December 8, 2019

Welcome to December!  Thank you so much for taking the time to meet with me during conferences.  I so appreciate the time to connect, make plans and talk about the amazingness of each of your children.  
We started our first week in December with some key topics from our team of teachers.  Ms. Amblo taught us about the Zones of Regulation, they are identified by color and feeling.  There are four zones, red, yellow, green and blue.  December can be an emotional month.  We are working hard at school to help teach mindfulness, focus, breathing, and self-regulation, within ourselves and our communities.   Ms. Kayli taught us about hygge, a quality of coziness, contentment, and well-being.  We used four herbs to create a tea together and while we tried it, she read us some winter poetry.  

Our focus this week in science is weathering and erosion.  We made a weather model describing types of weather that affect our world.  Each student brought one home to help track the weather and how it changes.  We also began an experiment about erosion using a rock tumbler.  We gathered as a whole second grade to describe rocks before, during and soon to be after a week in the rock tumbler.  

 
During writing, we are writing how-to (procedural) pieces as well as making signs and posters as part of our real-life writing unit.
Our non-fiction reading unit is off and running.  This week we read paying attention to the details.  We practiced this skill reading a penny with a magnifying glass. 
We started our phonics unit of study this week as well.  We are professors of phonics.  Some language we are using to help us write and read words are consonants, short/long vowels, digraphs, blends, r-controlled vowels, vowel teams, silent e and many more.  We are practicing every day.
During math, we are adding single and double digits using an open number line.  We will use our knowledge of addition strategies to help with our practice in adding numbers within 1000.  
On Friday we participated in an assembly run by the fourth grade.  I'm keeping the tie-dye shirts here at school to use during assemblies.  If you'd like your child to bring theirs home at any point, let me know.  
Thank you for all you do,
Jen Belisle

**You received a parent letter about Reading A to Z.  This is a tool we are using at school as part of our reader's workshop.  This letter explains how you can have access at home as well.  Let me know if you have any questions.

 We celebrated World Geography Week on Wednesday, November 13th with Amy Haas, a Geospatial Technology Specialist.  She taught us how to use an app to GIS our playground.  Each student came home with a certificate and a copy of the map we made together as a second grade.  Thank you to Mrs. Courcelle for helping us with this learning opportunity.   

 

We completed our models of the earth this week. 

 

 


Wednesday, November 13th was also World Kindness Day!.  Each Kindness we share in our classroom helps us grow as learners in our community.  We are a strong group of kind people and I'm proud to be their teacher. 

We celebrated the hard work of our writers this week.  Each writer shared a component of their personal narrative while their classmates listened and drank apple cider.  Our new writing unit will be real-life writing.  We will be creating lists, cards, how-to pieces ie recipes, signs, and notes etc.  I'd love to share some real-life writing you have in your home with the class.  If you'd be willing to send some in with your student this week, that would be great!  

Each student is in a guided reading group, reading independently, listening to books read aloud, interacting with books on bookflix and practicing their repeated reading as part of our reading menu each week.  We recently taught our students skills to figure out words we roll up our sleeves and try these strategies:

Thank you for your support labeling and preparing your children with snow gear.  

I sent home paper copies for conference time choices if I haven't heard back from you yet.  I look forward to meeting with each of you during our upcoming parent-teacher conferences.

Thank you for all you do,

Jen Belisle    

Welcome to November!

Farm to School with Ms. Kayli and Ms. Bella involved mindful eating.  We experienced apples and maple syrup independently as well as together in applesauce.  We expanded our vocabulary with words to describe these foods and smells.

Mindfulness instruction during the month of November will focus on labyrinths and mandalas.  This week we began to use finger labyrinths, adding color to them We will walk the labyrinth on our basketball court before the snow falls.

Thank you to Lizzie and Damaris for helping us tie-dye our t-shirts.  Here we are in our yellow second grade themed shirts. We wore these at the assembly on Friday.   I kept the shirts here at school for future assemblies. 

We created final drafts of our 2 dimensional, bird's eye view maps of an important location to each of us.  On Friday we made models of the Earth with paper mache!  

