Monday, November 20, 2006

It’s another half day today because we are having conferences. Conferences are when the teacher talks to the parents or guardians to hear about how well you are doing in class. They talk about behavior and school work. The teacher hands out the report card, too. The kids get to share some of their work, too, like science journals, math notebooks, writing journals, published writing, and books they like. It’s a time to celebrate.

Friday, November 17, 2006

Today is another half day. The people that have hot lunch go down right after first recess. The people with cold lunch get their lunches and go down to join them. The hot lunches came in bags. But this time they didn’t cook it. The lunch lady just made it. It was a tuna sandwich with tiny pickle squares in it. They were as tiny as pencil erasers. There was a mini bag of Doritos. There was strawberry applesauce and an M&M cookie. It was delicious.

Thursday, November 16, 2006

Levi is moving to his new house. He is moving to a new school, too. He is moving to Seattle. We got him a book. It’s a poem book about animals. It’s called Rumble in the Jungle. It'’s by Giles Andreae. We wrote our names and messages in it so he would remember his class. Tomorrow he is going to visit his new school. We hope he makes lots of new friends. We hope he'’ll come back and visit us. We will really miss him. Goodbye, Levi.

Wednesday, November 15, 2006

We went to the book fair. It was fun. We picked out the books that we liked, and then we wrote them down on a piece of paper. Some people had to have two pieces of paper because they wanted a lot of books; some people only needed one piece. Now we’re going to take the lists home. Then we’re going to show it to our dads, or moms, or whoever. Then we’ll ask if someone will buy books for us. We can bring the money back to school tomorrow, or Friday, or next Monday, or next Tuesday if we want to buy the book.

Tuesday, November 14, 2006

We did science using water and air yesterday. We used water and we could put vials inside of the water and it would make bubbles come up out of the water. The bubbles in the vial were air. When we put the vial in the basin sideways, then it will make make big bubbles, if you force it in. One thing we did was put a paper towel in the bottom of the vial. We put it into the water and tried to keep the paper towel dry. It is easier to block the opening with your hand than to just plunge it in when you’re trying to keep the paper towel dry. We learned that when you put a towel into a vial and you stick the vial upside down in the water, the towel won’t get wet, even if you move the vial around.

Newletter 5

2006-2007…Room 302—Newsletter 5…http://room302.blogspot.com

November 8, 2006

Dear Families,

We have busy times ahead, including conferences, holidays, and our holiday program. It should be lots of fun.

Party

Our Halloween party was great. There were six stations, and the children spent about 10 minutes at each. Without fail, the students were interested and engaged at all times. My thanks to everyone who was able to contribute and help make this another meaningful and worthwhile use of our school day.

conferences

Speaking of meaningful experiences, conference time is upon us. I plan to have the children present. I plan about 20 minutes for us to talk. For some, 20 minutes is plenty of time. For others, it might not be enough. Either way, I ask your help in making sure the conferences start at the appropriate time and do not run long. Our staff has worked to coordinate schedules so that sibling times are back to back, and if we get off schedule, the impact could affect many others. A sheet came home today, Wednesday, with your scheduled conference time. Please send it back to let me know the time works for you. As I said, these have been coordinated throughout our school, so if changes need to happen, we need to know fast. If I don’t see the confirmation slip back, I assume the time works.

In the interest of making the experience meaningful for you, I’m asking that you plan on starting with any specific questions that you have. My hope is that you won’t walk away with concerns or questions unanswered.

Why bring kids?

I want the students at the conferences. The topic of the conference will be them. The point of the conference is to celebrate their work, their progress, their accomplishments. They did all the work—how can we celebrate without them?

If you have an overriding need to speak to me about something that is inappropriate for the child to witness or overhear, perhaps we set up a different time to talk. If there are other conflicts that cannot be helped, so be it. It might not work for everyone.

Our day, each day…..

I thought that having a sense of our day might help before you come in, so here’s a basic layout:

Read Aloud / word work: I like to start our day with a story. Word Work includes “spelling”.

Writers’ Workshop: They usually write in journals. Once a week they do special project.

Bathroom/Recess

Readers’ Workshop: Students usually choose their own reading material. They each have a book box or bag containing things they want to read.

