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, which
are 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.
Academically this has been a full
week. We continue to work on creating
Multiplication folders that focus on a different group of facts per page. In addition the children are practicing their
knowledge through games like “Around the World.” Please remember 10minutes of practice at home
each night is essential for mastery of these facts. In Language Arts this week our focus was on
writing paragraphs. The children worked
on creating topic sentences followed by details, reasons and concluding
sentences. They enjoyed the example of
“Tell your readers what you are going to tell them. Tell them. Tell they what you told them.” It
will be fun to see how they all incorporate these new skills into future
writing pieces. In Social Studies we
began our Unit on Ancient Rome and will learning about this civilization over
the next couple of weeks. In Science we
wrapped up our study of Living Things and will begin learning about the Water
Cycle beginning next week.
In addition to our regular
curriculum we took time this week to talk about Dr. Martin Luther King and his
accomplishments. We read the book Martin’s
Big Words and followed up our reading with a discussion of the Civil Rights
movement. This led to further talk about
fairness and what vision the children have for their future. They chose their own “big words” to create
books to express their dreams.
We also discussed the upcoming
Inauguration of President Obama. In
Language Arts the children took time to read the Oath of Office and rewrite it
using synonyms for many of the key words.
We also used the age of previous Presidents at the time of their
Inauguration to create graphs. It was a fun way to review different graphs and
learn a bit about the past Presidents.
As you know, the children will be
swimming at the new Yorktown pool beginning on Wednesday the 30th. 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 in the morning.
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 volunteers to help the girls in the locker
room. As I mentioned last week this
would entail meeting the bus at the pool at 10:30 to assist the girls in
changing and getting onto the pool deck with their towels, and then again from
about 11:30 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 18- End of 2nd
Quarter
Monday,
January 21- Dr. King Holiday-
Schools Closed
Tuesday,
January 22- Teacher Workday- No
school for students
Wednesday, January 23- FULL DAY OF SCHOOL/NO EARLY RELEASE
Friday,
January 25- Disco Dance-7pm
Wednesday,
January 30- Tuesday February 5-
Swimming at Yorktown Pool
As always, I appreciate your help
and support. If you have any questions,
please feel free to contact me.
