Go Cats Go!

Hi Families-

What a wonderful week we have had here at RMCS. This week, our entire school went to support the UVM Women's Basketball team. We had a blast cheering for our local team, got to dance to some Zumba at half time, enjoyed a snack from Mr. Coon and then got to give players high fives at the end of the game!  Here's a peek into our fun:

This week in reading, we've switched our focus from fluency to paying attention to authors' word choices. We learned that sometimes authors use words in playful or inventive ways- we call this "literary language". Sometimes authors compare two things to help us gain a better understanding of an event or character. Sometimes authors use expressions to make us think or feel a certain way. We are always on the lookout for literary language!

Our class will be going to the Flynn Theatre Friday, March 8th to see Rosie Revere, Engineer. We are excited for this STEM-Arts connection.

Mrs. Mahl shared some exciting news with the class today. In July, Mrs. Mahl's family will be growing by one! This means I will be here through the end of the year, but will just be sporting a growing belly. Yay!

This week is also our last week of the Winter PE schedule. When we come back from break, we will return to having PE on Tuesdays and Fridays.

Other Things to Ask Your Child About:
- Climb the Beanstalk
- Using "for example" in our writing to provide evidence for texts
- Our final cross country skiing
- Twice as Tall

Have a wonderful break!
Kelly

Valentine's Day Fun!

Hi Families-

We have had a super week here in Room 17! This week had some fun celebrations, and even a surprise snow day! This week, we had our celebration of friendship and kindness on Valentine's Day. We started our morning off with a delicious pancake breakfast. Another huge THANK YOU to those families who donated supplies or their time, helping our breakfast run smoothly. We then opened up our Valentines as a community. It was so special to see the excitement and gratitude on everyone's faces. Here is a peek at our special day:

We continued our measurement unit this week by looking at the relationship between feet and yards, and then measuring using yard strings. We know that we use inches to measure small things, then feet and yards to measure bigger objects. Here we are even measuring Mr. Coon! In case you were wondering, he's closest to two yards!

We are all very excited to be attending the UVM Women's Basketball Game next Wednesday as a whole RMCS community. This year, the second grade will be staying for the entire duration of the game. We will also be eating our lunches there. Please pack your child with a lunch that day (in a paper bag is even better!), or they can purchase a bagged lunch from school to bring.

Other Things to Ask Your Child About:
- Self-Care and Mint Tea with Farm to School
- Cross Country Skiing
- Capture the Clock
- Pinky and Rex and the School Play
- Writing opinion letters about books

Have a wonderful weekend!
Kelly

Celebrating 100 Days of Learning!

Hello Families-

We've had a fabulous week of learning here in Room 17! This week, we celebrated the 100th day of school. I cannot believe it has already been 100 day with these super second graders! On Monday, the second grade team will be celebrating with an afternoon of fun surrounding the number 100. We will explore it's relationship to the number 1,000 and 10 centuries.

This week in math, we continued our deep dive into our unit on measurement. We've learned to measure in some non-standard units, such as teacher feet and giant feet. Now, we are moving towards standards units of measurement, including inches, feet and yards. We know there are 12 inches in one foot, and three feet in one yard. We've discussed what tools might be good for measuring different objects in our school. What methodical measurers we are!  Here is a peek at us measuring:

This week in reading, we began a new unit that focuses on strategies for amping up our reading power. Our first bend has been all about fluency. We learned that one of the most powerful ways for readers to grow is to improve our reading fluency. This week we practiced using dialogue tags to help us read like our characters, and to look for punctuation to use as clues for phrasing. We are become fluent readers!

Other Things to Ask Your Child About:
- Pinky and Rex and the Mean Old Witch
- Capture the Clock
- Flag Calendar Pieces
- Writing counter-arguments in our opinion letters

Have a wonderful weekend!
Kelly

Continuing Kindness Through these Cold Winter Days!

Dear Families-

We've had a wonderful week here in second grade! This week, we've completed our Kindness Calendars for the month of January. If your family has been keeping track of acts of kindness at home, don't forget to send in those calendars so we can fill up our Marky Mark jar :)  Our class has brainstormed ideas of ways that we can keep our kindness going, even though our sharing unit is done. I am so proud of how kind these kids have been!

We have also completed our informational writing unit. We celebrated our nonfiction writing by creating a museum of our topics to share with Mrs. Ransom's class. Students gave tours of their topics, teaching facts, giving tips and providing definitions. We had dog experts, dirt bike experts and even board game experts! I will be taking the next week or so to assess student writing, and then you will get their writing folders back to share their hard work at home. Here's a peek into our celebration:

Please be on the lookout for an email regarding a Valentine's Day Breakfast :)

Other Things to Ask Your Child About:
- Kindergarten Assembly- Superheros
- Our Habitat Unit
- Finishing Flat Stanley
- Pinky and Rex and the Mean Old Witch
- Measuring in teacher feet, giant feet, and head strings

Have a wonderful weekend!
Kelly