As part of our Valentine’s Day celebration, we will be exchanging valentines in class on Tuesday, February 14th.  Please provide a valentine for every member of our class.  Please remember, we do have allergies in our classroom.

In the last few weeks, I have observed some of the 3T students who are trying to tackle more difficult books.

We are focusing our energies on becoming better readers this month.  We have thoroughly discussed the importance of picking just right books.  If you are reading a book that is too hard or too challenging for you, you will have trouble retelling the story in your own words.  There may be vocabulary or nuances that you are unable to understand.

Understanding the general idea of the story is very different than thoroughly comprehending the story.  Everyone should be reading a book that they enjoy and can understand.  We are also discussing predictions, connections, character traits, story diagrams, and strategies that we use to understand the texts that we read.  We want to be able to write about our reading by using examples from the text.

If your child wants to try and tackle a book that is above their reading level, maybe he/she can try listening to the book on tape while following along with a hard copy?  Or, maybe reading it with a grown-up?

What’s for lunch in February?

February2012web

The Hindley Spiriteers will be sponsoring a Math-a-thon during the months of January and February.  We could all use some help practicing our math skills, and this is a terrific way to help St. Jude patients battling cancer and other catastrophic childhood diseases.

Each classroom will be showing a brief introductory video to introduce the students to the Math-a-thon.  The rest is up to the students of Hindley School!  Last year, we were able to raise over $12,000.00 for St. Jude’s.  Could we do the same or better this year?

Math-a-thon is a free educational program to help raise funds for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital® and is designed to supplement our existing math curriculum, while also teaching students the importance of helping others. The program includes a fun, free math curriculum supplement provided by Scholastic featuring comic book characters for grades K-8.  St. Jude has partnered with Scholastic, the world’s leader in educational technology and children’s media, to incorporate national math standards into our Math-a-thon program. Each Funbook level meets national standard requirements that will help your students practice and prepare for standardized testing.

How does it work?  After students get their parents’ permission to participate they will receive a Math-a-thon Funbook and Sponsor Form Envelope. Students obtain pledges from family and friends, supporting their efforts to improve their math skills and their support of St. Jude. After completing the Funbook, students collect pledges and turn them in to the school’s designated Math-a-thon coordinators (Mrs. Belmonte and Mrs. Turschmann) along with their prize selection. Keep an eye on your child’s backpack for permission and sponsor forms. Let’s practice those math skills!!

Students are currently learning about immigration in Social Studies.  We are studying why people immigrated to the US and how that affects global communities.   We have also discussed what it would be like to move to a new place that has different traditions, foods, clothes, and cultures.  The boys and girls will be asking you at home the question, “What country(s) did our family come from when they immigrated to the United States?”

Each student will then choose one of the countries you have identified to him/her in order to decorate a paper doll.  I will give each student a plain paper doll to use for this project.  He/she should decorate the doll in the native dress or dress unique to that country’s history or culture.  Students are not to just color the paper doll, but should use fabric, construction paper, hair, etc. to create his/her person.

Students have been shown examples (see Mrs. Hotchkiss’ bulletin board) to understand what is expected.   Our dolls will be displayed on our bulletin board once the project has been completed.

Dolls are due on Wednesday, 1/18.

We are continuing our recycling initiative at Hindley and will be starting Trash Free Tuesdays on Tuesday January 10th.  How can you participate?

• Try to create less garbage and recycle more
• Pack a trash-free lunch- no ziplocs, no paper, no disposable water bottles
• Use reusable water bottles, Tupperware, Snapware, Lunchskins, or Wrap-n-mats

Did you know:

•    38 billion plastic water bottles end up in landfill each year.
•    Plastic water bottles take 700 years before they start to decompose.
•    Children’s lunches create 3.5 billion pounds of garbage each year.
•    18,000 pounds of trash is generated each year from one average-sized elementary school.
•    It takes a 15-year-old tree to produce 700 brown paper bags.
•    The average child generates 67 pounds of lunchtime trash each year.
•    Trash is often mistaken for food and eaten by sea life.
•    The United States has 6% of the population and produces half of the world’s garbage.

Happy New Year!

Here is a quick rundown of what will be happening in the 3T classroom during the month of January…

Reader’s Workshop:  We will be focusing our energies this month on Mysteries.  What is an accomplice, a red herring, a sidekick, or a motive?  We will be learning these vocabulary words and many more as we tackle mysteries and learn to read closely.  Some of our favorite mystery series include Cam Jansen, A-Z Mysteries, Nancy Drew, Encyclopedia Brown, the Calendar Club Mysteries, and the Capital Mysteries.  Many of these books will be appearing in our Weekly Reading Logs as we investigate and use our detective skills!

