Mrs. Kelso's Critters

This week we have continued our units on Time and Poetry.  We have learned about different types of clocks and how people kept track of time in the past, and we even made a human clock.  We have discussed how things such as electricity, transportation, and houses have changed over time.  Thank you for practicing telling time with your child at home.  They are doing a great job with it! 

The class has really enjoyed our poetry unit as well.  We have written shape poems and poems with alliteration and personification, and we have talked about how poets write things in unusual ways with things like similes.  On Friday we will be publishing one of our poems with the laptops!  They are excited about bringing their poems home to share with you.

Thank you for sending in kleenexes!  We have a good supply of them now. 

I hope that everyone enjoyed their break!  Although it was hard for me to leave Levi, I am glad to be back into my routine again.  We are already working hard and starting some new things here at school.  We will be working on telling time for the next few weeks.  This is a concept that is easy to practice at home.  We also started a poetry unit that we will be working on during our Reader's and Writer's Workshop time.  It is a fun unit that the students usually really enjoy.  Today we talked about using our senses to write a shape poem.  We wrote a poem about a pineapple as a class.  Ask your child what they're writing their poem about.  They have some great ideas!

We are completely out of tissue here at school, and I know we will be needing it with the colder weather heading our way.  If you can send a box or two we would greatly appreciate it.  We are also in need of socks to use as erasers for our dry erase boards.  We just need 1 sock per student. 

Thanks so much for your help! 

• A blue letter went home today in your child's Daily Folder.  It is a conference schedule.  I would like to start meeting at the end of this week, so please take a look at the form tonight and send it back as soon as possible.  If you have questions or concerns about the times available, please email me and let me know.  We can work to find a time that works for both of us! 

 

• A book order came home in your child's Thursday folder last week.  I have already received a few orders back.  I would like the orders returned by Friday, September 25th.  If you would like to order online, let me know, and I can send you instructions and our username and password.  (If you order online, you can use your credit card, and it earns me extra points to use for books for the classroom.) 

I look forward to meeting with each of you at our conference and setting goals for your child's year!

 

I know that several of you were unable to attend our Open House last night, but I wanted to update you about what we discussed.  You should find 2 sheets of paper in your child's daily folder tonight.  One is an information page about things in our classroom, and the other is a list of strengths and weaknesses you see in your child.  I will use this second form to help me create goals for your 2nd grader, so please return it to school as soon as possible.  We also discussed school-wide procedures which are very similar to the way they were last year.  If you have any questions about the forms I sent home or something that was discussed last night, please let me know.

We had a great first day of school!  We spent a lot of time today getting to know each other.  I enjoyed getting to see a glimpse of their fun personalities!  We also spent time today reminding ourselves about the expectations here at school and practicing them.  We've implemented a new incentive at school called Howler Tickets.  Ask your child about the tickets and how they earn them.  I enjoyed getting to know your children and look forward to working with them this year! 

I am so glad that your child will be in my class this year!  I will update this page with important announcements and things going on in our classroom.  Please make sure to check back frequently to see what we are learning in 2nd grade!