Writing, Painting and Cheering, Oh My!
Week #24 February 18-22, 2019

Go Cats Go!  We had a great time Wednesday watching the UVM Women's Basketball Team defeat the UMBC Retrievers 58-50.  All of 2nd grade was a fantastic audience!  We enjoyed snacks from Mr. Coon, activity packets from the UVM team, our bag lunches, quick entertainment game shows during time outs, and a Zumba dance-along during halftime.

This week with our opinion writing, we focused on writing to appeal to the audience's perspective.  We used a few mentor texts to inspire our writing.  We enjoyed, The Big Bed, and Hey, Little Ant. We worked hard to consider someone else's point of view and to write them a counter argument.  We were all able to write drafts of 2 different opinion letters so we can continue the writing process with these pieces when we return to school in March.

Our geography unit will close with a state float parade!  We have painted our state floats and we are researching about our states.  We will complete our float creation and assembly during the three days we return from vacation.  Our parade will be on Monday, March 11th at approximately 10:15.  You are welcome to join us.  We will also video it and upload the link.

Other things to ask your child about this week:

• Measuring with yardsticks and measuring tapes
• Telling time to the nearest 5 minutes
• 2nd grade celebration movie afternoon
• Guidance lesson with Mrs. Wheeler reading The Invisible Boy
• Our final skiing session in PE

Enjoy this time with your family and I look forward to seeing everyone in March.

Mrs. Hock

Sweet Happenings!
Week #23 February 11-15,  2019

We had a wonderful start to our day on Valentine's Day!  The students were very sweet as they politely and excitedly exchanged valentines before enjoying breakfast together.  Thank you to all families who contributed items and thank you to our chefs:  Mrs. Pels, Mr. Goudey, Mrs. Trombley, Mrs. Olesky and Mrs. Januszczyk.  I really appreciate all the efforts to help it run so smoothly!  The students had no idea we blew a fuse!  They happily and quietly ate and also enjoyed valentine puzzles & coloring together.  The rest of our day was just as lovely too.

We had a Farm-to-School lesson with Miss Meg this week that culminated in us enjoying some sweetened (with Nurse Cannon's maple syrup) mint tea.  The focus was on spearmint and peppermint herbs.  We learned about herbal infusion versus decoction.  Miss Meg also led us through a relaxation exercise while the tea steeped.

Next week features a few fun events...

• MONDAY:  Whole-school celebration of "SPORTS DAY" and painting for the start of our final states project
• WEDNESDAY:  Field trip to UVM women's basketball game.  Every student will need a bag lunch.  Wear green & gold!

 Other things to ask your child about this week:

• writing opinion letters
• beginning our state research
• estimating and measuring
• a lesson on empathy with Mrs. Wheeler

Thank you for all you do!

Mrs. Hock

Measurements and Maps!
Week #22 February 4-8, 2019

This week we began our measurement unit by using non-standard tools to measure objects in our classroom and around the school.  Measurements were first determined using body parts and by using our own feet, we quickly learned that since everyone had different sized feet, we needed one standard foot to use.  We used "a teacher foot", "a yard" (using the approximate length from our nose to our out-stretched finger tip), and "an inch" (using our knuckles and tiles).  Next week, we'll move to standard tools using rulers and yardsticks.

Our map work has been exciting as we've been reading different types of maps of the United States to help us meet the following geography standards: 

1. Use maps to describe places, relationships & interactions.
2. Use maps to identify environmental characteristics of places.  

Students have analyzed and reasoned about political maps and physical maps, and connected them to maps of our 58 National Parks and Time Zones.

Thank you to Elvin for sharing Chinese New Year with us!  Elvin brought in a lucky red envelope filled with chocolate gold coins for each student.  What a fortunate way for us to begin the Year of the Pig!

Thank you also to Mrs. Clark, Henry's grandmother, who visited to share more of her knowledge of Japan.  This time we learned about a typical day for a Japanese student and how to write, and say, the numbers 1-10.

We are looking forward to our Valentine's Day celebration next week.  Thank you to families who are contributing items for our pancake breakfast Thursday morning.

Send in those boxes!  We are collecting the boxes (and lids) that hold reams of photocopy paper.  If you have any at home or work, please send them in.  We'll need one box for each student.