 
 
 

 

Conversation starters by subject area:
How do you play "A What" at morning meeting?
What's my word study focus this week?
What is the calendar pattern in Number Corner?
What is the topic of your personal narrative?
What skill are you learning in typing quest?
Let's skip count by 10's starting at 28.
What time is it?
What is the title of the book you enjoy reading in your book box?

Notes:

I'll send home a paper copy of the conference request form if I haven't heard back from you via email.
It's the time of year for hats, mittens and snow pants.  Please write your child's name clearly on each item. 

Ms. Amblo is helping us build empathy.  She shared an acronym with our class titled T.H.I.N.K before you speak: is it True, Helpful, Inspiring, Necessary, Kind?

Thank you for all you do,
Jen Belisle

Wrapping up October

Thank you for the donations of time, snacks and creativity!  On Thursday afternoon we played Bingo, raced spiders, made ghosts and snacked on cheese sticks, goldfish, clementines and apple juice!

We finished reading the book titled Pedro by Fran Manushkin. Pedro is a classmate of Katie Woo, one of our previous read-aloud books.
We started reading Stuart Little by E.B. White.  Some of our students have seen the movie, so they are thinking deeply about how the movie and the book are similar and different.  
We learned to use Read Write Google to publish our personal narrative writing pieces.  We also made our title pages.  We will publish and share them this upcoming week.  
We are pictured here as peer editors, reading our pieces to each other and learning to give and receive feedback.  

 

 

 

Here we are scooping beads, counting them and comparing our totals to a benchmark number.  As mathematicians, we are practicing how many more or less. 



We are reading in guided reading groups with shared text.  
We reviewed & practiced the 10 Mindful Movements we learned.
We tie-dyed our t-shirts in Art.
We listened to a presentation by our third graders about UNICEF.
Ms. Amblo is teaching us about the power of our words.  
We are making maps of rooms, neighborhoods and special places for us.  

Things to ask your child about:
Mystery Doug
Google Earth
Kid President

Thank you for all you do,
Jen Belisle

  

News from Room 15

October 20, 2019

Frost on the ground to STEAM in the classroom!

I have our releases for pictures for our blog!  I'm so excited to share these wonderful photos with you of our learning in second grade.  Let's start with our Wildflowers STEAM lesson.  Thank you to Erin Mateo and Damaris Martinez for teaching us about balance, gravity, tinkering, creativity and helping us to practice our growth mindset!

 

 

 

 

 

 

We learned:

    *Two new word study activities: sound boxes and two-word rhyme poems.  The word wizards in our classroom are creative and deep thinkers!

  *Our classroom loves to write!  We have drafted our first personal narrative stories with illustrations.  We are writing over multiple pages using sequencing words to help us: First, Next, Then, Last.  We read Shortcut by Donald Crews as a Mentor Text to help us add detail to our stories.

  *We took a unit one post-test in math.  I will review them with each student this week as part of the teacher station in our math menu.  

  *We started our Reading Menu.  Each day, after our lesson, our students read independently, with a teacher and then they may choose one of the activities involving speaking, listening, reading and writing. 

   We experienced:

   *RMCS third grade invited us to an assembly about raising money to support schools in Honduras.

   *Ms. Amblo introduced us to Slo Moe, her sloth.  The sloth helps us to remember to slow down, look around and breathe.  We all made sloths with our hands and put them around the classroom as a reminder.  

   *Reading Are You My Monster by Amanda Noll and Horrible Harry by Suzy Kline.

   *Counted cubes in our classroom with the SBHS SLAM community service team.  They helped each table count into the hundreds using the strategy of making and counting by 10's.

   *Pinnate and Palmate are words we can use to describe the leaves falling around us.  We are counting by 3's and 4's in our number corner calendar as well.

   *We are collecting 5 minutes each day in number corner as we move the minute hand around the clock.  
*We start our afternoon learning a new mindful movement, involving breathing and stretching. 

   *We introduced an Atlas this week and our students finished a scavenger hunt to help them discover what's inside.

Other things to ask your child about:

Group Juggling, Hot and Cold and the Blanket Name Game

Creative Arts classes

Recess choices

Please note

Thank you for sending in a white t-shirt to tie-dye as part of an all-school event the week of October 28th.

Thank you for sending in some pennies for our penny drive. 

I hope you enjoy the weekend,

Mrs. Belisle