Behavior

As some of you may have heard from your child, I have temporarily taken all desks away. As of last week behavior had continued to decline, with students lying to me, cheating, sneaking things in and out of their desks, and stealing. In order to make academics the main priority I took the desks away and the results have been great! Students will earn the privilege of having a desk as they continue to complete their work, follow directions, and show more respect. I hope to see results as I did today in the coming week!

Spelling Words

You can support your child’s literacy skills by reviewing, discussing, and practicing the skills and concepts below:

Big Idea/Big Question (This is the theme of our unit in class.)	Question of the Week (This is the theme/question for this week’s instruction in class.)
Traditions:  Are traditions and celebrations important in our lives?	Why are sports traditions important in our country?
Phonics Skills (These are the letters and sounds we are learning in class.)	Spelling Patterns and associated Words (These patterns connect to our phonics skills we are learning this week.)
Inflected Endings	Inflected Endings: heavier   heaviest   lighter   lightest   liked   liking   planned   planning   skipped   skipping   tried   trying
High-Frequency Words (These reading words should be practiced and memorized.)	Story Words (These reading words are words from this week’s main selection.)
guess   pretty   science   shoe   village   watch	bases   cheers   field   plate   sailed   threw
Oral Vocabulary (Try using these words in your conversations at home.)	Handwriting Practice (Students can practice the writing of these letters in manuscript this week.)
athlete   challenge   champion   dainty   disguise   effort   professional   shortstop	Letter and Word Spacing

Spelling Review

This week’s spelling test will be a review of the previous 5 weeks of spelling. If your student has mastered these spelling patterns, they shouldn’t have any problems at all with the words. Please review these spelling words with your child. The test will be Friday and can be any 15 words from this list.

Week 1
Suffixes -ful, -ly, -er, -or

• 1. cheerful
• 2. visitor
• 3. slowly
• 4. weekly
• 5. teacher
• 6. helper
• 7. hardly
• 8. graceful
• 9. yearly
• 10. quickly
• 11. fighter
• 12. sailor

Week 2
Prefixes un, pre, re, dis

• 1. unsafe
• 2. preheat
• 3. rerun
• 4. disappear
• 5. unlock
• 6. discolor
• 7. rewind
• 8. unpack
• 9. unplug
• 10. regroup
• 11. preschool
• 12. disagree

Week 3
Consonant Sounds kn, gn, wr, mb

• 1. knock
• 2. sign
• 3. knee
• 4. wrong
• 5. write
• 6. climb
• 7. wrap
• 8. wren
• 9. gnat
• 10. lamb
• 11. comb
• 12. knob

Week 4
Consonant Sounds ph, gh, ck

• 1. phone
• 2. enough
• 3. backtrack
• 4. laugh
• 5. ticket
• 6. duckling
• 7. graph
• 8. tough
• 9. photo
• 10. rough
• 11. cough
• 12. clang

Week 5
au, augh, aw, al

• 1. talk
• 2. because
• 3. August
• 4. caught
• 5. draw
• 6. walk
• 7. chalk
• 8. auto
• 9. taught
• 10. thaw
• 11. fault
• 12. launch

Permission Slips

Please don't forget to send in your child's permission slip for our May field trip. I need them back no later than Wednesday.  Thank you!

Don't Forget!

Don't forget about our April Homework Challenge! Ms. Mackay's class is currently winning, so don't forget to read and go on reflex math so we can bring in some more tickets!

Spelling Words

You can support your child’s literacy skills by reviewing, discussing, and practicing the skills and concepts below:

Big Idea/Big Question (This is the theme of our unit in class.)	Question of the Week (This is the theme/question for this week’s instruction in class.)
Responsibility:  What does it mean to be responsible?	How can we be responsible when we make a mistake?
Phonics Skills (These are the letters and sounds we are learning in class.)	Spelling Patterns and associated Words (These patterns connect to our phonics skills we are learning this week.)
Vowels  aw, au, augh, al	Vowels  aw, au, augh, al: August   auto   because   caught   chalk   draw   fault   launch   talk   taught   thaw   walk
High-Frequency Words (These reading words should be practiced and memorized.)	Story Words (These reading words are words from this week’s main selection.)
behind   brought   door   everybody   minute   promise   sorry	afternoon   blame   idea   important   signmaker   townspeople
Oral Vocabulary (Try using these words in your conversations at home.)	Handwriting Practice (Students can practice the writing of these letters in manuscript this week.)
apologize   citizen   hoard   interrupt   judgment   protest   scold   troublemaker	Letter Size

Money!

We have started our new topic in math, money! This has great real world application, with daily opportunities for review at home. Please work on names of coins and especially adding coins together. Thank you for your support!

Important Letters to Look For!

Parents,
Two very important letters will be coming home with your child today. First, a permission slip regarding our field trip in May. Please sign and return this ASAP. The second, is the second grade April Homework Challenge. If you need another copy of either of these papers please let me know. Thank you!