Last Day Picnic

What a great looking group of kids! Have a great summer!

Summer Time

It is Summer! Can you believe that the year is already over? I will miss you all very much. Have a fun safe summer, and feel free to tell us here on the blog about what you are doing.
-Mrs. Biles

Last Day of School

Come join the second graders for a last day of school celebration picnic.
We will meet in our classrooms for opening activities then go out to the back of the playground for our picnic time at about 8:45 A.M. The students will engage in recreation until lunchtime. School is over at 1:15 for the year and students will get their report cards at that time. Plan to come eat and spend that time with us.
Picnic tables, chairs, and blankets are welcome.

Please stop by our classroom to sign up to bring some food or help with an activity. If you sign up for food you do not have to come during the day, just send it with your student.

-Mrs. Biles

We made the news again.

JeffCo School district came and visited our class and wrote a nice article about us. Check it out at:
http://jeffcoweb.jeffco.k12.co.us/communications/messenger/current/
(The link will only be active for one week)

Summer is on its way!

Don’t let your student forget what they have learned over the summer! Here are some ideas to help the third grade year start off smoothly:

· Continue reading 20 minutes a night

o Read anything: magazines, books, even try books on tape and follow along. Remember to go to the public library and join the summer reading program.

· Play math games on occasion: Turn Over Ten, Ten’s Go Fish, Race to 20, 24.

o If you would like a fantastic game to play stop by Beyond the Blackboard on Wadsworth and 77^th (or Amazon.com) and get Math Noodlers. We have been playing it in our classroom and it covers a large majority of the math curriculum in a fun way. There are multiple grade levels of difficulty available, so get the one that is just right for your child.

· Visit places nearby and talk with your child about what you are seeing.

o Museum of Nature and Science

o Zoo

o Art Museum

o Children’s Museum

o Aquarium

o Butterfly Pavilion

o Dinosaur Ridge

If you would like to help a struggling reader over the summer set up a routine that you follow almost every day.

Try: 10 minute lesson on key topics

20 minutes read together a text that is an instructional level for your child (Meaning you will have to help them to decode some of the words, remember to define new vocabulary together and point out any time that you see what you talked about in your lesson.)

If you need some information from me, what key topics to be working on, and what type of books are instructional level for your child etc. please come talk to me. I’d love to help.

Have a fantastic summer! I wish you all the best of luck in years to come. It has been wonderful getting to know you this year.

-Amanda Biles

Last Day of School

We are rapidly approaching the end of the school year and we have a lot of learning to still fit in. Make sure that you are coming to school prepared to learn.

Come join the second graders for a last day of school celebration picnic. We will meet in our classrooms for opening activities then go out to the back of the playground for our picnic time at about 8:45 A.M. The students will engage in recreation until lunchtime. School is over at 1:15 for the year and students will get their report cards at that time. Plan to come eat and spend that time with us. Picnic tables, chairs, and blankets are welcome.

Please stop by our classroom to sign up to bring some food or help with an activity.

-Mrs. Biles

Field Day - Tomorrow!

Don't forget field day is tomorrow!
Be prepared for rain (maybe an extra pair of shoes).
We will be doing field day no matter the weather (unless it is lightening).

There and Their

After some serious learning about "there" and "their" we made a little movie and each of us made a flip book to explain when to use which word.

Reader's Theater - THIS WEEK!

After over a month of preparation we are getting closer and closer to our performances. We will be doing a practice run through every day for other students in our school, so it is important to bring the extra pieces to your costume (ex: black or white t-shirt to wear under your costume, dress shoes, etc.). By performing for other students we will be better prepared to perform for our parents this coming Friday night! We are all very excited.

Friday, May 9th
Students need to be in their respective classrooms by 5:45 to make sure they have their costumes so we can start promptly at 6pm. The performance will include two plays: Rumpelstiltskin and Aladdin and the Magic Lamp. The whole performance will last about 30 minutes.

Parents are welcome to video or take pictures though I will put together a DVD for the students in my classroom and each child will get one though I ask a $5 donation for the cost of production.

What we learned about Soil and Rocks

Fossils

We are learning about fossils. Today we got to take a close look at some fossils and tomorrow we are making our very own fossils. Be sure to bring something to press into your fossil: plants, shells, etc.

Medieval Art Night

Don't miss our school wide art show!

Medieval Art Night
May 9th at 5pm
All second grade students will be performing their reader's theater productions at 6pm on the same evening in their respective classrooms.
Mark your calendar!

