Tomorrow is crazy hair day for a $1 donation. This is a fund raiser for the 4th and 5th grade camp. Kids can wear crazy hair accessories, wigs, etc but NO hair paint or colored spray.
Also, There is an earth day fair at Richard this weekend. Here is the link if you are interested:
http://gpschools.schoolwires.net/17671081112326913/lib/17671081112326913/Earth%20Day%20Fair%202011.pdf
Thursday, April 28, 2011
Summer School
Elementary Summer School Program
Dates: July 18–Aug. 4, Monday-Thursday
Times: Session 1: 8:15-9:45, Session 2: 10:00-11:30
Location: Richard Elementary School
For more information contact Sara Delgado
(313) 432-5446
Summer school offers classes for gifted students and students who need extra help. There are courses for kids at every level. If you are thinking of signing your child up for summer school (or if I have talked to you about it) here are the steps to getting in at a reduced or free rate (if you qualify):
*Parent picks up a form at 389 or one is mailed to the family
*Parent fills out form and gets a signature from school principal or counselor
*Parent returns form to 389 along with required documentation
*If the student qualifies for a fee reduction, the form will be forwarded to the summer school principal to make the final determination regarding the amount of the reduction. Everyone will be required to pay something, no full scholarships will be rewarded.
*Fee reduction cannot be rewarded for enrichment or accelerated classes
More Questions? Call the summer school office at (313) 432-3094.
Wednesday, April 27, 2011
Wednesday, April 27th
Today we had our PBS reward for the past month: a bounce house! The kids loved it (of course!) I tried to take a few pictures but they were jumping around so much that the pics were all pretty blurry...
In reading and writing we worked on typing the first part of our animal reports and finishing our diagrams. Hopefully we will move on to 'what it eats' tomorrow :) We also spent part of our writing time reviewing fiction writing and practicing with a cloze sentence story (sort of like a mad-lib). The Grosse Pointe Writing assessment is coming up in the next few weeks so I want to make sure the kids are ready for that fiction writing!
In math we made a MULTIPLICATION TABLE! We went all the way up to 10 x 10. I taught the kids to go down each column filling in the products by counting that number (like we did yesterday). For example, in the 10's column they just went right down the page: 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, etc. The only tricky part was counting by 6's, 7's, 8's and 9's. Ask you child a few multiplication facts (like 5 x 4 or 3 x 4) and let them amazing you! :)
Reminder: Last day for cans is Friday and PLEASE SEND BACK YOUR LIFETOUCH PICTURE PACKET if you do not want to purchase any of the pictures. Thanks!
In reading and writing we worked on typing the first part of our animal reports and finishing our diagrams. Hopefully we will move on to 'what it eats' tomorrow :) We also spent part of our writing time reviewing fiction writing and practicing with a cloze sentence story (sort of like a mad-lib). The Grosse Pointe Writing assessment is coming up in the next few weeks so I want to make sure the kids are ready for that fiction writing!
In math we made a MULTIPLICATION TABLE! We went all the way up to 10 x 10. I taught the kids to go down each column filling in the products by counting that number (like we did yesterday). For example, in the 10's column they just went right down the page: 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, etc. The only tricky part was counting by 6's, 7's, 8's and 9's. Ask you child a few multiplication facts (like 5 x 4 or 3 x 4) and let them amazing you! :)
Reminder: Last day for cans is Friday and PLEASE SEND BACK YOUR LIFETOUCH PICTURE PACKET if you do not want to purchase any of the pictures. Thanks!
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
Tuesday, April 26th
Welcome back!! The kids had a great first day back and it was awfully nice that they were able to get outside and play at recess today to help ease them back into our regular routine (I was fearing a whole week of inside recess with all the rain in our forecast!)
In reading & writing we learned about the text features of our non-fiction books and made a diagram together on the Smartboard. Next, the student made their own diagram of the animal they are writing their animal report about. We also reviewed old vocab and concepts such as: table of contents, index, habitat and physical characteristics. Tomorrow we are going to learn about nutrition and what animals need to live. We will research a crocodile together and then they will work on finding out what their own animals eat.
In math we did arrays and multiplication. We learned that you can draw an array to find the answer to a multiplication problem OR you could count up by a certain number. For example, today we did 4's so I taught the kids to count by fours to find the answer to 4x5 (ie- 4, 8, 12, 16, 20). We watched a couple fun YouTube videos to help us count by 4's and 3's. Here are the links:
count by 4s http://www.youtube.com/user/havefunteaching#p/u/6/VSn2O4mTYD4
count by 3's http://www.youtube.com/user/havefunteaching#p/u/9/MWxPKnLtnus
Finally, in Social Studies we learned about reducing, reusing and recycling. We are doing an earth-week mini-unit in SS right now so expect a lot of talk about recycling around the house and how you can help make the world a nicer place :) Later this week we will be doing an experiment to test for air pollution in our school.
Reminders: Last day to bring pop cans is FRIDAY! Thanks to all of you who have already helped out and sent cans with your kids :) The mountain of cans is getting HUGE and the kids are very proud.
In reading & writing we learned about the text features of our non-fiction books and made a diagram together on the Smartboard. Next, the student made their own diagram of the animal they are writing their animal report about. We also reviewed old vocab and concepts such as: table of contents, index, habitat and physical characteristics. Tomorrow we are going to learn about nutrition and what animals need to live. We will research a crocodile together and then they will work on finding out what their own animals eat.
