Holiday Happenings for December

HO HO HO   

Holiday Happenings for December!                                

December 1, 2011

Dear Parents,

This month will go by quickly and Christmas break will be here before we know it.  I will need as much help as you can give in the classroom. Please any parents that can give and hour in the mornings 8:30-9:30 or late afternoons from 2:00-2:40 please contact me or just come in.  I have lots of holiday activities that I need help with I am just one elf and will need extra hands in order to pull of the Christmas around the world activities and arts and crafts I have planned.  I am also looking for one or two parents to take charge and set up a party for the last hour of Wednesday December 21^st  from 1:00-2:00. The second gr ade as a team will be planning and providing a Polar Express Morning for the entire 2^nd grade, but the afternoon party hour will need to be parent organized and run...   I have planned one story/game for the children after lunch.  I am asking that each child bring one giant sized wrapped chocolate bar of any kind and we will be reading the Right Family Christmas Story. Each child will get to unwrap and keep the chocolate bar they have at the end of the story. This is always a holiday favorite game and the students get a chance to give and receive.  More info will follow once I have parents to plan the last hour of the day?  Cookie decorating, gingerbread houses, games?

I need parents to sign up or e-mail me if you can help on the following days:

Monday 12/19 I need Art Parents from 1:00-2:40 we will be making frames for our parent gifts that afternoon and gift bags. (just pretend you didn’t see yours)

Tuesday 12/20 from 1:00-2:40 I need one parent to help us Christmas Carol the building we will be singing our own 12 -----of Christmas song that the students will write and illustrate. We will go to as many classrooms as sign up to have us visit and spread our

Christmas Cheer!

Wednesday 12/21 from  12:45-2:00 as mentioned above parent planned and run afternoon party.

Reading: We will be finishing up our Unit on Kindness before the Christmas break.  Our new 6 week unit will begin when we return from the holidays. The new unit theme will be about animals and camouflage.  Like zoologists, students will be studying animals in their natural habitats.  We will “travel” to different parts of the world to observe animals living in various environments and to observe the specialized adaptations they have developed to survive where they live. Students will learn more about animals they already know and become acquainted with many new ones, as they peek into jungles, swamps, deserts, forest, ponds, mountains, and grasslands. By reading the selections in this new unit, students will discover various forms of camouflage, and learn why it is so critical to may wildlife creatures. I want my students to learn that not all animals camouflage themselves in the same way, and not all of the same reasons. There will be much to be discovered on this journey. I am excited about this theme because it is always engaging no matter what the gender of your child. Boys and girls alike are unusually drawn into the theme and there is nothing better than watching their excitement and enthusiasm about reading.  We continue to work on reading comprehension strategies during literature circle time with RT’s help. Ask your child who RT is and what tools he uses to become a good reader?

Math:  We will be finishing Topic 8 adding two-digit numbers with regrouping before the Christmas break.  We are learning new strategies along with the traditional methods of algorithm that give students options of solving problems multiple ways.  Math instruction is moving in the direction of children using critical thinking skills to solve everyday math. I am providing a link for parents to read up on the new math strategies that might give you more insight into this kind of instruction.

http://beyondtheblue.boisestate.edu/blog/2011/11/28/jonathan-brendefur/ (click on podcast)

FYI  we will be finishing Topic 8 the week of December 12^th and I will not begin the new unit until we come back due so please believe you child when they tell you they do not have any math homework the last week before break. We will instead be catching up on Chess lessons and practicing building our facts with automaticity.

Character:  I have to begin by telling you that my own class has taught me the value of teaching character building education.  My students show me their true gifts of character each and everyday and I am amazed by the integrity I get to witness. This month our new virtue is Compassion and Caring for others.  We will begin the sale of our Friendship for Families bracelets Tuesday December 6^th. The entire second grade has been busy making bracelets for sale and the proceeds will go to supports a family at Christmas.  I have been amazed at how many bracelets have come in and many students involved their entire family in the project.  Thank you for your support at home for this project.

Report cards will come home the last day of school before the break. I will not be sending home Friday folders that day so you will need to check your child’s backpack and contact me if this does not make it home!  Please feel free to e-mail me with any questions or concerns about progress.  LHedberg@msd134.org

P.S. I would love to hear from parents if you would like me to continue once a month newsletters. I blog and send hardcopies it is time consuming and I think it is valuable for most?? Let me know if you enjoy it and find it informative?