Other things to ask your child about this week:

• Writing letters about our favorite books or characters
• Fractional parts of flags on our calendar pieces
• Flat Stanley arrivals from New York, Indiana and Florida
• The 50 States Song, and The Fifty Nifty United States
• Four Corners during morning meeting

Have a wonderful weekend.

Mrs. Hock

We Are Writers!
Week #21 January 28-February 1, 2019

Writing was a highlight this week!  We finished our non-fiction unit with a Publishing Party on Monday.  We also completed a district-wide writing prompt, and started a unit on opinion writing by writing about our favorite characters and our favorite scenes in our favorite book.  On Friday, we celebrated Vermont Writes Day as part of The Young Writer's Project to "drop everything and write".  The Publishing Party was a wonderful celebration of our hard work and creativity.  We joined Mrs. Belisle's class and were able to read each other's books as well as write feedback to the author as a "Publishing Party Positive".  Our feedback was based on reviewing the author's lead, ending, organization, detail and spelling/punctuation.  Oh, and we had pops too.  What a treat!  Here are a few pictures of our event.

We've received mail!  Six Flat Stanleys have returned along with 3 postcards from 2nd grade classrooms in Pennsylvania, California and Arizona.  How exciting!  This is an amazing way to support our learning of US Geography as we learn about the states our Flat Stanleys have visited.  The postcards are part of a project where we exchange a post card with a 2nd grade classroom in each of the other 49 states.  We were busy this week writing our fun facts about Vermont to mail on post cards to our 2nd grade pen pals.  Here we are with our returned Flat Stanleys.

I have a fun culminating project planned for the end of our US geography unit.  We'll need a box for each student.  The box needed is the box that holds reams of photocopy paper like this:

If you have access to any, at home or work, please save them and send them in to school when you can.  Both the bottom and top of the box will be used.  Fun times ahead!

We will have a pancake breakfast to celebrate Valentine's Day together.  Thank you to families who have already signed up to contribute to this event.  A class list went home today in Take Home Folders for your child to reference for making Valentine cards.

Other things to ask your child about this week:
*decomposing (splitting) numbers to add
*Susan Laughs with Mrs. Wheeler
*Whole-school assembly led by Kindergarten
*GoNoodle exercise breaks and mindfulness
*Mercy Watson

Have a wonderful weekend.
Mrs. Hock

A Productive Few Days!
Week #20 January 22-25, 2019

We may have only had 4 days together, but we accomplished a lot!  We completed important tasks in writing, math and reading.

We are published authors!  We created our final products of our non-fiction books for our publishing party on Monday.  Students creatively chose their writing type, cover and illustrations to finalize either their chapter book, how-to book or question/answer book.  Students also had an opportunity to peer conference and shares "2 stars and a wish" with their partner's book.  Students also met with me to write an elaboration craft for their final book; students chose to include a tip, a glossary or a fun fact.  We look forward to sharing our work not only with our class, but with the writers in Mrs. Belisle's class on Monday.

We completed a district-wide, mid-year summative math assessment.  Students were so focused and careful during this time that I called Mrs. Bailey while they were working to share how impressive they were!  Students paced themselves and worked on this for 3 math periods as well as spent time on their Math Menu tasks.

This week reading workshop featured using our reader's notebooks to document the beginning, middle and end of our books or chapters.  We practiced this with our shared text entitled, The Race before completing this with our own texts.  Students also read independently this week, and with me to complete a winter reading text level assessment.

And, of course, we were productive as aeronautical engineers and pilots!  Thank you to Mr. Coon for teaching us how to fold 3 different types of paper airplanes for our Marky Mark celebration!

Other things to ask your child about this week:
*reading a political map of the US
*sampling spaghetti squash with Miss Meg
*putting together puzzles of the US
*winter Olympics in PE
*our last coding class with Mrs. Springer

Enjoy the weekend!
Mrs. Hock

A Week Full of Guests
Week #19 January 14-19, 2019

This week we enjoyed many special moments with guests along with productive work times.

Mrs. Hock's family (Grandma Judy, Grandpa Jerry, Nana and Ryan) came one afternoon to help us make "kindness cards".  We used the technique of iris paper folding to make a special card.  Grandma Judy taught us this art from Holland that uses color coordinated strips of folded paper taped over a pattern.  This creates a spiraling design that resembles the iris of an eye or camera.  Students chose to make a heart, an apple or a fish.

