News for this week

I hope your week has been super, because we've had a pretty wonderful week here at NWES! 

This week we have: 

...learned strategies to implement when we come upon tricky words while reading.

...been working on telling time to the hour and half hour.

...started our word study with small groups with Mrs. O.

...made fact families in math.

...completed MadLibs and learned nouns, verbs, and adjectives.

...worked in our writers notebooks and added things writers add, like lists, memories, etc.

Important things you need to know:

1) We will begin spelling tests next week. Each spelling list is individualized for each student, based on test data and what they have showed me they need to know. Most of them each week will have five high-frequency words (common words like "are," "there," etc.) and five words that have some sort of pattern they need to recognize, such as adding -ed to the end of a word to make it past tense, etc. I'll explain to you what your child's word pattern for the test will be when the words are sent home. The test will be on Friday.

2) We will be taking a field trip to Doud's Orchard in Denver, IN, on Wednesday, October 23rd. We've received word that all parents are welcome to attend (yay!), so mark that on your calendars if you'd like to come. I'll send more information as we get closer to the trip. 

3) Conferences are Thursday, October 3rd. You MAY NOT receive a notice to come visit me, and that's just fine...and just because I request to see you doesn't mean your child is having trouble either. :) If you'd like a conference and I don't send you a request, please let me know and we'll work that out.

4) You'll notice midterm grades are in. You also might notice your child is receiving lower grades than you expected, especially since the only graded work you're seeing is math. All the evaluations for grades are done one-on-one so I can get a true measurement of where your child falls compared to other second-graders nationwide. If you see a "C," that means that compared to all other second-graders, s/he is average. The bottom line is we will (most likely) see improvement as we move through the year, so if s/he started with a "C," we will probably see that improve between now and Trimester 2. Please call me or come visit if you're concerned.

Have a super weekend!