 

I hope you have a very joyous holiday with your children and families see you next year!

Sincerely,

Mrs. Hedberg

Friendship for Families Project

 

 

Our class has been given the special opportunity to help a Mill Creek family this holiday season. We have been invited to make and sell friendship bracelets. Any bracelets we make will go towards sponsoring a Mill Creek family and will go towards food, winter clothing, and/or gifts. The making of the bracelets will be done almost entirely at home and as always will be completely optional. This is a wonderful opportunity for your child to serve those in our local community, if you would like to make it a family project that would be wonderful as well. We will use the yarn we have here at school, but we will also be in need of yarn donations so if you have any single color yarn to spare we would be happy to use it, please send it in. Blue, orange, and white are always popular colors. If you are interested please send back the bottom portion signed and I will send home the pattern and yarn for you to work on and send in for sale.


The following website gives instructions for the bracelets. However, our pattern will be a little simpler: http://www.homemade-gifts-made-easy.com/how-to-make-friendship-bracelets.html#axzz1aL4jgocr

We will be making bracelets the week of Nov. 28 - Dec. 5 (return this day)

We will be selling bracelets Dec. 5 – Dec. 9 for 50 cents.

Indian Headbands

We are busy knitting our Indian Headband thanks to a few parents that helped me get all 24 students started on this fun holiday craft.  Students get to practice their small motor skills and enjoy knitting circle time to share stories and friendship.

Courage and the Wizard of OZ

Dear Parents,

As you know our Character Virtue this month is Courage.  Mrs. Davis our counselor is presenting a lesson to my class this week using the "Wizard of Oz" as a connection to this virtue. I asked my class how many of them had ever read the book or watched the movie version of this classic.  To my surprise less than half had heard of this story. I have decided to show the movie on our last day of school before the Thanksgiving break as a follow up to their learning as well as a much deserved reward for all the A.R. reading they have been doing to earn special classroom events.

Courage to continue trying in difficult situations...

Courage to face your fears.....

You have the courage within.....

 

November Newsletter from Mrs. Hedberg

Dear Parents,

Let me start by saying thank you for taking timeout of your busy schedules to attend parent/teacher conferences. I always look forward to sharing “gifts and goals” and seeing parents in person.  We will not have conferences  in the spring so please check Skyward regularly to view your child’s progress. If you have any questions please don’t hesitate to call or e-mail me  LHedberg@msd134.org . 

Reading:  This week we began a new unit on “Kindness”. Over the next 6 weeks students will be reading fiction and non-fiction stories that demonstrate the spirit of kindness in some way. Your child will encounter age-old classics in this unit, such as “Elves and the Shoemaker” and “Cinderella”.  Our first story was about forest animals that make room for one more friend to get out of the rain, under an expanding mushroom.  In another story we will watch a young girl practically bring a stuffed bear to life.  Students will read a real-life account of people helping whales in trouble and research facts about different whales as a writing connection.  It is my hope that this unit will bring some inspiration, as well as adventure, our way!  I have challenged my students to show an act of random kindness each day.

  “Life’s most urgent question is, what are you doing for others?” Love and kindness are never wasted”. As a reminder every student is asked to turn in his/her Book-It -Reading calendar at the end of every month.  I was sad to see that only 4 out of 22 were turned in on time for the month of October.  I feel so strongly that students should develop good reading habits at home that I am additng an additional incentive.  Students that show responsibility and turn in thier reading calendars on time will not only get a pizza coupon but will also be invited to "Lunch Bunch" on the first Wednesday of each month! Students will get to come back to the classroom and have lunch with the teacher and watch a fun video for part of thier recess.

Math: 2.0A.2 Develop fluency to add and subtract within 20 using mental strategies.  By the end of second grade know from memory all sums of two one-digit numbers.  Students should be able to use the friendly number 10 to compensate and hold numbers mentally. Please use decks of playing cards at home and or dice to add and subtract like in the traditional game of War. Play subtraction and addition War as a family. Even though daily math sheets don't come home your child should be demonstrating thier math knowlege by participating in the Passport Math program and games. 2.0A.1 Using addition and subtraction within 100 to solve one-step word problems involving situations of adding to, taking from, putting together,taking apart, and comparing, with unknowns in all positions, using new mathmatical strategies, refer to some examples on your child's November Math Passport. (these were handed out as conference in your child's conference folders.  In addition we will be reviewing +/- 0,1,2 make ten and doubles.  Can your child tell you all the doubles facts?  Please be watching for practice sheets to come home once or twice a week for additional practice! 

