Looking for volunteers and book club orders!

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Hope everyone had a nice long Columbus Day weekend and is ready for the slightly shortened school week. We still have spelling words to study and a test on Friday. Please tutor each night with your child and tutor one extra time (for Monday) before Friday morning.  You may choose the day/night that best fits your schedule. We will continue to tutor the science vocabulary. This time I gave the children another copy of the tutor sheet.

UnknownTomorrow is the due date for our October Scholastic Book Club orders and as of now I only have one order. (Thank you to Katie and her family for their online order!) Please don’t feel pressured to purchase anything. I just want to make these inexpensive books available to my students if you are interested. Each month there is one book that is only $1.00 so it doesn’t have to cost much to build your child’s library. If you want to place an order, you can either send in payment in cash or check…made payable to Scholastic OR you can order online. Our online code is DZMMM.

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The second grade is looking for CORIed volunteers to help prepare the grid on the asphalt so that the students can create a life-size outline of a dinosaur. Volunteers would need to be at school at 10am on this Friday, October 18th.  It would be really helpful if we could have at least one volunteer from the C8 families. I’m sorry to be asking so late but  I am new to the second grade team and their yearly projects.

The Fossil Lady Visits!

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The second graders listening attentively to the Fossil Lady.

The second grade had a wonderful treat on Friday. The fossil lady came and taught them about dinosaurs and paleontology. She brought a collection that included fossils of dinosaur bones and eggs, sharks teeth, fish and plants and even dinosaur poop (a favorite of the students!)

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Fossils of actual dinosaur footprints!

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This is “Oreo” a fossilized early mammal, not a dinosaur!

She taught them about the time when dinosaurs walked the Earth and how it was different today. She told them how the dragonflies were huge back then.

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One of our classmates was chosen to be the giant dragonfly!

In addition to bringing her wonderful collection of fossils, she let the children explore, examine and touch her fossil samples.

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Studying fossils up close is hands on learning at its best!

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Examining fossils like a true paleontologist!

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Working together and discussing what we are observing.

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Thank you to the Brookside PTO for funding this amazing experience for the entire second grade!

Progress Reports and a New Friend

UnknownToday the students received their first progress report for second grade. The students are still getting used to the new challenges and expectations for this grade. If your child received a grade on the progress report that is lower than you expected, please know that there is still plenty of time to improve that grade before the report card. There should also be a green slip of paper inside it explaining that we did not grade the students in science as they have not had their science test on the dinosaur and fossils unit yet.  They will have a science grade on their report card. Please sign and return this progress report as soon as you can.

We also learned today that we will have a new friend named Kendra joining our class for specials. Kendra is already a special friend of one of our classmates. A letter went home to all the C-8 families introducing Kendra and explaining the Rett Syndrome disorder that she has had since birth. I read the letter to the students and they are very excited to have her join them for specials. We can’t wait to meet her! Please read the letter that came home with your child today.

Tomorrow is going to be an exciting day in second grade. We will be having a visit from the Fossil Lady! Stay tuned for more on this in another post!

Dinosaurs and Donations!

Happy October!! It’s a new month and the children got new behavior/responsibility charts for October. Each student who received a sticker each day for the entire month (or only missed one day) will get to be in the “Lunch Bunch” where they have lunch with the teacher. Since we had so many children make the Lunch Bunch this month (18 out of 21 children….Woo Hoo!), we will have to have two different Lunch Bunch dates! They also received one ticket for each sticker they earned. Those tickets were put in the ticket train and we will be drawing tickets for prizes from my prize box.

Dinosaur Invasion!

Oh no! Dinosaurs have invaded C-8!

Check out our new train table that was donated to our classroom by Ryan and his family. Right now it is being stored in our library area. It may be used as a location for a puzzle station which helps to build visual/spatial awareness and problem solving skills. They also donated puzzles and this wonderful collection of dinosaurs which is perfect for our upcoming dinosaur and fossils unit in science! Thank you to this generous family from all of us in C-8!