Lunch and recess

Math: Each student has a math workbook and a math notebook.

Science: we have just started science journals, which may be of interest

Jobs / clean up / pack up

Shared Writing

Chapter Book

Chapter Book

Bunnicula by Deborah and James Howe.

We’re also reading Junie B., First Grader: BOO…and I Mean It! by Barbara Park

Field Trip

We’re signed up to go to the Seattle Children’s Theater to see The Sorcerer's Apprentice by OyamO. We’re going with the other second grade class,. I think we’re about full on the chaperone list, but if you still want to go, I can put you on a waiting list, in case we end up with extra room. Some people have sent permission slips back; many have not. If you’re confirmed chaperone, please make a note of it and include an extra $10.50.

Blog

The main thing I use the web log (blog) for is to relate what happens in our school day, so we try to do it at the end of the day. Lately, our afternoons have been quite full. As a result, we do not always get time to do our daily news. I do think it’s a valuable use of our time, though, so I’ll continue to play with the schedule. I have recently updated the blog with what we’ve done so far, and I’ll try to be more timely about posting in the future. Thanks to those that have been asking about it.

Calendar

Thursday, November 9—no school	Monday, November 20—conferences, early release, 12:15
Friday, November 10—no school	Tuesday, November 21—conferences, early release, 12:15
Wednesday, November 15—Library	Wednesday, November 22—early release, 12:15
Thursday, November 16—conferences, early release, 12:15	Thursday, November 23—no school
Friday, November 17—Levi’s last day	Friday, November 24—no school
Friday, November 17—conferences, early release, 12:15

Sincerely,

Jeff

Wednesday, November 08, 2006

Today we went to an assembly, and we sang. We sang Yankee Doodle and then America . We celebrated Veterans Day. Veterans are people who served in the Coast Guard, Marines, Army, Air Force, and Navy. Lots of people in our class have relatives that were veterans, or who are in the service right now. Mr. Stocker read us a veterans book. It was Veterans Day by Jacqueline S. Cotton. We had fun.

A note on spelling from the United States Department of Veterans Affairs web site FAQ (http://www1.va.gov/opa/vetsday/vetday_faq.asp):

Q. Which is the correct spelling of Veterans Day? a. "Veterans Day" b. "Veteran's Day" c. "Veterans' Day"

A. Veterans Day (choice a, above). Veterans Day does not include an apostrophe but does include an "s" at the end of "veterans" because it is not a day that "belongs" to veterans, it is a day for honoring all veterans.

November 3, 2006

It was Levi’s birthday. He turned seven. Sydney was nice enough to share the cupcakes that her dad made for the Halloween party. The cupcakes were tender, peanut-buttery, and delicious. They had little chopped pieces of Butterfinger in them.

We got a new student six days ago. His name is Chris. He’s one of the coolest kids ever. He’s really funny. He’s really nice. He’s awesome.

Today we had an assembly that was called Mad Science. They did funny jokes. The guy put a flash paper on his hand and burned it. The paper burned, but his hand did not. It burned really fast. They held up a roll of toilet paper on a plunger stick. They used a leaf blower to make it all blow off the roll. It went onto a student and onto Mr. Stocker. The made scientist had a garbage can. It had a big rubber piece on one end, and a hole in the other end. He filled it with smoke. Then when he hit the rubber side, we could see the air and smoke come out the other side. It was so cool and really neat!

November 2, 2006

A Fun Day at Halloween We went to the bathrooms and put on our costumes. We came back to the carpet and counted off by sixes. That made six groups. Each group started at a different table. We ate lots of stuff. We painted pumpkins. We made our own cupcakes. We made Halloween mobiles. We made wind socks. We also played Hangman. We had a Halloween party. Happy Halloween!

Monday, October 23, 2006

We had science today; we worked with partners. We could use these tracks that are long, white, shaped like an arch or a semi-circle, and made out of foam. You can bend them and they won’t break. You could make a loop. You take a sphere (we used small marbles) and send it down the tube and it will roll. You can use tape on the end to make the marble stop. We could make the marble loop-de-loop, or twist, or slide. We could put the track against the table and send the marble down. You could even roll the marble up the track.