Mr. Weldon's 2nd Grade Class

Happy New Year Tiger Families! And chilly greetings on this fine Friday. Well we made it through our first full week of school in 2019! The students have enjoyed reading stories this week and not only answering questions but also coming up with questions that they may have or questions for others to answer related to the text. Today we also took our first practice test using the new Chrome Books in Power Assessment. This is a county-wide program that allows the children the tools that allow them to look back in the passage to highlight and prove answers, eliminate answers that are incorrect and expose them to technology enhanced question items. We will continue working on these skills as we transition to our summative assessments being computer based.

Upcoming Events and Reminders:

Winter Conferences – Be on the look out to sign up sheet, conferences will be held Feb. 7th

Student Holidays – January 21st and 28th there is no school for students

Academic Focus:

Reading –  We will continue to focus on Questioning using fiction and nonfiction text. Students will use to text to find and prove their answers and use questioning skills to help them with understanding the text they are reading.

Spelling / Writing – Spelling words for the week :us, ate, around, fly, right, bright, sigh, sign, high, blind (focus on long i). We will also begin introducing the mechanics of cursive writing.

Math – Our focus will continue with 2 digit Addition. We will keep reinforcing regrouping and making sure we remember to add in the extra ten when needed. We will also introduce rounding with addition to estimate sums.  Adding 2 Digit Numbers 2nd Grade Addition Games      IXL 2nd grade math – Focus on Section G

Social Studies: Compare the lives and contributions as well as locate and describe the relationship between the environment and culture of the Powhatan of the Eastern Woodlands, the Lakota of the Plains, and the Pueblo people of the Southwest. A study guide is attached to next week’s hw packet. Click here to read about some interesting Native Americans!

Have a safe, fun weekend and we will see what the weather brings on Sunday! Mr. Weldon

What a fun day we had today wrapping up our learning for 2018 and just having some good old fun and good times. We started the day admiring one another’s fun pajama’s, listening to different Holiday songs, and finishing up some morning work for our 67th day of school. We then headed to the gym for a fun basketball game and jamming out to some tunes. We read two more chapters of our Read Aloud Novel Stone Fox.  The kids are really getting wrapped up into the book and are excited to find out what will happen next. Before getting into our Winter Party, the students got to learn about our new classroom computers (Chrome Books) and login to create their profiles. Now the every student will have their own computers, we will be doing more technology in the new year! And then we Partied 🙂 A HUGE THANK YOU to all that volunteered to bring in treats and goody-bags and to the several families that joined us this afternoon. And to Ms. Holland for taking charge of crafting with the kids. Click Here for Pictures from our day.

School resumes on Thursday, January 3rd! Academic focus will be:

Homework packet will be given on Monday, January 7th.

Academics:

Writing/Spelling: new, blue, glue, chew, flew, been, sleep, their, wish, him (words we didn’t do due to the snow days) Students will work on their rough draft, editing, and final copies of their animal informational paragraph they began this week.

Math: We move into double digit addition/subtraction with regrouping in the new year. Students will work on estimating sums and differences, trying different strategies to solve 2 digit computation problems as well as word problems. We’ll start with addition first, then move to subtraction. Add 2 digit numbers with regrouping  Ways to Make a Number Using Addition  SONG: Addition with regrouping

Science: Our focus on habitats shifts to animal adaptations next week. Please be on the lookout for the study guide that’ll be attached to the homework. Students will learn about camouflage, hibernation, & migration as ways animals adapt to their environments. We’ll also learn that plants and trees go into a dormant state during winter, much like a hibernating animal. Hibernation/Migration Quiz Wild Animals Animal Behavior Articles  Camouflage You Tube Video by a 2nd Grader

Wishing you all a happy Holiday Season with family and friends. Looking forward to a fantastic 2019!  Mr. Weldon

Whew, What a long school week we had this week. Ha Ha Ha… I hope everyone was safe and enjoyed the snow days at the beginning of the week. I was happy see their smiling faces on Thursday…. although I’m not so sure they were happy to see mine. 🙂 Due to the short week, we will continue with the academic plans from last week (see 12/7 post below).

Upcoming Events and Reminders:

Wednesday 12/19th – Pajama Day and our Winter Party is at 1:00PM (please send in your goodies for those that volunteered to help)! Thanks in advance

Picture Folder – I updated the picture folder. You should be able to see them. Click here

Gifted Message from Mrs. Rhoden: Parent referrals for gifted identification will be accepted beginning January 3 to January 18, 2019.  As you consider your decision to refer your child, please be sure to speak with his/her teacher to discuss any gifted qualities being observed in the classroom on a consistent basis.  Referrals should be submitted in writing (email is acceptable) to Jennifer Rhoden at jmrhoden1@henrico.k12.va.us during these designated dates.  No referrals will be accepted after January 18.  Subject line of email should state Gifted Referral, and the email should include student’s first and last name, grade level, teacher, and area of referral (English, Math or Both areas).  An email confirmation will be sent within 48 hours.  If you do not receive an email confirmation, please call the school.

