Field Trip Chaperones

A big thank you to those of you who volunteered to chaperone our second grade field trip! Unfortunately, per the museum rules, we can only have so many adults accompany us on our field trip. I have directly contacted those parents who I have asked to come with us on the bus to the museum. If you did not hear from me, you are still welcome to come, however, you must drive yourself and pay for your own admission (the museum said they will give you a 50% discount for admission if you let them know you are with our field trip).

Just as a reminder of the details, our field trip is Thursday, May 21. We will be at the Museum of Natural Curiosity at 10:00am. We will spend the morning at the museum and will have lunch on the lawn right outside the museum. We will be back at the school by 1:30pm.

If you have any questions please let me know!

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?	What traditions and celebrations involve our country’s flag?
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.)
Abbreviations	Abbreviations: Aug.  Dec.   Dr.   Feb.   Jan.   Mr.    Mrs.   Ms.   Nov.   Oct.   Rd.   St.
High-Frequency Words (These reading words should be practiced and memorized.)	Story Words (These reading words are words from this week’s main selection.)
answer   company   faraway   parents   picture   school   wash	America   birthday   flag   freedom   nicknames   stars   stripes
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.)
allegiance   frayed   history   independence   indivisible   patriotic   symbol   unfurl	Letter Smoothness

We Won!!

A big congratulations to my class for winning the April Homework Challenge! I am so proud of their hard work and thank you for your support. They earned an extra recess and a popsicle this afternoon.  I know it's hard as the school year starts to wind down, but please keep up the hard work and continue to read and go on reflex math daily!

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!