May 22-June 5th

Hello Families! We had a great week. Some of the highlights were the Art for Youth gallery (Thank you Mrs. Erwin for a wonderful year of Art!) and our field trip to the Elm Grove village hall. We have only 3 weeks left of school. We are trying to remain focused on school to finish second grade applying all we have learned, reflecting how much we have grown. Here is a glance at the next three weeks:

• Finish the last chapter in Math: A Review of the main concepts
• Wind experiments in Science
• Goods and Services- Needs and Wants in Social Studies
• Fairy Tale Study in Reading and Writing

Human Growth and Development- Next Thursday May 28. In second grade, it is the requirement that we discuss female and male body parts. The lesson includes a video about good and bad touching and then a teacher led discussion about anatomy. The boys and girls will be separated for the lesson. If you have any questions or concerns, please let me know.

Thank You! Again I want to thank everyone for the beautiful flowers, treats, cards and gifts for Teacher Appreciation! It was a wonderful week!

Community Projects- Large projects that can't go home on the bus can be picked up anytime!

Enjoy your Memorial Day weekend!

May 8th-22nd

Hello Families!
What an absolute crazy week! I hope the unexpected two days worked okay for your family! Despite the crazy beginning of the week, we had a great rest of the week.

Class News: Our Poetry Cafe was a big success thanks to you! The kids really enjoyed having parents come to our celebration. It was Maddy's birthday on Friday. Mom and Dad came in to be the surprise readers. David was star this week and Justin will be next week. I would like to say thank you for the teacher appreciation cards and gifts. They were very thoughtful and made me smile! Have a very Happy Mother's Day! We hope you enjoy your gifts we made!

HELP: We are in need of a couple parent volunteers one afternoon towards the end of May (day to be determined). Parents from all 3 classes will create a project assembly line to put together the kids' poetry anthologies (their end of the year gift) It will probably be a 2 hour project. Please let me know if you may be interested!

Reading and Writing: We finished our Poetry unit and jumped right into our last unit of the year: Fairy Tales! This is a fun unit that ties in with writing as well. We have begun to read fairy tales whole class, small group and independently. We are paying special attention to the elements of Fairy Tales: Special Words at the beginning and end, good character, evil character, problem and solution, magic, royalty and/or a castle, and 3's and 7's. We will begin to write fiction stories and eventually our own fairy tales!

Math: Finally! We have officially learned the subtraction algorithm! The kids have done an excellent job understanding how and why we borrow and trade. It is important that you support your child using the exact method we learned in class as your child will be expected to do this every year in school. Please re-look at the Home Links lesson 11-3 for an example. I know this is not the way you learned or I learned in school. It is a little different so that kids better understand that they are moving a 10 to the ones column not just putting a 1 next to the top number. This week, we will begin exploring multiplication and division.

Social Studies: Community Projects are due on Monday! The 5 that were turned in this week did a nice job! We have our field trip to the Elm Grove Town Hall Tuesday May 19th.

Science: We continue to study air and are now moving into weather. We have a class meteorologist everyday who charts the day's weather and helps turn on our 30 second video weather forecast on WeatherBug.com

Ask your child:
What are some of the elements of Fairy Tales?
What is Air resistance?
How do you subtract 52-37 using the trade first method?

Reminders:
Blacklight Show Permission Slips need to be turned in ASAP