What a fabulous start to the school year! The first 2 "first" days and our second day were filled with fun and getting to know each other. We have begun learning the expectations of 2nd grade and practicing routines. The next few weeks we will continue learning our routines. Once these are set, we can get into our material more in depth. This week, we will be observing the wetlands, beginning our Learning Links, looking at characters in our books, beginning our Daily 5 routines, taking our first STAR assessments, and practicing our math fact program. If you haven't had the opportunity to look at the "Parent Mastering Math Fact Explanation" sheet sent home at Meet the Teacher, please do so. Here is a digital copy of it for your convenience. It is very important that the students practice the program correctly.
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Many of you are probably yearning for the sun to come back out again! All you need to do is come in and look at all our cheery faces! We have been doing extremely well with following the routine and working together as a team. The students have the added incentive of earning sparky tickets and at the end of the day, could get their ticket drawn for a visit to the treasure box!
We have been working hard with our math facts during our math rotations and Donavan is the first to pass all the addition facts! He will now begin the subtraction! Great job Donavan! We are all so proud of you! This quarter in math we will be focusing on story problems. We still use multiple strategies to solve, but the problems are getting increasingly more difficult. We are adding with regrouping large numbers and we will be subtracting with regrouping as well. We will solve story problems involving measurement and money. For reading we will continue to do guided reading groups focusing on student needs including phonics and comprehension. We also have a time allotted in class to work on fluency and expression. We are developing a routine and the students enjoy getting checked on their reading passages. They use the mp3 players to listen to the passages as well as practicing with others. Our technology in class is booming! We are using all available resources to us. We use the iPods and the new iPad (Thank you Mrs. Martindale) for small group technology as one of our rotations during reading and math time. We have constant access to computers set up in the hall from one of the Innovation Station computer carts. We even have the opportunity to check out our iPads from the IS cart (Thank you PTO for donating 15 more to us!). We use the smartboard constantly as well. If you have any great educational sites or apps that would be relevant to us, please pass them along! In fact, you can even add a comment to this blog to share with all of us! We are rating the apps we like and don't like in class to clean up and maximize our iPods. We can post those apps for you as well! Have a fabulous week and as always (especially since report cards went home Friday) let me know if you have any comments, questions, or concerns! Short weeks can sometimes feel the longest! I hope that is not the case this week though! I am working hard on getting the quarterly assessments graded, organizing paperwork, and preparing report cards for you. The assessments may come home before the actual report cards, but there will be a print off attached that summarizes what your child still needs to practice.
Some tidbits and good info about the quarterly assessments: 1. Mastery is considered 75% on the overall test. Our class average on the Reading was 71% and our class average on the Math was 78.53%. Congratulations to those of you that are above those numbers! 2. When compared to the District, we were either the same passing percentage or higher on Reading questions 2, 3, 6, 7, 9, 11, 12, 14, 18, 22, and 24! We were the same or higher on Math questions 2, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, and 11! Awesome job everyone! 3. The last page has information about your child's STAR testing. We want all the children to be in the green category. If your child is in yellow or red and you do not know how s/he is getting the help s/he needs, please contact me and I will be happy to discuss this with you. 4. The Reading test has the DIBELS score on the last page. This is your child's Oral Reading Fluency (words read correctly in 1 minute). The goal right now 100 words per minute. The end of the year goal is 111 words per minute. Again, we want your child to be in the green category. 5. The Math test includes scores for an addition fact fluency test and a subtraction fact fluency test. This test was given with a 1 minute timing. Your child was taught how to "skip" problems and answer the ones that were known. This is a strategy that could increase the number of problems completed on this test. The goal was 20 problems correct. The end of the year goal is 25 problems correct. Our persistence with the MMF and the addition of Khan Academy and Math Facts Pro is paying off. We were significantly higher in these areas on the quarterly assessment than the rest of the district. YAHOO! Some things that we are starting this second half of the year include more intense reading fluency practice with a program called READ NATURALLY, a math intervention group 2x a week with parent volunteers, an extra reading intervention group with the Literacy team, 5 smaller reading groups in class, Fusion all day on Thursdays.... There are so many great things, I can't think of them all! I am working extremely hard to get your child everything that s/he needs. I am using testing data and observations to decide what each child needs and I am using the support of my RTI team. If you have any questions about things, please don't hesitate to ask! I will do my best to get answers for you in as timely a manner as I can! Thank you for being so supportive and wonderful! I am just adding to the weekly notes so that you have all your information! We finally got a video uploaded that works! We are going to give it one more try next week, using a different camera, and if it doesn't work, then we will say sianora to the video newsletters! This one is very educational and very entertaining :) Here is the game "Put it in the Trash" and another place value game called "101 and out". We played them both in class today and the students loved them! You just need the paper, a die or cards, and a pencil!
We also learned a few things about Christopher Columbus by playing a game provided by BBC - Primary History - Famous People. The game breaks up facts about Columbus with games that connect to his voyage. Another week is here! Here you will find our second Issue of our Weekly Video Newsletter and I have a few other notes for you about upcoming things. Please check your child's papers that have come home. We have sent a Scholastic Book Club order form and letter home about helping us to accumulate enough money in orders to get us 7,000 bonus points. The letter explains how this can get done and asks you to sign and return the letter, even if you cannot order at this time. It tells you how to log on. The information can also be found on our Parent Information page. Please send those forms back in and please place any orders by 9/21/12! Thanks so much! We will be doing a fusion activity called "Garbology" this Friday. We have aprons and gloves for each child, but please don't let them wear their best clothes. It would also be best if they wore tennis shoes instead of open shoes (things could get messy!). Next week (Sept. 18), we will be going on a field trip to the landfill. Due to space, we are not able to take any volunteers with us. On Sept. 19, I will be out of the building at a district planning meeting. There will be a sub in the room. We are continuing the sound /o/ (short o) this week. Be sure to have your child help you find or think of words spelled with o, au, augh, ough, a, and aw. You can find sample word lists on our Sound Focus page, at ReadingResource.net, and at this quick link. Welcome to the first edition of our 2nd grade {Team Zwangerall} Video Newsletter! If you were in 1st grade at Summit, you will notice that we are keeping with the "tradition" that last year's teacher's started with your children. We will follow the same rules with doing the recording in one take... some will be better than others :) You will get to see us as your children see us, with no doctoring up of the videos! We make mistakes, do silly things, and have fun the entire time. There will not be a paper newsletter that comes home. You will need to check this website for all the latest news for our grade! I will add other things to this blog that pertain to just our class, so be sure to check often! To the right you can see a QR code. This one can be scanned by a QR reader on your smart phone or ipad and it will take you directly to our first newsletter. Each code will be used for something different and can give you access to Here is the letter I will send home tomorrow attached to some Rocket Math papers your child has completed. Please read the letter carefully so that the program stays consistent between home and school!
Here is the same graph we will be using in the classroom. You can use it to track your child's progress at home!
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The object of education is to prepare the young to educate themselves throughout their lives. Me, Me, MeI enjoy problem solving, designing, creating, communicating, collaborating, etc.... all of which I expect my students to do. I hope that we have an enjoyable and successful year! Grab my button!Check out the rest of our teaching team!Past Messages
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