Service Project

Today Emily and Kirk came and taught us more about the challenges that people experiencing homelessness face and some of the ways organizations helping them. Emily and Kirk also showed us how we could help by leading us in packing lunches for a shelter. Our class divided into two groups: one half made sandwiches and the other half packed bags. Students were focused and enthusiastic. I was proud of them and I think they were proud of themselves too. Thanks to everyone who sent donations to make our service project a success!

Dear Families,

Service Project: Our class has a wonderful opportunity to participate in a service project sometime during the last week of January. Emily and Kirk, Pita’s mom and dad, work for Transitions Projects, an agency that housing support, basic services, and shelters for adults experiencing homelessness. They are volunteering their time to come to our classroom to support a conversation about homelessness and poverty and lead students in putting together sack lunches for one of their shelters. I have set up an Amazon Wishlist in hopes that we can include some extra supplies. If you are able to donate towards getting socks, hand warmers and granola bars, click here.


Dr. Martin Luther King Jr Assembly: This Friday, Grout will have our annual Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Assembly. During choir with Maestro Ryan, we have been learning a song “Free at Last.” The second grade classes will be joining together to perform it at the assembly. Here is a video of the song, so students can practice at home.

Social Studies Curriculum Team: This past Wednesday your students had a substitute teacher because I was at the first meeting for the Social Studies Curriculum design team. I applied for the team last November and found out that I was accepted right before Winter Break. It is a two-year commitment with 5 more meetings this year. I really hate missing days with your students, but I felt like this was an opportunity I couldn’t pass up, given my passion for social studies, ethnic studies and social justice issues and my belief that a good Social Studies curriculum helps students be better citizens and better people. The other days I will be gone for this are: 2/11, 3/20, 4/10, 4/11 and 5/8.
Thank you,
Karen

Show and Tell Party Tomorrow (and other information)

Dear Families,

I hope you had a wonderful Winter Break. I enjoyed my time in Taiwan and am very grateful I had the chance to visit Jon’s relatives and my relatives. This was my children’s first time visiting Taiwan. River, my sixth grader, was in charge of converting between New Taiwan Dollars and USD. She was amazed that our family of four could have a delicious Taiwanese-style breakfast for $5USD. When arrived at the airport, my third grader Archer was delighted that everyone had black hair, just like her. I told her that we were in the land that Taiwanese people come from and her eyes got all big from amazement!

Self-Manager Badge: On Wednesday morning, I was so happy to see all of your students again. We started a new Self-Manager Badge system where students who demonstrate 10 days of safe, responsible and kind choices will earn the privilege of being able to move around the school without a hall pass and extra Choice Time. I sent a blue sheet home with your student on Monday with the details. Students are very motivated to be more independent and mindful of the choices they make.

Show and Tell Party: Your students earned enough compliments for another party and voted to have a Show and Tell Party which will happen tomorrow (Friday, January 4). Students can bring in one thing that fits in to their backpack.

SUN School Schedule: SUN school schedules went home today.

Homework: I will not be giving new homework this Friday. Please have your students finish their Family Traditions poster and return it by Monday, January 7. If you need another poster, email me and I will send it home with your student tomorrow.

Thank you,
Karen

Student Art

This week in art class with Ms Yao, your students weaved these beautiful snow flakes.

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In class, we made dreidel mobiles and played dreidel games.

(I sent home instructions for how to play the dreidel game. You can also find instructions here.)

We made Ramadan lanterns which is a Ramadan practice which started in Egypt. Some students decorated their lanterns with crescent moons and stars -- symbols of Ramadan.

Cultural Celebrations

Dear Families,

Last week, we started our Social Studies unit looking at culture and cultural celebrations. Our second grade definition of culture is the shared practices and shared beliefs of a group of people.

I told students that culture is hard for even adults to understand and that it is helpful to compare culture to an iceberg -- where 10% is above the surface (visible) but 90% is below the water (invisible). Practices are the visible parts of culture and beliefs are the invisible part. All people have culture and we examined our own classroom culture with a quick writing exercise where we pretended to be extraterrestrials who were invisibly observing our classroom. One pair of students wrote about how the small humans were looking at rectangles with lots of squiggles for a long time. Other students were able to guess that it was reading and that in our classroom culture we believe that reading is important for learning and life in general.

The image I included is a popular representation of culture as an iceberg. It is a lot more nuanced than what we made in our classroom, but along the same lines.

The cultural celebrations we have been and will  be researching, reading and writing about are Diwali, Vesak, Hanukkah, Ramadan, and Christmas. Last Thursday and Friday, we started learning about Diwali. I was heartened by how engaged and open your students are when learning about new cultural practices and beliefs. It makes me feel optimistic about the future of and feel luck to be a teacher.

And now for some silly hats and hair...

Science, Mystery Reading with Third Graders, Legos, and Gratitude

On Tuesday, we concluded our study of materials and their properties by examining how large buildings are created by assembling smaller pieces. Students created their own structures out of index cards, then tested them for strength and balance!

You can encourage your student's curiosity at home! Take a look around your home for all the items made from paper–like cardboard packing boxes, tissue boxes, or egg cartons–and discuss the properties that make them useful.

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We took a break from reading non-fiction text sets and growing our knowledge on topics to learn about reading mystery books from Ms VanClock's third grade class.

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And on Friday afternoon we played with Legos!

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Finally, here are some of things students are grateful for:

• puppies and kittens
• getting braces
• food and water
• Fuzzy
• my kitten
• my house
• having a roof over my head
• my money
• kittens
• my mom getting me something I wanted for my birthday
• my Legos
• my kitties

Classroom Update

Dear Families,

I have scheduled Parent Teacher conference times. If you do not know your conference time or need to make a change, please contact me as soon as possible.

This week we finished our math unit on addition and subtraction strategies and started investigating place value. Reversing numbers is common issue at the beginning of 2nd grade (e.g. writing 21 instead of 12 for twelve). You can help by asking them which number should be in the ones place and which number should  be in the tens place. For those of you who want to support your students with their addition and subtraction fluency, you can use a deck of cards to play Addition War and Subtraction War.

We are continuing to grow as non-fiction readers and writers. Today students had an opportunity to teach small groups what they have learned, using the keywords/lingo of their topic.

This week in science we learned how new materials are constantly being invented, and that this makes it possible to solve new problems. Here’s a fun video you and your child can watch together at home, which can help to further stir your child’s curiosity.  It’s a behind-the-scenes look at the making of the Lexus hoverboard, a new invention that almost all of the people in our class -- including me -- want. 

Have a wonderful three day weekend,
​Karen