In math we did arrays and multiplication. We learned that you can draw an array to find the answer to a multiplication problem OR you could count up by a certain number. For example, today we did 4's so I taught the kids to count by fours to find the answer to 4x5 (ie- 4, 8, 12, 16, 20). We watched a couple fun YouTube videos to help us count by 4's and 3's. Here are the links:
count by 4s http://www.youtube.com/user/havefunteaching#p/u/6/VSn2O4mTYD4
count by 3's http://www.youtube.com/user/havefunteaching#p/u/9/MWxPKnLtnus
Finally, in Social Studies we learned about reducing, reusing and recycling. We are doing an earth-week mini-unit in SS right now so expect a lot of talk about recycling around the house and how you can help make the world a nicer place :) Later this week we will be doing an experiment to test for air pollution in our school.
Reminders: Last day to bring pop cans is FRIDAY! Thanks to all of you who have already helped out and sent cans with your kids :) The mountain of cans is getting HUGE and the kids are very proud.
Friday, April 15, 2011
Happy Spring Break!!
Hope everyone has a restful and wonderful Easter break! I did send homework with the kids today but there is NO SPELLING HOMEWORK, only math (which is individualized based on what we talked about your child needed extra practice with at conferences) and Social Studies. I am hoping that the SS homework is fun for the kids and will help them become more familiar with the terms: career, producer, consumer, goods and services.
If you have any down-time over break and need something to keep your second grader busy, here is a math website we have bee using for the past couple months. The kids LOVE LOVE LOVE these game. I recommend the fraction games and the number operations :)
http://www.sheppardsoftware.com/math.htm#earlymath
If you have any down-time over break and need something to keep your second grader busy, here is a math website we have bee using for the past couple months. The kids LOVE LOVE LOVE these game. I recommend the fraction games and the number operations :)
http://www.sheppardsoftware.com/math.htm#earlymath
Thursday, April 14, 2011
Everyday Math App!
For those of you who are interested, during the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) Conference in Indianapolis, Indiana, Everyday Math is offering the EMGames Apps FREE in the iTunes store. You can preview these apps at the ST EM App site at https://www.mheonline.com/stem_apps/. If you have an iPad, iPhone, or iPod Touch you can download the EMGames Apps for FREE during NCTM April 13-16, 2011.
Here's a list of the available apps:
· Addition Top-It™
· Subtraction Top-It™
· Beat the Computer™
· Name that Number™
· Equivalent Fractions™
· Tric-Trac™
· Monster Squeeze™
· Baseball Multiplication 1–6™ Facts
· Baseball Multiplication 1–12™ Facts
· Divisibility Dash™
Remember, after April 16, these apps revert back to their original price of $1.99 each.
Monday, April 11, 2011
Pop Cans & Update
This past week in reading we have been working on: compound words, Fact and Opinion, 'wondering' (or questioning) while you read, and plot (the parts of a story- characters, setting, problem solution). We have also been working ery hard to incorperate the elements of a plot into our writing. We have started to begin working on meap-type writing as well as GP writing assesments where the students write about a specific prompt (ie- Thhe Day My Life Changed, etc) which will help us get ready for future testing.
In math we just finished unit 10 (which included a lot of place-value review/reteaching) and are now moving into Unit 11 which focuses more on multiplication and and division! The concept is still pretty simplified (drawing pictures to solve, using arrays, etc) but will help them SO much once they begin to memorize those multiplication facts at the beginning of 3rd grade!
Also, the big news in our classroom right now is the POP CAN DRIVE. The kids wanted to do something nice to help others and we finally decided that we should find a way to donate $ to Japan. In talking about this we also realized that we could help our follow Poupard Student, John Kidd, by donating pop-tabs/tops to the Kidney Foundation to assist in his treatment. Please send in any depositable cans/bottles so that we can use the 10 cents to donate to Japan AND if you can, please remove the pop tops so that we can give those to Johnny :) Removing these tab ahead of time will save me TONS of time.
Also, pease try to put all cans in a BLACK trash bag (this way all the cans will be out-of-sight and we will be able to collect any type of can...) We have officailly opened this up to the whole school so I see a lot of cans in my future! I told the kids I would take the top 2 can collectors with me to Kroger to deposit the cans when the time comes. Thanks for your support! I love that the kids are doing something to help others and are learning an important lesson about charity :)
In math we just finished unit 10 (which included a lot of place-value review/reteaching) and are now moving into Unit 11 which focuses more on multiplication and and division! The concept is still pretty simplified (drawing pictures to solve, using arrays, etc) but will help them SO much once they begin to memorize those multiplication facts at the beginning of 3rd grade!
Also, the big news in our classroom right now is the POP CAN DRIVE. The kids wanted to do something nice to help others and we finally decided that we should find a way to donate $ to Japan. In talking about this we also realized that we could help our follow Poupard Student, John Kidd, by donating pop-tabs/tops to the Kidney Foundation to assist in his treatment. Please send in any depositable cans/bottles so that we can use the 10 cents to donate to Japan AND if you can, please remove the pop tops so that we can give those to Johnny :) Removing these tab ahead of time will save me TONS of time.
Also, pease try to put all cans in a BLACK trash bag (this way all the cans will be out-of-sight and we will be able to collect any type of can...) We have officailly opened this up to the whole school so I see a lot of cans in my future! I told the kids I would take the top 2 can collectors with me to Kroger to deposit the cans when the time comes. Thanks for your support! I love that the kids are doing something to help others and are learning an important lesson about charity :)
Saturday, April 02, 2011
Marshmello Madness!
Friday was our PBS (good behavior) reward day. The kids LOVED it and had a lot of fun making their marshmello creations (and a lot of fun eating the left over materials :) )
Map Skills
We are working on Map skills in class right now and were lucky enough to have a parent make these great Michigan cookies for us! We used the cookies to practice making a Key/Legend, identify major US cities (and a couple other cities of interest!) and become more familiar with our great state! Here are a some fun pics of the project-
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