A Look Back and Ahead

 1

The class and I had a great week getting back into the swing of things! This is a great group of children who seem to get along great together and are ready to learn. I am excited about what this year will bringJ

As stated above, we spent this week getting to know each other and getting back into routines. In Language Arts we worked with the story Tacky. We reviewed what nouns and proper nouns are and even cut and pasted some to hang up in the room. Next week we will be working with The Cats of Tiffany Street. We will continue with learning about nouns and proper nouns. Also, we will get into real/fantasy, and plot. I have just begun to read with the children to get them into guided reading groups. I suspect we will be starting guided reading the week after next.

In Math we reviewed counting skills, counting by ones, tens, and fives while counting change. We will continue with counting change and get into telling time next week. If we are ready, we will get going on flashcards late next week. There will be a note coming home on studying flashcards and I will put reminders on the homework as needed.

The second graders met only one time this week for social studies. We started our “Rights and Responsibilities” unit, learning about our rights. This unit will continue into the weeks ahead and encompass conflict resolution; they go really well with one another. I will alternate science units with social studies units for the year.

We did not start our spelling routine this week. I will be circling words in the children’s writings so they can start building a bank of spelling words. Each child will be responsible for adding words I circle into their spelling dictionary. The words for their spelling lists will come from their spelling dictionary. It usually takes 2-3 weeks for the bank of words to get large enough to start having tests. I will definitely put their assignments on the homework for you to know when this has started…Homework hasn’t started yet either (next week)!

In the area of writing, we will focus primarily on writing complete sentences and writing a main idea with supporting details for the first few months. This will be done in short mini-lessons and also with our “Morning Journal” (a collection of writings where the children respond to a prompt). The assignments done in the mini-lessons will come home while the Morning Journal will be kept here at school. You may certainly view the contents of the Morning Journal at any time; it will also be available at the open house and parent-teacher conferences. When the time is right, we will start our writer’s workshop. The students will be writing stories and other types of writings and I will be meeting with them individually to help them in their writing skills. 

PLEASE be sure to check the website. As bad as I am with remembering things and technology, I attempt to put up current pictures of what we are doing here at school. Even if I don’t have anything cool to look at, Barb Eldridge does a wonderful job of keeping things fresh. Besides, they’re cute kids!

 

Mr. Mauntler's Main Class Page

The Main Elementary Page for 2009-2010

http://www.onekama.k12.mi.us leads to all pages since 1997