Character: Patriotism/Citizenship
With the presidential elections and Veterans Day this month we will learn a lot about what it means to show patriotism and be good citizens  in our communities and our classroom. If anyone is a Veteran or knows a Veteran that would like to talk or visit our class please call.  If anyone has a name of a family member or friend that is serving or has served at any time in our nations armed forces please e-mail me with information and I would like my students to write a friendly letter thanking them for his/her service to our country.

Holiday Projects:  We will be knitting Indian head bands and making friendship bracelets in November please watch for flyers on these projects and start shopping for yarn!      

 Sincerely,
Mrs. Hedberg

Tumble Books

Looking for a fun way to keep your child exposed to books ? We have discovered "Tumble Books", on a great website through the Boise Public Library. My students learned how to access this fun website and experience the read-a-loud books on line. Here's how to access Tumble Books and open a whole library of books right at home.  From picture books to chapter books they are all leveled with A.R. reading levels and all! It's like having a libary of books at your figertips!!! The link to the Boise Public Library has been added to my blog.  Click on the link, next click on Tumble Books, Click on Read Alouds. This is a great way for students to get exposure to good modeled read alouds. The text is highlighted so students can follow along as they listen. As a general rule students should listen to books 1-2 levels higher than their independent reading level.

October Newsletter

Happy fall everyone, I can’t believe that it is already October.  Let me first remind you that later this month is our one and only, parent teacher conference for the year.  You will be receiving a conference form to request times that might best fit into your schedule. I will try to accommodate you the best I can.  Please fill this form out and return it A.S.A.P. Conferences will be later this month October 27^th and October 28^th. 

October will bring our first classroom party.   The afternoon will be full of fun learning.  Our Math lesson will be all about estimation, place value, and counting by 10’s. If you have any giant pumpkins or sunflower heads that you can donate for that day please contact Mrs. Hedberg. Following our Pumpkin Math activity we will have time for games and trick or treats.  Mrs. Telford will be heading up our first fall party and will contact parents that signed up to help at the beginning of the year.  Watch for more information later this month.

Math:   We are very fortunate to have the ability and staffing to extend learning for our accelerated math learners as well as provide intensive intervention for learners based on need.  These times have been built into the weekly schedule and have begun this week... I will send notice if your child is participating in any extended math learning. This month we will be covering Place Value, and money.

Reading:  We have two more weeks of our “Sharing Stories” theme.  We have been building lots of comprehension strategies and skills such as making connections, making predictions, clarifying and monitoring text. Ask your child who RT is and what tools he teaches the students to use during literature circle time?  Our next theme will be “Kindness” a perfect connection to the character virtues we study each month. Life’s most urgent question is what are you doing for others? “Love and Kindness are never wasted”.

Character: This month is our Virtue of Friendliness. Mrs. Davis our school counselor presents a lesson monthly in each second grade class. We have read many stories during our reading theme that also lend themselves to teaching the virtues.  We read from Aesop’s Fables as part of our integrated reading unit and discussed many morals of the stories.  Ask your child what his or her favorite was??

In closing, I’d like to brag about my class 100% of my students had the honor of attending “Lunch Bunch” for completing all of their homework for the month and showing their virtue of responsibility turning it in on time WOW! Watch in this Friday’s folder for Book It coupons to come home for Pizza Hut for any and all that completed 15-20 minutes of at home reading on the homework calendar keep it up! 

Sincerely,

Mrs. Hedberg

Reading and Spelling Homework Begin!

Dear Parents,

You will find next weeks spelling list on the left hand side of the blog.  You may begin checking off the spelling homework each night that your child practices on their homework calendar.  On the back of the calendar you will find many fun ways of studying.  Your child will bring home his/her pretest each Monday so they will know exatly how much studying they need to do!  Of course if your child only misses one or two then study days could be reduced, as compared to a student that misses more he or she may need all four nights of study.

Reading homework will be sent home with every student this Monday hard copy so you can see what it is your are expected to provide your child by clicking on the Reading Homework link on the right of the blog.  I will assign each packet by date. Example the first packet is to begin on 9/19. Students should do one page a night in order.  This is important because it piggybacks the learning that day in the classroom. You may then check off the appropriate box on the homework calendar.   You do not have to send in the actual pages unless you chose.  Please feel free to call me if you have any questions about homework.  Thank you for sending back the math homework daily, it give students some responsibility and they enjoy the daily drawing for a prize.

