Trish Crowe’s Second Grade Classroom Web Site

Happy New Year everyone!

In January we will be busy, busy, busy working hard on new math concepts: counting coins and comparing fractions.  Please practice counting coins at home.  Be sure to start with coins of the same value; then add a variety of coins.   Playing “store” is a fun way to practice.   Naming fractions and counting coins are the two math TLP goals for January.

We also will be working on many new Language Arts skills this month.  The focus will be on plurals and irregular plurals for our TLP goals.   Believe it or not, second trimester assessments will be happening in February!

We’ll have lots of fun talking about Earth Science.  The students will be  learning that rocks are made up of minerals.  We will also be talking about weathering, erosion, humus, and soil!  We won’t forget to discuss fossils, either.  We’ll be enjoying a visit from a Mad Science teacher at the end of the month to culminate our study of Earth Science!  Fun!

Of course, we’ll be busy with our regular Spanish and TLP activities, as well.

Our Albertson’s field trip is scheduled for Wednesday, January 4.  A big thank you goes out to all of the drivers who are helping with the transportation.

We are also looking forward to our field trip to the U.S.S. Midway on Monday, March 19!  We’ll begin our special “People Who Make a Difference” unit in February to get ready for this special trip.

We’re off to a busy start for 2012!

We used Google Docs to create the slideshow. Each student was responsible for creating at least one slide in our class project.  Here is our great work! The first link is the Powerpoint version, and below it is the pdf version for those of you who do not have PowerPoint. Enjoy!

Room 7’s Natural Resource Slideshow Powerpoint

Room 7’s Natural Resource Slideshow

Dear Families,

Happy holidays!  I can’t believe that 2011 is coming to a close.  We are so busy that the days seem to fly by!

I will be sending home report cards on Friday Dec. 2.   Please check those backpacks!

*****IMPORTANT NEWS:   We would like to invite you to a short performance put on by Ocean Knoll’s second graders.   Our theater teacher has taught us a dance and a few songs for our performance.  The title of our little play is “Character Matters.”  We will be performing at 1:45 on Monday, December 12 in the multipurpose room.   We hope to see you there! 

 This month we are having lots of fun finishing our study of “economics.”  We are learning  about resources and raw materials, producers, consumers, and how food gets to our table.  We are busy making a class slide show all about how we use our natural resources.  Look for the slide show on our website near the end of the month.  We will culminate this Social Studies unit with our field trip to Albertson’s on Wednesday, January 4, 2012.  Permission slips are on their way to you.

For our winter celebration, we will be having a cookie exchange!  The students are already excited about it.   Please send two dozen cookies of your choice to school on Friday, Dec. 16.    We will be having our cookie exchange some time in the morning on that day.  Thanks so much.  Don’t worry…we’ll send a reminder!

Our winter break begins on Saturday, Dec. 17, and students will return to school on Tuesday, January 3, 2012. There will be no official homework over the break, but please be sure your child reads at least 15 minutes every day.  This practice will help keep reading skills sharp over the holidays.

Thank you to our room moms for keeping us in the party mode, to our garden moms who help during TLP,  to our classroom volunteers who help each and every one of our students with reading and writing,  to our yoga and P.E. helpers who keep us in the pink,  and to all of you cookie bakers!

Happy and safe holidays to all!

Trish Crowe

I hope everyone had a great two-week break.  This month is a full one for us!

We have already enjoyed a great Red Ribbon Week!  Thanks, PTA, for such a wonderful “Heroes” assembly.  The Del Mar lifeguards, Encinitas Firefighters, Encinitas Deputy Sheriffs (with their police dogs), and the helicopter pilots were awesome guests.  The children were absolutely amazed when they were able to watch the helicopter take off!

We will be busy with district benchmark assessments for trimester one during our first few weeks back.  We’ll begin a brief “Food Groups” unit of study and learn all about the nutrients we get from our food.    We will also begin Theme 2 (”Nature Walk”) in our Language Arts text, and in Math we’ll learn how to “regroup” with addition of two-digit numbers.

Don’t forget that Friday, November 11, is a school holiday in honor of Veterans Day.  Also, this year we will not be coming to school on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, so we’ll have a 5-day Thanksgiving weekend!

Happy Thanksgiving to all of you.  I am surely thankful for my wonderful group of kids!

Our Sunshine Gardens and Apple Store field trips were so much fun!  Drivers and helpers…we couldn’t have done it without you!

PLEASE BE SURE TO VIEW OUR SYNONYM MOVIES!  THEY ARE GREAT!  THEY ARE LISTED AT THE TOP MENU BAR RIGHT HERE ON OUR WEBSITE!  HAPPY VIEWING!

Thank you so much to the parents who helped and/or supplied goodies for our Fall celebration.   We all had a blast!!!

Well, this last school week has been a busy one.  We finished up so many things:  Life Cycles, Math Topic 5 (Geometry), and the Theme Test on Unit 1 of our reading text.

When we return from Fall break on Monday, Oct. 31, we will begin our study of natural resources and people in the market place.  In Math, two-digit addition will be the new topic.  “Nature Walk” is the title of Theme 2 in our reading text.  And of course, we will enjoy the PTA’s presentation of Red Ribbon Week starting the day we return to school.

Please keep reading, reading, reading  during our vacation, and practice those math facts, as well!   We don’t want any skills getting “rusty!”

Have a wonderful, safe two weeks!  See you on the 31st!

Parent-teacher conferences were great!  We had 100% attendance for our class!

I can’t believe that we only have a short time left before Fall break!  We will be very busy!

We’ll take a field trip to Sunshine Gardens to culminate our study of plant life cycles, and we will study animal life cycles up until the break.

We’ll finish up Theme 1 (Silly Stories) in our reading texts, and take a test on all of the skills covered in Theme 1.  We will also complete assessments on our TLP goals covering synonyms and syllables.

We will wrap up our study of place value in Math and begin our study of Geometry!

Look out, Apple Store!  Here we come!  We have been working very hard on our pictures for the synonym movies that we will be making during our field trip to the Apple Store on Oct. 10.

Busy, busy, busy!

Dear Parents,

It was great to see so many of you at Back-to-School Night.   It’s going to be a great year; I can tell!

I am looking forward to meeting with all of you individually during “Goal Setting Conference Week.”   This special minimum-day week is coming up soon. Conferences will be held the week of  Sept. 19 -23.  Please return your conference preference forms as soon as possible.   Please select at least three possible dates/times that would be convenient for you.  I will do my best to select one that will work for both of us.  I will return your preference form with your exact conference time circled in red.

Thanks again for all of the class donations.  Our cupboards are well-stocked!  The only things that we still need are prize box items, oil pastels,  thick black Marks-a-Lot markers, a few more packs of baby wipes (for our hands after art lessons), wipes for desk cleaning, and reams of copy paper.  Thanks so much for your generosity and support.

Sincerely,

Trish Crowe

Dear Families,

Welcome to super second grade in room 7!  Summer flew by, and here we are, refreshed and ready to embark on this new second grade adventure!  I am excited to get to know all of my new students and their families.  I look forward to meeting with all of you at Back-to-School Night.  This year’s Back-to-School Night meetings will take place on Thursday, August 25.  Our meeting will begin at 5:40 in room 7.

Students will be bringing home a blank “personal square” on the first day of school.  Please help your child create a square that reflects his or her family and interests.  Instructions will be sent home with the personal square, as well.

I am truly looking forward to getting to know all of you!   Please don’t hestitate to contact me anytime you have questions or comments.

Sincerely,

Trish Crowe