Assessment Days

This week your child comes to school on Wednesday or Thursday only during their appointment time. There is no school on Friday. The appointments are as follows:

Wednesday April 23rd
Drop-Off Name Pick-Up
8:00 Anasia 8:30
8:30 Angie 9:00
9:00 Blake 9:30
9:30 Berenice 10:00
10:00 Alejandro 10:30
10:30 Mitchell 11:00
11:00 Kristine 11:30
11:30 Siavash 12:00
12:00 Joey 12:30
12:30 Morgan 1:00

Thursday April 24th
Drop-Off Name Pick-Up
8:00 Robby 8:50
9:00 Kiera 9:50
10:00 Asia 10:45
10:45 Tanner 11:30
11:30 Ben 12:15
1:00 Alex 1:45
1:45 Isiah 2:30
2:30 Adriana 3:15

Update 4-17-2008

We had a great reading workshop this morning as the first graders were taking their BEAR test. We were able to practice keeping track of our decoding and comprehension strategies. Please continue to read for 20 minutes a night at home with your child. Include a conversation about what is happening in the story.

We are looking forward to building our "set" for our reader's theater plays on Monday. If you have any large cardboard boxes that we can use please send them to us. Don't forget to mark your calendar for our performance Friday, May 9th at 6pm.

We are continuing to talk about combining and separating numbers and have started a new game called Capture 5. Look for the instructions coming home today and PLEASE play this game every night with your child instead of Tens Go Fish or Turn Over Ten.

Science continues to be a blast as we talk about properties of rocks. Today we were sorting the rocks by visual properties though a game called guess my secret rule. Tomorrow we get to do more experiments to determine other properties of the rocks.

Remember that next week we only have school on Monday and Tuesday. Your child has an appointment to come to school on either Wednesday or Thursday and it is crucial that you make that time work. Teachers have a full schedule and it is necessary to assess children one-on-one to obtain accurate data of their accomplishments. It is very important that you are on time to drop off and pick up students for their assessment times.

BEAR

Students did fantastic on the Bear test yesterday (Basic Early Assessment of Reading). We were able to go out for an extra recess afterwards and enjoy the sunshine.

Don't forget to come to PTSA TONIGHT at 6:30 in the Library. If running club and science fair and all of those "extras" are important to you and your child we need your help to continue doing them.

See you tonight!
-Mrs. Biles

Mud Pies

My goodness! We made mud pies today in class and boy was it fun! Be sure to ask all about what we are doing in class:

• BEAR Practice
• Reader's Theater
• Publishing on Lulu
• Equations for 100
• Soil and Rocks
  

Reader's Theater

I hope you are all memorizing your lines for our upcoming Reader's Theater production. Make sure you mark your calendars for our performances on May 9th at 6pm. It is the same night as the Medieval Art Show at Little Elementary. The art show will begin at 5 pm throughout the school with hotdogs for sale in the cafeteria. Our Reader's Theater will begin at 6pm in each respective 2nd grade classroom.
Don't forget to bring your costumes right away! I will have a bunch also, Steve helped me make some more this weekend!
-Mrs. Biles

daily class blog 4-3-2008

Reading today: We got Three or four books and sat down and read some of them.
Writing: We wrote on our books and added on to our writing.
Math: we did some story problems and some of us answered most of them.
Science/ social studies: We learned about sand loam and clay and we wrote about them in our science folder.
Specials: We did stretches and regular relays and scooter relays. Kiera

Homework$

Reading: For reading we did all the things we needed to do and the kids that needed to go to the libary did.
Writing: For writing we typed storys ate snack and writed if we need to.
.Math: for math we did place value and story probeloms
Scince: For scince we looked at rocks , loam and clay that was fun.
For specials: pecials we did gymnastics and summer saults andhand stands.It was really fun.

by:Asia

Diving In - Again

Hello one and all! I am ready to dive in again after a great Spring Break! I hope it was delightful for all of you. I apologize that this blog has not been updated recently, but hopefully we are now back on track.

A few heads up for our classroom:

• I am looking for a child's wading pool and glass baby food bottles for our "Earth Materials" unit that we will be starting right away. If you could donate either (and we could return them) I would appreciate it.
• Before Spring Break the students earned a Show-and-Tell. We will be having it on Tuesday morning. Please send something that is important to your child.
• We are starting a new study of Fairy Tales, Folk Tales, and Plays. Because of this your child will no longer have a baggy book. I will try to ensure that all students have an appropriate library book to be reading at home. Please continue to read for 20 minutes a night and mark it on the calendar in the homework folder. Also look forward to a script coming home that your child will be memorizing for our upcoming readers-theater performance.

April is just around the corner and we have some hefty goals for learning. Each of you made a goal with your student at parent teacher conferences and we will be working diligently on those. We will also continue working on comprehension strategies and focusing on Summarizing and Synthesizing in reading.