We also enjoyed a very informative Hands-on-Nature lesson with Henry, Ellie and Susie's moms.  We learned about winter habitats and how animals survive in the winter.  We were able to watch a puppet show, conduct an investigation about insulation and create a mouse habitat.  Thank you Anna, Victoria and Erin!

The Student Justice Union from SBHS came on Thursday to lead a presentation about peace inspired by Martin Luther King, Jr.  Using the MLK quote, "Peace is more precious than diamonds, or silver or gold.", we learned about Alfred Nobel, Henry Dunant and Martin Luther King, Jr and their peaceful efforts to take care of others.

On Friday, we attended an assembly with all of grades 1 and 2 to learn from Sam Drazin  Sam was born with facial differences and he speaks to students about how everyone has differences that are both visible and invisible.  He encouraged us to have empathy towards all people.  Here we are trying his hearing aids so we could hear how he hears.

We are improving at writing friendly letters.  We wrote letters not only to ourselves or families, but to our Flat Stanley recipients.  We had many questions about "snail mail", or postal service, as we generated letters and wrote addresses.  I hope the students enjoy receiving their own letters this weekend.

Other things to ask your child this week:

*Our online game to practice telling time:  https://www.education.com/game/set-clock-5-minutes/

*Guidance with Mrs. Wheeler and Stand Tall Molly Lou Melon

*Solving compare or take-away subtraction problems

*Why readers write or draw about their reading

Have a wonderful holiday weekend!

Mrs. Hock

What's New?
Week #18 January 7-11, 2018

We began some new studies this week.

Dreambox Learning Math:  The South Burlington School District purchased this rigorous and highly adaptive online math learning system for RMCS for the remainder of the school year.  I introduced this to students this week.  Students will have time in school to complete lessons as they assume their avatar in Adventureland.  This learning system meets the educational needs of individual learners by adjusting in the moment as the student responds to lessons in the fun learning environment.

Reader's Notebooks:  We are now recording the title, author and date each day we read.  We'll also use this notebook to write about our own reading, our shared read alouds and our mini lessons.  This will be a great tool for us as we grow as readers and make the reading/writing connection.

Flat Stanley:  Our current read aloud is Flat Stanley by Jeff Brown.  This character will help us begin our study of United States Geography.  On Friday, 1/11/19, your child brought home a letter in their "Take Home" folder about sending a Flat Stanley to a friend or family member that lives in another state.  Please return this letter with the necessary information ASAP this week.  Along with mailing Flat Stanley to family and friends, we'll be mailing postcards to a second grade classroom in each of the 49 other states.  We'll receive postcards back from those 49 schools--wow!  We will be excited to check the mail for the next few months!

We are also collecting puzzles of the United States to complete in school.  If you have one that you are able to share with our class, please label the box and send it to school with your child this week.

Guidance:  Here is some information from Mrs. Wheeler and Ms. Bedell regarding our new guidance unit entitled, "Changing Perspectives".

Our school has chosen the theme of “Changing Perspectives” to help our students gain better understanding of differences and disabilities. We are collaborating with Sam Drazin, Executive Director of Changing Perspectives { www.cpne.org} and former teacher. He will be presenting to all our students in grade level meetings on Friday 1/18. Each week, Mrs. Wheeler and her intern Ms. Bedell will be incorporating their curriculum into their weekly class time with us. They will read a book with our class and discuss the importance of the uniqueness and value of each member of our school community. While we will be learning about various disabilities, our focus will be on recognizing each person’s strengths. To celebrate our learning, we will be organizing a disability awareness hands-on workshop. We will set up stations to simulate various disabilities and invite students to experience daily actives without being able to see, walk, hear, or use their fingers. In first and second grades, each student will create a booklet to demonstrate their learning.

Word Study:  We also returned to our word study routines.  Based on a winter spelling assessment, all students in second grade are working in "just right" word study groups.  Students work in their group to study patterns at their developmental spelling level 20 minutes each day.

Other things to ask your child about this week:
*Not Your Typical Dragon
*Cross country skiing in PE
*Reader's Notebook
*Kindness picture books:  How Full is Your Bucket?, A Sick Day For Amos McGee, Enemy Pie

Thank you!
Mrs. Hock