Have a great weekend and stay dry! Mr. Weldon

Happy Friday Families,

Welcome December! We had a great first week of December in 2nd grade. We had our last lesson with Ms. Hall. I hope they shared the certificates she made for them with you at home. They were so sad to see her go. This week we’ve been working on writing friendly letters and the students are practicing by writing letters to Ms. Hall that they will give her at our Winter Party!

Updates & Reminders:

Fall Pictures – If you ordered fall pictures they are in your Tiger’s folder today

Winter Party – Wednesday, December, 19th at 1:00PM. If you volunteered to help out, it is greatly appreciated!

Tiger Check – Remember to sign the weekly Tiger check that monitors progress each week and review the graded papers sent home for extra practice.

Academics:

Reading: We will continue our focus on Main Idea with a focus on Nonfiction texts. And how the details come together to help determine what the text is mostly about.  As well, we will keep working with Nonfiction text features (Table of Contents, Glossary, Index, photographs, captions and headings).

Writing / Spelling: Spelling words for the week are: New, blue, glue, chew, flew, been, sleep, their, wish, him (with a focus on “ew” and “ue”). We will transition back to expository writing this week. To go along with our unit on Habitats and nonfiction text, the students will write about their favorite animal and give facts about the animal and its habitat.

Math: We will continue working with Place Value and hundreds, tens and ones. We will keep focusing on the value of digits in whole numbers as well as how we can use place value to help with 2 digit addition and subtraction problems. We will also begin working on story problems with 2 digit computation.      Place Value Games  Place Value to Hundreds    Expanded Form to Hundreds

Science: We will continue working in science with animal’s and their habitats. We will extend this to how seasonal changes impact animals and plants and how they adapt to their environments. Key focus will be on (hibernation, migration, camouflage, and dormancy). :  Hibernation Facts  How Camouflage Works  Animal Migrations

Have a great weekend! Keep an eye for the snow and the possibility of a SNOW DAY!!! 🙂

Mr. Weldon

I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving break and are looking forward to this Holiday Season. We wrapped up the last week of November and are moving into December! Our practicum student Ms. Hall has been amazing this Fall Semester and will be coming back Tuesday for her final day with us. She will be greatly missed by me and the students. Check out pictures of her doing lessons and engaging with the kids on the picture link! We wish her well as she persues her degree to become an elementary school teacher.

Academics Next Week:

Reading: We’ll use non-fiction texts to determine the main idea of a book. We’ll use the table of contents, glossaries, pictures, maps, and the index to help us understand more about a book we’re reading. Students will learn the word antonym, and have practice finding words with opposite meanings. Antonym Video      Antonym/Synonym Games

Writing/Spelling: Spelling Words: walk, were, every, give, open, road, snow, float, throw, toast Writing a friendly letter remains our focus, with using complete sentences, proper punctuation, capitalization, and proper spelling of sight and spelling words within our writing. Type a Friendly Letter Activity

Math: Our unit on 3 digit place value continues! Students will work on identifying, writing, comparing, writing expanded form of 3 digit numbers. We’ll work on ordering 3 digit numbers, telling what 10 more, 10 less, 100 more, 100 less of a number is. Place Value Games

Science: Next week, students will fill out a report sheet based on information they learned doing research on a specific habitat. We’ll discuss how fossils teach us about plants and animals in the past. Students will also discover how habitats can change with man-made or natural influences. Great Habitat Match Up Game  What is A Habitat? Video

I hope you have a fun filled weekend and the weather cooperates for any plans that you may have. If you’re interested, I did tell the students that I was planning to attend the Grand Illumination tonight and the Dominion Christmas Parade tomorrow downtown Richmond! Whatever you end up doing, make the best of it and enjoy!   Mr. Weldon

Happy Friday Families,

Thank you to all the Veteran’s for your service and sacrifice. And secondly, Thank you to all that donated to our food drive this week for the Henrico Christmas Mother!

We are at the end of another week in 2nd grade and this week was definitley a week that proved things don’t always go as planned…. But we made the best of the week and had fun learning together here at school. We will be working with Lewis Ginter to reschedule our fieldtrip at a later time (probably in the spring). Thank you all for your cooperation and understanding. I think even the students understood it would not have been a fun trip in the cold, damp, drizzle!