Writer’s Workshop:  January will be a month of writing our Informational books.  What nonfiction topics do we know a lot about?  Some of our topics will include sports, animals, hobbies, places, activities, and games.  We will be learning about nonfiction writing and how it compares to fiction and personal narrative writing.  At the end of the month, our informational books will be available for viewing on our bulletin board outside of the 3T classroom!

Mathematics:  Multiplication is here!  We started our discussion today with what we already know about multiplication.  We know that it is a faster way to add, and the “X” means to multiply, groups of, rows of, and times.  We brainstormed many items that comes in groups of 2′s (hands, feet, socks, shoes, mittens), 3′s (sides on a triangle, tennis balls in a can), 4′s (chair legs, car tires, animal legs, sides on a square), and 5′s (fingers, toes, sides on a pentagon).  As we think of groups of numbers, this will help us to visualize multiplication.  It is essential that all students start to practice their multiplication facts as we learn all of them in class.  Don’t forget…  keep practicing addition and subtraction too!  We don’t want to lose the knowledge that we have already gained this year!

Social Studies:  For the first few weeks of January, we will be focusing on History and Immigration.  Most of our families have emigrated from another country to the United States.  As we learn about Immigration in class, each student will be coming home with a doll that they will need decorate.  Directions will be covered in class, and will be sent home with the project.  More details will follow…

Science:  Toward the end of January, we will be visiting with Mrs. Hotchkiss to learn about Rocks and Minerals.  There will be a number of experiments that will take place in her classroom as we learn about the rocks and minerals that make up our Earth, as well as those found naturally right here in Darien.

Cursive:  As second graders, students learned the cursive alphabet and we will be doing a review of the uppercase and lowercase letters.  Please check out the link on the right side listed under “Blogroll”, Cursive- Animated.  Each letter can be clicked on with a mouse to see how it is correctly formed.

Dismissal:  If your child is not going home by his/her regular routine, please send a note into school in the morning.  If there is an emergency change in departure, please contact the Main Office as soon as possible so that the change can be noted before the dismissal bells ring at 2:45pm.  If you child has a playdate, please write a note clearly stating who the playdate will be with, and the mode of transportation that he/she will be using (including bus numbers) to leave Hindley School.  Notes are required for a change in dismissal.

Yikes, it is getting cold outside!  We will be going outside for lunchtime recess as often as possible, so please make sure that your child is dressed appropriately.  Coats, mittens, gloves, hats, and scarves will help to keep the students warm while they are outdoors for the 20 minutes of lunchtime recess!

In second grade, all students learned how to write both upper and lowercase letters in cursive.  We will be practicing these letters as part of our homework because we will need to write in cursive as we move into the upper grades.

Here are a few items to help you:

Cursive- Left Hand Writers

CursiveRightHand

Cursive & Print Alphabet

If you cannot remember how to form the letters correctly, check out this website.  Each letter is animated and shows you exactly how to write each letter:

http://www.handwritingforkids.com/handwrite/cursive/animation/

Reader’s Workshop:  We are working in book groups and thinking about our reading.  Why did the author write this book?  How did the main character change in the story?  We are using some BIG questions to help us understand our reading.

Writer’s Workshop:  We are working on writing short fiction stories.  No matter what our genre of writing might be, we always want to pick a topic that we know a lot about.  We have noticed that there are many similarities between personal narratives and short fiction– the same rules apply!  We still need to include details and description, capitals and periods, and make sure that our stories are interesting and exciting.

Math:  We have finished our unit on graphs, charts, and tables.  We learned how to collect data and create picture graphs and bar graphs.    Everyone should be practicing their addition and subtraction facts!

Science:  We are finishing up our unit with Mrs. Belmonte about animal adaptations.  We have learned how animals survive by adapting to their environment and surroundings.

Coming up soon:  Reading Mysteries, Writing How-to Books, and Multiplication!

Brrr…  it’s cold outside!  Please make sure your child is dressed appropriately for the cold weather.  Hats, gloves, mittens, scarves, and winter coats will keep us warm.  We will be going outside as much as possible for lunchtime recess!

Enjoy the holidays and the break from school.  We have a lot to learn when we return in January! 

What’s for lunch in the month of January?

January Student Lunch Menu