Dear Parents,
Here we are at the end of the second quarter of school. It is hard to believe that that the year is about half over. All the children have shown gains since the beginning of the year that is exciting to see. It is always around this time of year that the children move from being second graders to truly being third graders. Their confidence and skill begin to solidify and they start to take off as independent learners.
Even with a shortened week, we were able to pack in a lot of good learning. We continued to work on comprehension skills in Language Arts this week. Using graphic organizers the children continued to practice collecting information about a story as they read, and then take their notes and write a summary of the story. In addition to the content in their paragraphs, the children are also working on the mechanics. Spelling, capitalization, punctuation, and paragraph structure continue to be a focus in all our writing. The science projects on food chains and food webs were great to see come together. The children did a nice job collecting their materials at home, and did some good research about animals in their selected bioms. Watching the children carefully place their animals and draw lines to demonstrate who eats whom was exciting to see. The children also demonstrated their full understanding as they shared their projects with the others in the class. In math this week we reviewed patterns and began looking at things that come in groups. This began our unit on multiplication. The children will be working on learning and cementing their understanding of facts to 12. I would encourage everyone to have a set of multiplication cards at home to help with daily practice.
As you know, the children will be swimming at the new Yorktown pool beginning on Wednesday the 25th. Each child will need a suit and towel in a separate bag to take to the pool with them. Some children do prefer to wear their suits under their clothes as they come to school as we have swimming first thing. If your child chooses to do this please make sure there is underwear in their bag for them to change into before coming back to school. As the children will be coming back to school with wet heads, please be sure they have a hat or hood on their coat to cover up for the ride back to Tuckahoe. We are also in need of a couple more volunteers to help the girls in the locker room. As I mentioned last week this would entail meeting the bus at the pool at 9:45 to assist the girls in changing and getting onto the pool deck with their towels, and then again from about 10:45 to help them change back into their street clothes and make sure nothing is left behind in the locker room. If you can help with any part of our swimming week with this please let me know.
Below are a couple of important dates to put on your calendars:
Friday January 20th- Last day of 2nd Quarter
Monday January 23rd- Teacher Work Day- No School for Children
Wednesday January 25-Tuesday January 31- Swimming at Yorktown
Friday January 27- Sock Hop
As always, I appreciate your help and support. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me.