Many students have a goal to improve their handwriting, and therefore non-readable handwriting will no longer be accepted. Expect writing and re-writing if your student has handwriting as a goal. As far as content goes, our focus in writing is still on paragraphing and using descriptive language.

Our current math unit is "Putting Together and Taking Apart." It is a focus on addition and subtraction of multiple digit numbers. We are still working with horizontal number sentences, but will be introducing vertical number sentences to reinforce place value. Students DO NOT yet understand carrying and borrowing like we were taught it (cross out the number add a one... etc.) so PLEASE do not teach them this way yet. They first need to understand how to break units in a tangible sense.

As I mentioned earlier, we are moving into a new science investigation. We will be studying earth materials such as types of dirt (soil, loam, clay) and types of rock and their properties. We get to make mud pies, test the material for properties like weight, crumbly-ness, color, acidic-ness, and learn about fossils. We will continue this investigation all month long.

If you have any needs or questions please feel free to contact me.
abiles@jeffco.k12.co.us
-Amanda Biles

Read-A-Thon

Read-A-Thon
THIS FRIDAY!

Don't miss two former
Denver Nuggets from the
Community Ambassador program
reading to our school in the morning.
Remember to collect pledges and
bring your donations on Friday.
We are hoping to collect &7,000 for the school.
This read-a-thon will help us fund many school programs that you love,
so please show your support!

Read-A-Thon

Last Friday was Movie Night at Little Elementary. It was our official kick-off for our Read-A-Thon fundraiser. Here is some information about the read-a-thon fundraiser.

• It will take place March 21st
• All students receive a t-shirt!
• Classrooms read and are read to ALL day long.
• Families, friends, and our community make pledges that are a 100% donation to Little Elementary
• Funds will go toward programs at Little (like the running club) and new technology (like computers, projectors, document cameras, and SMART Boards).
  
• Classes that have 100% participation (every student donates) will receive a Pizza Party
• This year's theme is Reading Rockets.
  
• If you know of anyone who would like to come and read that day please let PTSA know. The more "special" people ( a firefighter, mayor, etc) that come the more fun we have!

The PTSA has worked really hard to make sure all teachers have (or soon will with your help) projectors, laptops and access to SMART Boards. Please help us show them how appreciative we are by making this fundraiser a success.

Free Flash Drives

Just a quick note:

For those of you that don't have a USB drive yet and would like one for FREE - Novell and Microsoft are giving them away as a promotion. You can go to http://www.moreinterop.com/collaboration and register for your free USB drive bracelet. It's 2GB which is a nice size for storing most files you would need to transport.

Just thought I'd pass it on.
-Mrs. Biles

Movie Night at Little Elemenary 3-7-08

Don't forget about next weeks Movie Night at Little Elementary. We will be watching the Game Plan and eating pizza. It is a kick-off for our read-a-thon fundraiser and right before the feature film we will be watching a short film that includes the students in our class. Remember to let us know that you will be coming by next Wednesday so we know how much pizza and pop to get (we wouldn't want to run out!) I'll be there and hope you and your kids will be too! Spread the word!
-Mrs. Biles

Movie Night at Little Elementary
The Game Plan
Pizza
Friday, March 7th
Dinner at 5:30
Movie at 6:30
Bring pillows or camp chairs for seating in the gym

Titanic Guided Reading Group

One of our reading groups has been reading all about the Titanic. I was impressed with the student conversation about the events of the Titanic. We decided to share our learning by making a photostory. Way to go kids!
-Mrs. Biles

Google Earth

We have finished our unit on economics and students know much more about consumers and producers, opportunity cost, and mediums of exchange. I am impressed with the new understanding in our room.

We are moving on to a study of Regions. Using our Flat Stanley travels and Google Earth we are exploring deserts, polar regions, forests, and grasslands. Students were very excited when I introduced Google Earth to them. If you would like to check it out go to google.com and type in google earth. It is a free download that you can play with on your computer. We love it here at school.

Deeper Reading

Hello parents and students! It is our challenge at this point in the year to dig deeper into the comprehension part of reading. In order to do this I would encourage you to ask the following questions to your child during or after reading at home.

• What is the most important event in the story? Why?
• What do you think the author is trying to tell you in this story? Why?
• What is the most important thing you learned from reading this book? Why?
• What traits (behaviors, etc.) does the main character have?
• Summarize the book with beginning, middle, end, setting, characters, problem, solution, and main idea.

We are really focused on Determining Importance right now and would love your help at home. Thanks for your support!
-Mrs. Biles

Opportunity Cost

Opportunity cost is where you wanted to write but your friend wanted to read so you both decide to write. But there is an opportunity cost and that opportunity cost is that you both could have been reading.