Upcoming Events & Reminders:

Picture Day – Monday 11/19th – 9:30

Awards & Report Cards – 1st marking period Awards in classroom Tuesday 11/20th at 1:00PM. Report Cards come home (please sign and return the envelope).

Thanksgiving Holiday – No School Wednesday – Friday 11/21st – 11/23rd

Academics for 11/19 – 11/30th:

Reading: This will be our last week dedicated to story elements and Theme. We will continue with our 5 finger retell (characters, setting, conflict, events, & resolution) and identifying the underlying meaning of the fiction stories we’re reading. Make sure your tiger is reading each day and see if they can do the 5 finger retell for you!

Writing / Spelling: We will be wrapping up our narrative writing  with a focus on stories with a beginning, middle and ending.  This week the students have been peer editing and conferencing with me and Ms. Hall. We will move to publishing to have the final drafts completed. Spelling We will focus on the long E vowel sound along with our sight words just, over, your, her, many, reach, bleed, piece, feast, teach

Math: We will be going back to place value and introducing the “hundreds” place. We will focus on understanding the value of each digit in a number and we’ll practice expanded form, comparing 2 and 3 digit numbers, and identifying and writing 3 digit numbers as well.     Place Value to Hundreds      Expanded Form to Hundreds       Place Value Games

Social Studies / Science: The students will wrap up their research on the 5 different branches of the Military and present their important findings to the class. We will then move into science and begin our unit on habitats on how animals and plants are dependant on their surroundings and distinguish between living and nonliving things in different habitats and that habitats can change over time.

Enjoy the weekend and remember it’s a short week next week! Mr. Weldon

Happy Friday Tiger Families!

Wow can you believe we’ve already reached the end of the first marking period. This first 9 weeks has flown by. We will keep pressing on with our learning and fun into the 2nd marking period. Before we know it the Holidays will be upon us!

Thank you to all who were able to come in for a conference or call in for a telephone conference on Tuesday or Thursday! I enjoyed having the opportunity to meet and talk with you. Partnering together leads to a successful school year!

Upcoming Events and Reminders:

PAW Achievement Trip (Permission Slips Due) – Monday, 11/12th the students that received Citizenship and exhibited our PAW qualities during the first marking period will be able to attend a Junie B. Jones play at Hermitage High School!

Field Trip – Our 2nd grade field trip to Lewis Ginter will be on Tuesday, 11/13th. We will be eating lunch there and the lunch order forms were sent home this week so be sure to return ASAP if your Tiger will need a bag lunch from the school Cafe.

2018 Food Drive – Trevvett is collecting non-perishable food items next week 11/12 – 11/16. Donations are being dropped off in the lobby!

Fall Pictures – Picture Day will be Monday 11/19th

Academics:

Reading: We will continue our fiction reading of books and poems focusing on “theme” and story elements: characters, setting, conflict, events, and resolution.

Math: We will continue with our unit on graphing. We will review bar graphs and will be working with pictographs. The students will review key parts of a graph and learn about using the graph key to interpret the data and answer questions.

Writing / Spelling: We will continue with narrative writing and focusing on stories with a beginning, middle and ending.  Spelling words: stain, drain, weigh, eight, play, goes, of, know, why, any

Social Studies: We will begin learning about Veteran’s Day this week and the different branches of the Armed Forces.

I hope you have a fabulous fall weekend! Remember our Field Trips Monday and Tuesday!

Welcome November. What wonderful weather we’ve had this week. Check out more pictures of the kids at recess yesterday and today on the pictures link or click here.

Important info for next week:

• CogAT testing is next week – (Wed/Thu/Fri) please be on the lookout for your parent letter explaining this test in your child’s folder today
• NO SCHOOL on Tuesday November 6th – Election Day
• Sign Up for a Parent-Teacher Conference Here! Available days are November 6 morning or November 8 evening. I want to meet with all of you parents! Please sign up or contact me to schedule a day/time that works best for you.
• Due to no school on Tuesday and CogAT testing, there will be no formal homework assigned next week – we do encourage students to read nightly and use the links to math games to practice their skills

Academics for next week:

Reading: We’ll begin our unit on “Theme”. Students will describe characters, setting, and plot events in fiction and poetry. Students will identify the conflict and resolution, and identify the theme.

Writing/Spelling: We’ll review all previous spelling and sight words, and use previously read text to help us write a retelling of a story. Students will use the idea that a story has a beginning, middle and an end to write their own stories.

Our math and social studies time will be used to practice and complete the CogAT testing next week. If time allows, we will continue with daily calendar skills, number sense, adding & subtracting, and problem solving.

