Our last week before Winter Break is already here! It is sure to be a fun one both at school and at home!

Our field trip to Barlow Planetarium is on Thursday. If you volunteered to chaperone, please be at school by 8:55. We will leave at 9:00 and will return by 11:00.

We will also have Pajama Day on Thursday. We'll be nice and cozy at Barlow!

Just a reminder that there is no school on Friday or next week. Classes will resume on January 2.

Curricular Notes:

-We continue to read fiction this week. We'll be studying how important it is to pay very close attention to the beginnings of our stories so we can identify the main characters, describe the setting, and retell the important events that have happened. We'll also work on summarizing the important parts rather than retelling every tiny detail.

-We are finishing up our measurement unit in math this week. We'll review and take the test right after break. Our next unit will focus on subtracting 2- and 3-digit numbers.

-The kids are enjoying our new writing unit which focuses on realistic fiction! We have generated ideas for stories that can keep our readers at the "edge of their seats" with a real problem that real kids could encounter. We are using all we learned in our small moment narrative unit from earlier this year to make our fiction stories come alive!

-We started a new unit in science which focuses on solids, liquids, and gases. We've been studying water and the forms it can take. We'll focus on evaporation this week before moving into a lessons on mixing and separating solids and mixing solids with liquids.

I truly hope that you enjoy your time together as a family this winter break! I'll be looking forward to reuniting with the kids in January!

Take care!

Lisa

December continues to fly by! We are starting many new units this week.

Tuesday, December 12 - No School (inservice for teachers)

Wednesday, December 13 - Holiday Wear

Thursday, December 21 – 2^nd Grade AM Field trip to Barlow Planetarium

Thursday, December 21 - Pajama Day

December 22-January 1 – No School Winter Break

Tuesday, January 2 – Classes resume

Reading - This week we start our third reading unit - Studying Characters and their Stories. We move from studying main ideas and key details to characters and life lessons. Our first week in the unit centralizes on recalling what we already know about reading fiction. Readers start reading by thinking about what they know about the characters and how the story might go. This is a favorite unit for both students and teachers!

Writing - Our writing genre changes this week too. We begin our third writing unit, Writing Gripping Fictional Stories. This unit has the writers use their previous small moment writing skills to write 'edge-of-the-seat fiction stories', stories that have made up characters and events, could happen in real life, and have the reader on the edge of their seats. This is also a favorite unit for all of us!

Math - We continue working our way through Unit 3, Length and Shapes. This week we continue to work with triangles, quadrilaterals, pentagons, and hexagons. We will be measuring using centimeters and comparing 2-D and 3-D shapes.  

Science - We're planning our planet presentations and will be moving into our new unit, Changes, at the end of the week. This unit focused on solids, liquids, and gases and how they change. 

Wow! December is here and it is going to be a busy month of fun and learning!

Monday, December 4 - PSC Meeting - 6:00
Tuesday, December 5 – Kaukauna Holiday Parade - 6:00 
                       (NDLC will gather in front of the Bank of Kaukauna.)

Thursday, December 7 – Pizza, PJs, and Publishing Family Night 5:30-7:00

                       - Pajama Day

Friday, December 8 - Book Orders due
Tuesday, December 12 - No School (inservice for teachers)

Thursday, December 21 – 2^nd Grade AM Field trip to Barlow Planetarium

December 22-January 1 – No School Winter Break

Tuesday, January 2 – Classes resume

Reading ~ We are merging our reading and science this week! Students chose a planet to research and small planet groups were formed at the end of last week. Groups have begun reading and recording important information on their planets. Research will continue through the week and students will prepare for presentations next week.  

Writing ~ Our informational writing unit has been an enjoyable one. Second grade writers have loved writing informational texts with lots of information and text features. This coming week will be spent fine-tuning, revising different parts of the text, editing, and adding the finishing touches to our published pieces. We will have these published pieces out for family night on Thursday.

Math – Unit 3 begins this week. This unit focuses on length and shapes. Students will use measurement skills to collect and organize data as they display measurements on line plots.  They will analyze measurements given in different units to learn the relationship between the size of a measuring unit and the number of units. During the first week of this unit, we will be learning how to measure with centimeters and how to distinguish different shapes by their features. 

Have a GREAT week!

Lisa