Morgan Lavely

Opportunity Cost

We have been learning all about economics in our second grade classroom. Our most recent topic was "Opportunity Cost". Kids broke into groups and wrote, directed, and narrated their own play. Here are their finished videos. I was very impressed with the kids work!
-Mrs. Biles

Tigers

Tigers live in sorounding islands some tigers are white and some tigers are black and orange, the white Tigers are coled White bangle Tigers,and the Black and orange Tigers are coled Bangle Tigers,and they are the bigest cats on the world.

Alex

Hope you like the video the video is about aaevery thing i lorned about Tigers

100 day

On the 100th day in are class we had a100 collton .We sortd them. After we had free time for ten mintentes .Everybody likedAlexs.We got one candy.we had been counting from the first day of school .Today we get to put the dollar on the calender.

By:Asia

100 Day

On 100 day we ate candy. and we had to play weth are tings that we breng. and we had to go to the compeore lab .and we had to go to reses. .
and then we had to go to the gym
by berenice,

100day.

On 100daywehaf to bring100 thing tosgolonthe100thdayofsgoland peawithfres.

Angelique

100 day of school

Evrybody brought 100 things. We all had fun.-Alejandro

Knights projeckt

Robby and i reasherched about knights.It was fun.We learned interesting things.One thing we learned is that knights through people on the wall and a daed animal to spreed desies.


Tanner.

100s day

For 100s day I brot 100 madnedex ( magnex).

Isiah

I made a vedo abat the liberty bell

Knights Projeckt

Tanner and I reaseached knights.We laerned some intresting things. One thing we learned was that knights flung dead people and dead animals over the wall to spread desies. We did a power point. I am sure Tanner liked it. I liked it to.Me and Tanner reaserched knights. It was fun.

Robby.

reading a chapter book

A chapter book is arsome! and inttaing (entertaining)

Mitchell

100th day of school.

On 100th day I brange 100 knedeckeds. Isiah brot 100 magnedecks.Asia brot 100 pennys.Kiara brot 100 peses of candy.& Alex brot 100 Anamels.

Ben

recess

On Recess I played Halo2.I played the part, where I face the Broot lord.I was the arbater.

Joey

Beads

I made a neckles with 10 beads and it has pinck,blou,white ,of colers.

Morgan

100 day

We got candy and we played with the colections and sorted ours.

Siavash.

100 day

100 day was fun. We got to eat, candy it was sour.

We got to play with Alex's toys.

by.Adriana ,Kiera

class blog by Ben

reading: I read chapter books.
writing: I wrote poems.
math: We did a paper about how to figure out what things cost.
art: We painted our clay dinasours, I painted mine red and blue.

Asia

Reading we read at are desks quit .Ms.p. should us her name . Centers we did alot of work Mrs.stekmen was really helping out.

Ben's daily class blog

reading: Today at reading we put sticky notes, & read books.
writing: In writing we wrote our poems, typed them and then printed them. My poem is called recess.
science/social studies: I did Ben & Jerry's, & learned about the ice cream in the old days.
math: We learned about symmetry, which is, things that are the same on each side.
Art: I thought of how to paint our clay Dinasors.

Daily Class Blog 1-28-2008

Today we had quite a day of learning.
Our morning started out with a mini lesson about poetry. We talked about things we have noticed in poetry. It is funny, cool, sometimes rhymes, uses descriptive words, and has interesting punctuation.
In Centers and Guided reading we focused on a few different things:

• Blogging
• Poetry
• Word Families (like -ick can be made into sick or pick)
• Telling Time with Analog Clocks
• Letter Teams (like the sound -ight makes)

Writing was also enjoyable today as we continued our study of poetry. I shared a poem of mine that was published a few years ago and that excited the kids to begin writing their own poetry. Each student is expected to publish a poem by the end of the week.

We reviewed symmetry today in math and are making our way to the end of this unit about Shapes, Halves, and Symmetry. Students will be tested on this information next week and then we will start the next math unit about Time Lines and Telling Time.

Economics has been the topic of our social studies hour recently. We are learning a bunch of new vocabulary like: consumer, producer, goods, services, opportunity cost, and scarcity.

Students are using their own flash drives almost daily now to save their work. They have become quite proficient on the computers. I have decided to not do another typing club at school, but would recommend that you have your child continue to practice typing skills at home.

I am still hearing minimal feedback about holding another blogging class for parents and students. Hopefully in the coming weeks I can decided what to do about that, because I would love to have students doing the daily blog. I believe that students really internalize their learning if they have to post about what they did in school.

