Welcome to Mrs. Dickens' Class 2008-2009
During the month of May/ June
Welcome to our website! During last month, we had reading buddies, had the Fun Fair, our Temples & Tombs Program, and other events. Something wonderful is always happening at Bristow Run! I hope you enjoy the new connection that they are using as our link to get to this website by going to http://pwcs.bristowrun.schoolfusion.us/
CURRICULUM
In math, we have started Unit 8 : "Partners, Teams, & Paperclips". We will do this unit until the middle of May and then start Unit 9 which is on measurement. That will be our last math unit this year.
We are working on Ancient China in social studies. We have been learning about mapping with China and what contributions this civilization added to our modern day world.
We will end the year with two science units-- Ecosystems and Lifecycles; however, we will not be doing a science unit until the middle to end of May. We have briefly discussed lifecycles since we have tadpoles in our room that we have started to observe and will continue to observe over the next few weeks.
In language arts, we have been doing and will continue to do guided reading groups. We have also started some literature circles, too. We will be meeting with our reading buddies from Mrs. Gregory's class again. We have been doing the DRA 2 Testing. This is the Developmental Reading Assessment. This is where I have each child read to me, retell the story and make connections and reflect on the story. We will also be doing the PAL's Assessment. This is where the children write words, then read words from a list, and read a passage and answer some questions. We will be taking the Nonfiction Test at the beginning of May. The Cueing Test will be our last language arts test of the school year. We have introduced cursive writing. We will continue to work on this. We will also work on prefixes, suffixes, and review syllables.
In writing, we are finishing our last book of EPIC, a book on writing poetry. I hope you find the poems we wrote for Mother's Day to be very sweet. We will also review some of the skills we learned this year and disucss writing paragraphs. We will also be discussing Father's Day and writing something for our dads at the end of the school year in June.
We have also continued to do word study. We will have a quiz on these words every two weeks, for the most part. Please review these words with your child to practice for the tests. Thanks. The last word study/ spelling test will be June 4th. After this, we will review skills and concepts that we learned throughout the year.
I hope this is helpful and informative.
COMMUNICATION & HOMEWORK
I will try my best to keep you informed this year. I will try to inform you by a weekly newsletter from time to time and also by this website newsletter updated monthly.
Your child will have homework during this school year. One homework assignment that your child should do every night and may begin to start doing now is to read for at least 15 minutes per night. I will keep you informed as other additional homework presents itself. Please do not forget that we started the reading homework sheet. These can count as part of their 15 minutes of nightly reading. These sheets are due every Wednesday. The children may have a math homework sheet as they present themselves in the unit, as the unit progresses. The only other things that the children may need to do is to study if we are having a test, including spelling/word study ones.
If you have any additional questions, please feel free to reach me at (703)753-7741 or by my e-mail address at dickenem@pwcs.edu
GRADING SCALE
Our grading scale in second grade includes the following grades: an S for making satisfactory progress, an S+ for making exceptional progress, an S- for making inconsistent progress, or a N for needing further experiences. This will help you with report cards and interims that will come home throughout the school year. Our next report cards come home on April 20th. If you see an x on their Friday Folders, this means that they are having some difficulty in that particular area, just to let you know. They will have weekly grades. All of these will be looked at to determine the interim and report card grades. We will also look to see any improvements.
Daily graded work will either come home in their Friday Folders or their Daily Folders.
Our discipline plan will tie in with our school-wide Baldrige Program. The children will keep notebooks, and we will keep track of our progress throughout the school year. We will also have weekly class meetings to help each other.
For those of you who have had other children in second grade at our school, this year we have one other change. We will sometimes use the Flanagan Tests, CFA Tests, or other tests at the end of a unit to assess the children's understanding of the objectives. This will better help the children to see what they have mastered in their studies. We will also have some teacher-made tests from time-to-time, too.
As we start to think about third grade and next year, as you get reports of your child's grades, please keep in mind that next year, your child will receive letter grades. The grading scale for next year is supposed to be changed from previous years. It is tentatively supposed to be the following:
A= 90-100%
B= 80 - 89%
C= 70-79%
D= 60 - 69%
F= 59-below
We are also doing more bubbling of Accelerated Math to prepare for testing for third grade. We also are reading and highlighting where answers are in our reading. These are just a few ways that we are transitioning.
Please remind your child that school is a place of learning. As we head into the spring months, sometimes students get a touch of " Spring Fever" and are not as focused on their lessons and homework. Please try to encourage them at home to stay focused at school. These last few months are very important. Thanks.
Please also remindyour child to wash his/her hands. We have been discussing the importance of this, too. Thanks.
BIRTHDAYS & INFORMATION
The children's birthdays are important to them! If you wish to send in a special birthday treat, please let me know. We would have these during snack or for a lunch dessert. We do have a teacher with a peanut allergy who will be in our class and may have other children with food allergies so that they might bring in an extra treat for that day, so that everyone has something special to eat that day. So please, though, no peanut products or ingredients in any snack item or lunch item, if you could limit it. We just want everyone to be safe, healthy and happy. Birthday dates this coming month are: May 4th & 23rd .
Please send in a nutrious snack with your child each day, such as carrots, raisins, or a granola bar. Again, please no peanut products. I imagine the children will become hungry around 11:15, since we don't eat lunch until 12:30pm. Water bottles are also permissible in class. Please just remind your child to keep the lids tightly on them to avoid spills. Water is food for the brain so if you have not been able to send in a water bottle and were thinking about it, it would be a good idea. Thanks.
SCHEDULES
Also just as a reminder, our schedule is as follows on most days:
9:00 Core Extension ( Remediation &
Enrichment)
9:45 Encore ( Specials)
10:30 Language Arts
12:30 Lunch/ Recess
1:15 Mathematics
2:20 Social Studies/ Science
3:10 Panther Daily Review & Pack Up
3:30-- Dismissal
(note: times are approximate)
UPCOMING EVENTS IN May/ June:
During most of May-- PAL's & DRA 2 Testing
May 6-- Reading Buddies/ Writer's Celebration
May 12-- Ancient Egypt/China Feast
May 25-- Memorial Day-- No school
June 3-- Last Reading Buddies
June 10-- Second Grade Picnic
June 12-- Read Out Picnic
June 16-- Summer Birthdays Celebrated
June 17-- last Day of School; early dismissal
VOLUNTEERS
I love volunteers! I know some people can volunteer on a fairly regular basis. I have been in contact with anyone interested in the regular basis volunteering as they let me know so that I have formulated a schedule. However, if you wish to volunteer on a given day, please send me in a note at least one day in advance so that I may have something prepared for you to be able to assist. I appreciate all the help and support. Thank you so very much! I really do appreciate all you can do. If you wish to donate anything to our class, we could use some extra snacks for those days that the children might accidentally forget their snacks. Also, a few of the students are missing their scissors and some crayons so check with your child to see if he/she misplaced his/hers. We can always use extra pencils, cups, looseleaf paper, and glue sticks, too, if you wish to donate something. We could also use items to fill our Fun Fair basket. If you do wish to donate anything, please keep in mind that we do have some peanut allergies in our class. Thanks.
Thank you for visiting our website. I look forward to working with you and your child as we finish up this school year. Thanks so much! :-)
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