September 6, 2021

The first 2 days of second grade in Room 118 were fantastic! The children have quickly settled into our routines and expectations! I am so proud of each and every child for putting forth their best effort! We have a very busy and exciting week coming up! We will be starting our phonics, reading, writing and math programs! I look forward to our 4 day week together! 😊 #bestyearever!

There's nothing like ending the first day of school with a getting to know you snowball fight! Ask your child about what we wrote on our snowballs and how we used them to get to know each other a bit better! ❄

On Thursday we made All About Us key chains or bracelets to learn more about each other! Ask your child what each bead on their key chain or bracelet represents! 🔑 

Our read alouds this week focused on welcoming the children into our classroom and building our Room 118 class family! ❤ #allarewelcome #ourclassisafamily

Meet Ms. Almeida and Mrs. Morris! ❤
Room 118 is so excited to be welcoming Ms. Kaitlyn Almeida into our classroom! Ms. Almeida is completing her student teaching with us and will be in our classroom everyday until December! She is a student at Framingham State University where she is majoring in Elementary Education and Sociology. Welcome Ms. Almeida! 

We are also so very lucky to have Mrs. Julie Morris working in our classroom this year as an Educational Support Professional! Mrs. Morris will be joining us throughout the day to help support our reading, writing, phonics and math curriculums! Welcome to our Room 118 family Mrs. Morris! 

On Thursday we read, Dream Big a story about Michael Jordan and his journey to becoming one of the best basketball players of all time! After reading this book, we learned about other famous people who overcame obstacles in their journey towards success! We then started brainstorming our own hopes and dreams for second grade! Ask your child what their goals are for this school year and what they need to do to make those dreams come true! #ifyoucandreamityoucandoit!

Happy Birthday to Ryan who celebrated his birthday on Wednesday! 🎈

Happy Birthday to Cameron who celebrated his school birthday on Thursday! 🎈

Responsive Classroom

I am so thrilled to share with you an incredibly effective approach that we use at Boyden School and in Room 118 called The Responsive Classroom! Click 👉here👈 to learn more!

Announcements

Boyden Folders

Boyden Folders are on order and will hopefully be arriving soon! In the meantime, I will be giving each child a temporary take home folder that they can use. Please check your child's take home folder regularly for any important information. Notices and announcements from the office will be sent home as I receive them! 

The Week Ahead

Our Specials this Week

This year specials are scheduled on a 4 day rotation, rather than on specific days of the week. Please see our schedule below for the upcoming week!

Tuesday (Day 3) Music

Wednesday (Day 4) Social Emotional Learning

Thursday (Day 1) Art

Friday (Day 2) PE *Don't forget your sneakers!

FUNdations ✏

FUNdations is the phonics program we teach daily in our classroom. This week we will start Unit 1! In Unit 1 we will be reviewing concepts taught in first grade including digraphs, two letters that make one sound as in ship (sh); 2- and 3-letter consonant blends, as in trip (tr) and strip (str); digraph blends, as in the word lunch (nch); and blending and segmenting up to 6 sounds in one word, such as script. We will use our sound-tapping strategies to help us segment and blend sounds in words for both reading and spelling. We will also learn when to use k, c or ck when spelling words.

Reader's Workshop 📚

On Tuesday we will explore the different types of genres that we will be reading this year in second grade with the first ever Room 118 Book Bakery! Later in the week we will learn about how readers choose what and how to read. We will also review how to take a sneak peek of a book and will discover that readers get stronger by reading a lot!

Writer's Workshop 🖊

This week in Writer's Workshop we will read the book, The Best Part of Me by Wendy Ewald. We will then write about our favorite parts of ourselves. We will also review how to write a narrative piece of writing by thinking, planning and writing across a page. On Friday we will learn how writers come up with an idea, and then plan how their story will go by storytelling and acting out their story.

Math 🖩

We will continue to learn about each other with a Math About Me activity on Tuesday! Later in the week we will explore our math tool kits, learn all about how Math Workshop works in our classroom, and discuss what a mathematician is. We will also review how to write addition number sentences and solve joining stories.

Science/Social Studies 🌎

This week in science we will answer the question, "What is science?"

⭐ Important Dates: ⭐

Monday, September 6th

No School

Labor Day

⭐

Friday, September 24th

Early Release Day 11:55 Dismissal

No lunches served

I hope you are enjoying a wonderful long weekend! I look forward to connecting with you soon!

Warmly,

Jill 🍎