards:

send
pick
end
both
fast
last
must
just
bath
black


Thank you for all you do!

Elizabeth Townsend
PDS
Second Grade
elizabeth.townsend@svps.k12.az.us