Guest Reader

Thank you to the fabulous parent, volunteer, and advocate for student learning Mrs. Beers for coming to join our Monday morning! Your energy in our classroom was an awesome addition! Students had the great opportunity to hear a children's book from a LOCAL author, Michele Cerny, No More Rules! We always thrive to support local!! Read alouds are a favorite part to our day. Which means, when Mrs. Beers finished her first read, she had many smiles when she offered to read a second story!! She brought a recognizable title, Click Clack Moo!

Thank you Mrs. Beers for kicking off our week with a couple great reads! 

McNitt Updates

Beach Bums Posters

Beach Bums posters were sent home last Friday in all students communicators. They have until March 31st to round the bases with books read. When students are done with the Beach bums chart they can return it to their classroom. Let me know if you have any further question. Thank you and good luck!!

Homework & Spelling

Along with a new homework packet came a new spelling list today. Students are continuing to practice and focus their spellings on the /ee/ sound narrowing in on the ie spelling. Please help to remind your child on the back of their spelling list is another activity for alphabetizing words. They are doing an awesome job on organizing words alphabetically!
This is an additional homework assignment that is due on Friday.
Early notice, there will NOT be homework next week due to the short week leading into Spring Break.

Westwoods Student Art

Collaborative classroom prints from the Westwoods Evening with Art are available for purchase in a glossy 12X18 poster, the cost is $10.00 per print.  Orders will be accepted through March 23rd.  Checks can be made payable to Westwoods and turned into the office.

http://goo.gl/forms/MQLsWuTDCW

Questions can be emailed to walterje@tcaps.net
Here is a quick view of our classrooms (McNitt) print you can order. There are also all other classrooms to view and purchase as well. They are beautiful!! 

Guest Reader!

This afternoon we had a very dedicated TCAPS Board Member visit our classroom! Thank you Mr. Hardy for taking the time to read to our classroom! Students enjoyed the calm down from recess to refuel for the afternoon of a good read by Dr. Seuss. Mr. Hardy read one of his favorites The Sneetches! They heard two stories from the book, where they were prompted for what could happen next and engaged in the story by guessing what rhymes could finish out different sentences. The always humorous Dr. Seuss gives the students the imagination to think anything utterly goofy could happen. Always ends in a good laugh and wanting more. Students were left to read the other stories on their own...

Thank you Mr. Hardy!  

Guest Reader!

Friday morning we had an always terrific parent in to read a very silly book! Thank you Mrs. Bohrer for a great start to our morning!

Mrs. Bohrer read Today I Feel Silly by Jamie Lee Curtis. It gave many smiles and a few laughs. Students were able to connect their personal feelings to the moods they heard in the story! Think of how many different moods you go through in a day...

Thank you Mrs. Bohrer! 

Guest Reader!

On Wednesday we had our FIRST surprise guest reader!!

Thank you Mrs. Kaberle for visiting our classroom! Mrs. Kaberle is an awesome parent of our classroom and a wonderful first grade teacher in our building!

Not only was she able to read the students a new book, she also brought in a stack of books to spark their interest of reading on new and different genres with a variety of topics. 

All students were engaged and loved the surprise of reading!

Thank you Mrs. Kaberle! 

DEAR

Drop Everything And Read

During our Reading/Math Buddies we stopped what we were doing to Drop Everything And Read. Fourth graders were able to hear the different stories we are reading in our CKLA readers, Sir Gus. Both sides did an awesome job reading, listening, asking each other questions, and having a friendly reading discussion!

Cat in the Hat

 

 I honor of Cat in the Hat day, we did a fun activity around Dr. Seuss books. We read Dr. Seuss books together and did a book review on our favorite book! Since we are in the unit of persuasive writing, this activity fit perfectly into working on our learning goals for writing. Students gave a brief summary of the book they chose then wrote a book review.

Opening sentences (one sentence)

Two reasons (two sentences)

Closing sentence (one sentence)

Then we added a little color and fun to our writing! Students were super excited to bring out there artsy side and did a fantastic job!  

 

THANK YOU!

Our class won the silent auction basket completion! Our basket raised $270! Thank you to all parents and families that donated and also participated in the auction! The money will go towards books for the school and our new phonics program.
 
As a thank-you from PTO, they have given our classroom books for our classroom library! 

Students are very excited to have some news texts in the classroom to choose from!

Spelling & Homework

In addition to a new homework packet comes another spelling list for the week. However, this spelling list comes with additional homework for the students to complete. Wahoo!!

Students are going back over words that end in -ly or -y that have the /ee/ sound. Spelling also includes a homework activity on the back that helps them learn the spelling for each word by placing them in alphabetical order. This is due on Friday with the other homework assignments. 

We had a mini lesson in the classroom on how to alphabetize, and will continue to also do different examples of alphabetizing throughout the week and the rest of the school year. I encourage you, to after this week, go beyond the spelling list and have your child continue alphabetizing. For example, your family names, cereal boxes, spices, cookbooks, ect. Could help your house and kitchen get organized at the same time! :)

What is Your Opinion??

We have had several lessons thus far learning how to write a letter persuading someone to do something. Our new unit includes teaching second graders how to write a persuasive letter. They are understanding, when trying to persuade someone, you are trying to convince them to agree with your opinion, to change their mind, and to essentially think more in your direction. We talked about the difference between fact and opinion, by giving reasons from their point of view that they believe will support their topic. We are leading our learning towards our new learning goals for writing. 

Persuasive papers are beginning to introduce ideas with opening sentences, then using transition words to lead into three reasons, and wrap up with a closing sentence. In addition to the format, students are also selecting different goals to work on while they are writing in order to become a better author and to produce a quality piece of writing.

Students are doing fantastic with this new genre of writing! They are engaged in this new type of writing and are really showing excitement by giving their opinion on an array of topics.