I'm missing my fabulous students all ready, but am sure that you are
having a great time having them home for the summer.
By the way, if you've never been to the Dallas World Aquarium, you
might want to visit it this summer. Check out their website for more
information.
Have you or someone you know traveled to, or lived in, another country,
and be willing to share your experiences, photos, and/or momentos, with
Heritage's International Club? The International Club members usually numbers
between 15 and 25 Heritage students. We are planning our 2008 - 09 meetings
and need guest speakers.
Kindly remember to clip out Boxtops For Education and Campbell's Soup
can labels and keep them to send to school with your child, in the fall. Please
cut out the Boxtops along the dotted lines, before you save them to bring to school.
(That's a great task for your child or children, to build small motor skills!)
For additional reading: Please check out the Lewisville and Flower Mound
Libraries. The Lewisville Library has finished their new addition, and it is a
terrific place. My own boys who are grown still fondly remember our weekly visits to
the library, when they were preschoolers and in elementary school.
Need more suggestions as to what to read? Go to the Heritage home website @
> www.lisd.net/schools/heritage/index.htm <, and, on the left side, you'll see a menu
list. From that list, click on the "Reading Counts! Quiz List." From the list provided,
you should be able to find books for your child to read on grade level two or three.
Your child should have no problem with level two books and may well be able to read level
three books, with some support. Whether they are reading, or you are reading, remember
that it is (along with conversation) the best way to increase your child's vocabulary.
Does your child need to practice or boost skills in areas like math? Check
out my list of websites below. Don't forget that our local PBS station, KERA has
some educational games for children, too, on their website. Remember that your
child should know his or her basic addition and subtraction facts, 0 - 20, without
hesitation.
A GREAT new website to help your child practice various skills in different
subject areas is: > www.kidsport.com <. You can click on Second Grade activities,
but also be sure to check out First and Third Grade, as this site has some of the
skills or topics covered last year, as well as some we will cover this year. Your
child can take an on-line quiz for review purposes, in Math, Language Arts, Science,
or Social Studies. There's also an Art Center for a creative break.
Finally, I'd like to thank you all again for ALL your support this year!
Please be sure to check your child's binder every night for notes home, graded papers, and so
on. Having a lot of papers left in their binder is overwhelming for many young children.
Kindly remember to clip and send in your Box Tops for Education and Campbell Soup labels.
Each week we will have a "Star Student." The Star Student brings in photos and other items to
show and share with the classmates. He or she is also our "Scientist of the Week." The Scientist
presents a short experiment on Friday, that the class discusses afterwards. The experiments can be
simple, and our scientist should understand the basic concepts, so he/she can lead the class
discussion. He or she can bring notes and pictures, as well as props. I have numerous books with
science experiments for children. If you need one, let me know. Here's a terrific website you can
access to help you and your "Scientist of the Week" find simple, but thought provoking science
experiements: www.stevespanglerscience.com/experiments/
PLEASE NOTE: Nearly every week of school, a teacher's newsletter will be sent home with current
information regarding our class. Also, you can obtain homework assignments, spelling and vocabulary
word lists, and, usually, the SPECIALS schedule on your child's Weekly Homework Assignment Sheet.
This webpage is maintained in addition to those items and will be updated as time allows.
~ In Science, we study Matter; Weather; What is Science? -- which is when we learn about the
Scientific Method (how to do science experiments); Animals (including a mini unit on bats);
and Geology.
~ For Social Studies, we will learn about Earth and Its Landforms; Local Community; Citizenship
and the United States Government; U.S. History; Famous Americans; U.S. Landmarks and Symbols, like the
Liberty Bell; Holidays; and the Working World.
~ For Math, we will review Addition and Subtraction Facts and memorize facts to 20; we will also
learn the Touch Math system of addition and subtraction; as well as Geometric Shapes; Place Values/Numbers
to 100; Patterns; Money; Double Digit Additon and Subtraction; Time (to every five minutes); Measurement;
Data and Graphs; Fractions; and more.
~ In Language Arts, second graders do lots of reading and writing. Students will read and hear some
great stories and write some stories of their own. Some of the areas we will look at in Grammar are complete
sentences, questions, exclamations, nouns, verbs, adjectives, identifying the main idea of a paragraph, and
so on.
~ In Spelling, we will learn 12 - 14 new words weekly. After the first few weeks of school, students
will take a pretest on Monday. If they spell all the words correctly, they will be given the option of
learning and testing over a Level 2 Spelling Unit, which is more challenging. They will be graded on the
results of testing over those words, even if they do not test well -- and despite the fact that they scored
100% on the pretest.
~ For Handwriting, we review/practice manuscript (printing) letters first semester, and then, learn
cursive in the second semester.
IMPORTANT INFORMATION ABOUT THE WEBSITES LISTED BELOW
KINDLY NOTE: The websites listed below are favorites of mine, that I hope you and your child
will enjoy. However, when visiting these or any sites, please be sure your child has adult
supervision. Some of the sites below have pop-ups, interactive games or other activities, and/or
may contain chatrooms (which may not be appropriate for your child). If you visit a site listed below,
and find it has moved, is discontinued, or that it contains material that is not suitable for children
to view, please contact me immediately via e-mail. Thank you for remembering that children need close
adult monitoring any time they are on the Internet.
Family PC Fun A number of my favorite family and kids' websites have been found through Family PC Fun. Browse through the archives for links to many, many super sites.
Patricia Polacco.com I hope you enjoy this wonderful website. Patricia Polacco is my absolute favorite author/illustrator of children's books.
Jan Brett's Home Page Jan Brett, the author and illustrator of numerous beloved children's books, has a fabulous site.
The Official Eric Carle Web Site Many children name at least one of Mr. Carle's books as a favorite. A site for the young at heart!
Mem Fox This is a marvelous website. Mem Fox is a children's book author and illustrator from Australia.
Funschool Funschool has more than 300 games for preschoolers to middle schoolers. Funschool shows you how much fun learning can be!
MysteryNet's Kids Mysteries If you're a child who loves a good mystery, this site has many! You can also submit your own original mystery for other kids to read.
Thinking Things from Snaith Primary The Snaith Primary School in England (that's in Europe, kids!) offers this quirky, yet marvelous site with many interesting, fact-filled adventures.
Children's Storybooks This site offers storybooks to read online for children of all ages. CHECK OUT ITS LINKS PAGE -- it's awesome!
Melissa Sweet, Illustrator Melissa Sweet is a gifted illustrator, whose website has games and samples of her work. Pre-schoolers to older elementary children will be enchanted.
Kids' Space Great place for children to explore! You can read stories written by other kids from all over the world -- and write your own for them to read!
Kids' Lab This site is super to practice reading and general language arts skills, like identifying synonyms. It will help build your child's reading vocabulary, too!
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