Jan. 30

Hello Parents!

I am really excited to get the chance to see you all this week. Hopefully you can make it to the time you signed up for!  Let me know if there is a conflict and I can squeeze you in somewhere else. 

The take-home reading program is really in need of a 2^nd grade volunteer for March and May.  If you could possibly help out, even half of the time, let me know. It would be every Monday for 1-2 hours.  Younger siblings are welcome to come along.

Thank you to those of you who  turned in your Jazz reading minutes yesterday. If you forgot, send them in as soon as possible. They are supposed to be in on Mondays.

Also, I want to do a project next week that requires small boxes. If you have any extra shoe boxes or tissue boxes, bring them in!

See you all soon!

-Miss Jensen

Jan 24th

Hello Parents,

Just wanted to touch base with you about this week. The 2^nd grade bazaar is coming right up. It will be for 2 days-Thursday our class with be selling and Friday we will get to shop.  Please talk to your kids about what they could possibly sell. We have brainstormed some ideas in class, but they need to have something pinned down as soon as possible. I am really interested to see how it goes, I think it will be a learning experience for all of us.  We would like to have as many parents involved as we can. We will need some “bankers” to help trade money, as well as just extra adult supervision.  Even if you can only help one of the days, feel free to stop in.

Last week I failed to mention anything about the Jazz reading competition. I think it was distributed last week on the day I was gone, so I was a little out of the loop. It started last Friday. Every week, on Monday, I will be turning in the total minutes our class read the previous week. Each student’s minutes are entered in individually. Each week there is a winner in each class and grade level for the most minutes read outside of school. Yesterday I only had 5 of you turn in your recording sheets. If you lost the half sheet of paper, but read from Friday-Sunday, just write me a note and I can still include those numbers in our total. A new recording sheet went home in the Monday folders yesterday.  Keep track of the minutes, and return the paper next Monday. I hope that all made sense.  Let me know if you have questions.

Here is a little snapshot of what we are learning this week:

Math: Time

Reading: Fiction story structure/summarizing

Writing: Pen Pal letters- I have a roommate that teaches 2^nd grade at a school in Salt Lake and we are going to be writing letters back and forth with her class.

Social Studies: Chinese New Year, Economics (Supply/demand, goods/services)

Science: Rocks

            I am excited to be able to get a chance to see you all next week during our conferences-don’t forget to sign up for a time!

-Miss Jensen

           

Rock Assignment

Rock Collection Assignment

Due: Monday, January 23^rd

Assignment: Bring in a rock for each of the following characteristics, neatly labeled (by # or attribute) and displayed.  How you display them is up to you.  In the past students have used egg cartons, glued them to a board, etc. 

1.     A rock smaller than the fingernail on your little finger.

2.    A “square” rock

3.    A very rough rock

4.    A shiny rock

5.    A round, smooth rock

6.    A rock with more than one color

7.    A rock that “makes you feel good”

8.    A rock that would make a good paperweight

9.    A rock that would make a nice gift

10.A rock that is very light or dark in color

We will be displaying our collections for our classmates, and doing various activities with the rocks.

Please contact me with any questions or concerns.

Thank you,

Miss Jensen

sarahjensen@alpinedistrict.org

Jan. 17

I hope you all had a nice long weekend. I sure enjoyed the extra day to get caught up on life.  I attended a training today for all the second grade teachers in the district. I learned some great things and can’t wait to implement them into our classroom. I hope your children survived with the sub.

We had a wonderful week last week. It was good to finally be settled back into the swing of things. Our classroom has just had a really great feeling in it lately. Last week we had several people that work in our school come in and tell us about their jobs. We ended up writing them all very large “thank you” notes and delivered them around the school on Friday as a part of our party. The kids loved it and so did the staff.

Our Boxcar party was a hit last week. One student said, “This is the best day of my life!”.  That pretty much made my week. Thank you for being a good sport and letting them haul pillows and blankets to school.

I hope you all received the rock assignment in the Monday folders today. Thank you for being willing to work on things at home. I think this will be a really fun thing to get them thinking as we begin learning about rocks in class. Feel free to bring them to school when you finish them.

I also wanted to make you aware of a little class change that we will be going into effect this week. Up until now we have had time for sharing every other Friday. It has been really fun, and they LOVE it, but I am feeling like there are more effective things we can be doing with our time at this point in the year. We may occasionally have times to share in the future, but it won’t be on a regular basis. I hope you can understand my reasoning.

A few things we will be working on this week

·      Contractions

·      Addition/subtraction story problems

·      Rocks

·      Acting out scenes from the Boxcar Children

·      Reading non-fiction text

Thank you for having wonderful kids! I hope you can tell that I love being with them everyday!

-Miss Jensen

Jan 11

Hello Parents,

            I hope you are having a wonderful week. I want to apologize for the lack of communication since the break-I am resolving to do better.

You may have already heard word of a class party that was finally earned today. We have an ongoing point system between the class and myself. They receive points when they do things that are really great, or get a compliment from another teacher.  Today they hit 10 points and got to choose a party.  They chose to have a “Boxcar Children” party.  This is the book we are reading together as a class. They have been so into it!  I kind of wanted to cry when they chose a book theme for our party when they could have chosen anything. We are somehow going to make a boxcar shape with our desks-this was all their ideaJ. I told them they could bring a favorite pillow, blanket, dog stuffed animal, or anything else that goes along with the book.  I will supply some snacks, and we are going to finish the book.

Here is a quick overview of what we are learning-

Math: Story problems

Writing: We are just finishing up some winter poetry. Some poems have been so tender and others hilarious. I am excited for you to see them.  Tomorrow w will be starting to write some “I have a dream” papers in connection with Martin Luther King Jr. about their own dreams.

Reading: This week I started doing some testing. It is the same testing I did at the beginning of the year.  It has been so fun for me to see the progress they have made.

Social Studies: Last week and this week we have been talking about community. We have discussed ways we can help our class and school communities.  We have also been learning about the roles of different workers in our school. We have had a variety of school employees come into our class and tell us about their jobs. Richard, the janitor, was definitely the favorite.

Phonics: We have been learning how to make words plural.

Art: This week we did some art by tearing paper. We talked a little about perspective and how objects appear smaller when they are farther away.

Let me know if you have any questions.  I’m looking forward to being able to meet with you all again in a couple weeks!

-Miss Jensen