Have a fantastic fall weekend! Mr. Weldon

Happy end of the week Tiger families. We’ve had another wonderful week in second grade. I’ve been impressed with the students making predictions in reading and being able to tell the clues that they are using to make “smart guesses“! And in Math, the calss has really started to show an understanding of Place Value and using this skill to help with rounding and identifying the tens around a number. We are making progress with determing how to choose which ten is the nearest and will continue working on this next week as . Continued practice at home would be beneficial! Also, time got away from me today and I did not send The Tiger Check and completed papers home today. These will come home on Monday.

Upcoming Events and Reminders:

Big Blast – Students that achieved the $50 donation goal for the fall fundraiser will participate in the inflatable Big Blast on Tuesday, 10/30/18. Students are allowed to wear school appropriate costumes that day.

Fall Conferences – Please sign up for a time to discuss your Tigers progress this marking period! I’ve set aside time for evening conferences on Click Here to sign up.

Election Day – No school for students on November 6th (morning conferences available)

Academics Next Week:

Reading: We’ll continue making Predictions: Students are learning to use details from text to make, confirm and revise predictions before, during, and after reading.   Moby Max Sign In   Text Features Practice  Read & Understand Informational Passages Practice

Writing/Spelling: Next week we will finish our Fall stories and will be working on reading and writing r-controlled vowel words -ir, -ar, -er. The Spelling words for next week are: made, those, sing, use, read, thirst, bird, shirt, church, nurse. Phonics Games      IR, AR, OR word sorting game

Social Studies: We’ll learn about Cesar Chavez, a civil rights leader. Kid Friendly Cesar Chavez You Tube Video    Bio of Cesar Chavez  Then we’ll begin studying about the right to VOTE as Election Day draws near.

Math: Our unit on graphing will begin! Students will understand and interpret data from tables and graphs. Daily practice with addition, subtraction, and problem solving continue during our calendar time and math stations.  Extra Practice Graphing  Pictograph Practice   Interpret Tally Marks & Charts Interpret Pictographs

Have a fantastic weekend!    Mr. Weldon

Happy Friday! We made it through another full week. I”m so happy to see the students adjusting and progressing as we begin to start falling into our daily routines and schedule. This really was a great week in 2nd grade!  Mrs. Broudy even complimented the class for how hard they worked and were so well behaved during her Spanish lesson on Wednesday! This week the students also had fun with Math stations and learning about “place value” and in Science, we took a nature walk around the school grounds looking for real life examples of “Weathering and Erosion”. They really enjoyed this activity and did an awesome job finding ruts, holes, (leaves/dirt/pine tags) on the drains, cracks in the sidewalk, and smooth vs. bumpy rocks. I hope they shared their findings with you and were able to explain the reasons behind them!

Reminders and Upcoming events:

• Sign Up for a Parent-Teacher Conference Here! Available days are November 6 morning or November 8 evening.
• MobyMax usernames and passwords came home earlier this week in a letter. Students may use this resource at home to work on increasing skills!
• A message from Mrs. Robertson, our ESL teacher: We are so thrilled to once again celebrate the many diverse cultures at Maude Trevvett Elementary School! On October 23^rd at 6 pm, we want all Tiger families to come out to share and learn more about each other’s culture. We are asking ALL families to bring various items like photos, maps, stamps, crafts, and even food dishes to create a display table for our multicultural fair. And don’t forget to wear your native attire! There will also be live entertainment including an Arabic, Spanish, and Nepali speaking interpreters. You don’t want to miss this exciting event! Return the RSVP form saying YES, you want to represent your culture!

Academics Next Week:

Reading: We’re going to read non-fiction texts to continue the skill of making predictions. Students will use titles to generate ideas about the text and use details from the text to confirm and revise predictions made before, during, and after reading. We’ll also explore non-fiction text features like a table of contents, text boxes, glossaries and the index of a book to help make predictions, answer questions, and help figure out unknown words.

Spelling/Writing: Spelling next week focuses on a few sight words and long a words: right, wash, upon, before, would, grape, trade, grade, chain, plain. We’re going to continue our writing process in creating a story about Fall. The students have brainstormed fall activities, wrote a pre-writing web, and began their rough draft. Next week, we’ll work on editing, revising, publishing and illustrating our stories. Phonics Games

Math: Students will round two digit numbers to the nearest ten, and continue the study of place value (understanding the amount of tens and ones that make up a number). Daily practice with addition, subtraction, and problem solving continue during our calendar time and math stations. Place Value Practice Add & Subtract word problems Round to the Nearest Ten Seashell Rounding Activity

Science: Students will describe the differences between weathering and erosion and how it happens and can be prevented. Please continue to review the study guide that came home with the homework! Study Jams! Weathering & Erosion Video

Thanks for all of your support at home. Remember to check folders today for completed/graded papers and return the Tiger Check and homework on Monday

. Have a great weekend!  Mr. Weldon