Keep up the hard work. I appreciate your support.
-Mrs. Biles

Research Projects

During our Reading Workshop days we have started learning how to research on our own. Students are using books and the computers to find information about the topic of their choice. They are expected to keep track of their learning and then share their learning with the class. They can choose to write a book, poem, play, kidspiration web, or a "show" on the computer. This was the first group to write a play and I think it turned out fantastic.

Mr. Shape-O

Mr. Shape-O visited our class today. He helped us learn about halves and symmetry. He let us cut some toys in half. It was fun. He taught us how congruent was a synonym of symmetry. He cut toys in half so boys and girls could have fun.

Fantastic Learning 1-11-2008

Today we had some great learning. We read poems, played whole group literacy games, wrote our stories and even found out that we are writing with a real purpose because our first published book from Lulu.com arrived. It was a book we wrote as a class about writers workshop. We also learned more about doubling rectangles and multiplication. We excelled at describing our rectangles to each other. Today we finished our Statue of Liberty photo stories and they were most excellent. =-)

Daily Class Blog 1-10-2008

READING: Today we got 3 or 4 books and we read silently at our desks.

WRITING: We wrote in our books with the things we had on our sheets.

MATH: We studied rectangles.

SCIENCE/SOCIAL Studies: We learned about the statue of liberty.

SPECIALS:We practiced on our lynx pictures.-Kiera

The Statue of Liberty

The Statue of Liberty by Tanner and Robby.

Daily Class Blog 1/9/08

Reading: We got 3 or 4 books. We went to our seats and read. Some of us partner read. Some of us went to the library to check out books.

Writing: We got our supplies. We wrote in our books. We are writing about all sorts of things.

Math: We played a game. We had to cut out rectangles and pretend they were chocolate bars. We picked one of the rectangles and pretended to eat them. We answered questions about our activity.

Social Studies: We did a page about the Statue of Liberty. We went on the computer to find the answers.

Art: We practiced drawing our lynx for the yearbook contest. We each decided on our own background or border and practiced that, too.

-Isiah

Daily Class Blog - Jan. 8, 2008

Reading: Mr. Stroup came in and read us Lilly's Purple Plastic Purse. We each got a copy of the book.

Writing: We planned out how we were going to do writing. We wrote our stories. Some of us started new books.

Math: We played Guess My Secret Rule with Shapes.

Social Studies: We learned about the Statue of Liberty. Tanner is as tall as the Statue of Liberty's nose. (4 ft. 6 in.)

Specials: Art - We are doing a contest for the yearbook. We are drawing a picture of a lynx.

-Isiah

Welcome Back!

I am so excited to be back in school, and today we had a fantastic day.

Today was a "warm-up" type day where we reviewed what school behavior and routines look like and feel like. We were blessed with a reading of Lilly's Purple Plastic Purse written by Kevin Henkes and read by Mr. Stroup. It was fun to have him in our room first thing this morning sharing a story with each of us. Every student got a copy of the book and we practiced intonation (sounding like the character while reading).

During writing workshop we were able to relax into writing stories that we were already working on or new stories. Some stories are about Christmas, X0Bot, Sea Animals, and Pokemon.
We reviewed sorting by visual characteristics in math today and will be moving on to learning about fractions in the next few days.
Social studies is really exciting this week. We are learning about symbols of America and this week we are focusing on the Statue of Liberty. We explored the Statue of Liberty by watching a few short videos, reading books, and exploring some interactive websites. Students also got the opportunity to learn how to use their flash drives for the first time. If you haven't sent a flash drive in with your child please do so if you can. We will be using them from this point onward quite often.

Thinking Forward:

• If your child has been invited to the morning reading class please remember to come Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays at 8AM.
• Please send a flash drive to school with your child if you have not yet.
• Our reading focus this month will be: schema (background knowledge and connections) and fluency (reading like we talk).
• Our writing focus this month will be: writing complete sentences (capitals at the beginning of a sentence and for proper nouns) and beginning to write with paragraphs.
• Our math focus this month will be: fractions and geometry.
• Our social studies focus this month will be: symbols of the United States (Statue of Liberty and Mt. Rushmore) and beginning economics.

• I am throwing around the idea of how to do typing club again. I am trying to figure out a schedule that would work and if anyone has any ideas I would love to hear suggestions.
  
• I would also like to put some feelers out and find out if I offered another "How to Blog" class for students and parents would there be any takers, and would before or after school be better?
  

I would love to hear from more of you. Feel free to pipe up here in the comments section or in your own post.

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year everyone! I hope you all had a safe and happy night last night. I can't wait to see you next week!
-Mrs. Biles