Thank you for your at home support,

Mrs. Hedberg

Mrs. Hedberg's September Newsletter

Newsletter for Month of September 2012 

The students have completed a weeks worth of initial assessments including the fall IRI. You may view students IRI reading scores and words read per minute through Skyward gradebook as well as weekly graded subjects at anytime.  The words per minute break down is as follows for the Fall IRI: 
                                                                                               0-26 wpm= 1  Intensive Intervention needed
                                                                                             27-53 wpm= 2  Strategic Intervention needed
                                                                                             54-above wpm = Benchmark on Grade Level

Math:  Our first Unit is underway we are working on the new Common Core Standard : Number & Operation in Base Ten. One thing has changed this year, your child will not be given a homework sheet of math from the days lesson.  You may see work or evidence of learning that will come home
in various forms, such as Today's number lesson, Envisions skill sheets, Drops in the Bucket skills sheets, these will hopefully give you an idea of concepts and learning of target standards. I will also try to post pictures from our lessons on the blog as well.  In response to my survey of would you like additional math or practice provided or optional practice 99% of you said yes!!  I am working to create what will be called a Passport of Learning for Math,  that will soon be added to the back of your child's Daily Work Communication forlder. The passport page will be filled with one project or activity to do at home that applies to each of  target standards we are learning for Numbers and Operations in Base Ten.  Your child will be able to retrun his/her passport when it is done for stamps to earn I-pad, computer , or time playing game boards etc.  The Passport for Math will also help to inform you the parent of what concepts your child is learning and see them demonstrate mastery of the target!  You will here more about this soon~  I'm very excited about this idea and hope you will find it a fun and engaging way to be involved in your childs learning (rather than sitting with homework sheets nightly)!

Reading: Our first theme in

Open Court Reading

is “Sharing Stories”.  We will be sharing fables, fairytales and poetry the students will be reading fractured fairytales like The Three Little Figs, and Come Back Jack.  As an extension to our unit the students will be  writing a class fractured fairytale based on the Three Little Pigs.  As we begin each unit of reading you will have the option of downloading additional practice sheets at home off the blog, if you choose for your child to do these at home please do them the week I have dated as this would be a follow up to the phonics, sight words, vocabulary of what is learned in class. If your child has scored a 1 or 2 on the IRI I would encourage you to concider this option at home.

Character:  We will continue working on building our classroom climate and setting classroom goals and expectations of what our class should look like, sound like, and feel like when we are learning in a safe and loving environment.  Students have been building our classroom community in a variety of activities over these first few weeks of school.  We have celebrated our differences and diversity through reading and writing .  We read All About ME and wrote about what we liked best about ourselves, students selected their best feature and wrote explaining why they thought it was their best attribute.  The students also created a Classroom honey comb filled with "sweet" character virtues to help us stick together as a class community!

Our First Day

Students showing off their Marshmellow Feet

                                           Our Marshmellow Feet are a reminder of how

                                           our feet will sound walking in the halls of our school.
                                           Marshmellows are soft, and quiet!

 We had a fun filled first day learning routines, exploring our new classroom, and participating in various community building activities.

2012-13 Welcome to Mrs. Hedberg's 2nd Grade Class

Hello to all my new students and families and welcome to our class blog.  This will be my third year using a blog as my main source of parent information.  The class blog will be ECO friendly and provide you with easy access to all kinds of classroom information and  allow you to view weekly events! I will update the blog weekly, with current spelling lists as well as a monthly newsletter with accademic information.  You will notice as you explore the blog that I have already listed the entire year of Reading Homework assignments .  I will change the Unit and Lesson numbers into dates as we begin the year. Example U1-L1 will read (week of 9/19) as I begin to assign weekly reading homework. All you have to do is click on the date and the assignment will open.  I will keep a Looking Ahead calendar with important future dates, a section to add websites that will enrich your child's classroom understandings, scholatic online codes for ordering classroom books, as well as many other postings that will be of value throughout the year. I have tried to organize the blog in such a way to make it as user friendly as possible. Please make sure that you check it weekly!!! Please take a moment now to become a weekly follower by clicking on the side link and entering your email address. Everytime I post you will receive an automatic e-mail.  I'm excited for our new year together and can't wait to see all the smiling faces of my new second grade friends soon! 

Sincerely,
Mrs. Hedberg