First Week of School

 We had a wonderful first week of school.  We spent a lot of time learning about each other and building our classroom community.  We read a number of different books that focus on positive character traits and the beginning of school.  The children all enjoyed looking at each others' t-shirt and guessing who they belong to.   Thank you so much for helping your child to remember his/her homework on the first day back!!  

We have followed Responsive Classroom guidelines to create our 2nd Grade Class Rules.  The children discussed the purpose of school, created 'Hopes and Goals' that they would like to achieve this year, and discussed how rules will help us attain these.  The children then worked in groups to brainstorm possible rules.  They came up with 24!  We decided that was too many to remember, so we grouped them to create a more manageable 4.

Now that your child has had time to get settled in the classroom, we will be starting our beginning-of-the-year reading assessments.  Some of our assessments are completed in a whole class setting and some are administered one-on-one.  These assessments are done at the beginning of every year so that we can identify your child’s reading strengths and guide classroom instruction.  Please let me know if you have any questions.  Assessment results will be shared with you during parent-teacher conferences in October.

Next week, your child will bring home his/her first homework assignment.  Homework will be sent out every Monday and will be due on Friday.  Starting the following week, the children will be required to record the number of minutes they spend reading, and the number of minutes they spend practicing math facts.  We encourage the children to do a little bit each night, rather than doing all the required minutes on the same day.  Research has shown that this is far more effective.  Reading minutes are those minutes the children read a ‘just right book’ to themselves or aloud to someone else.  Math facts practice can be done orally, on paper, or on the computer.

We will be celebrating birthdays in class this year and would like to invite you to join us for your child’s birthday.  In accordance with the decision of the Nutrition Committee, we ask that snacks are not brought in for birthday celebrations.  Instead, we would love for you to bring in one of your child’s favorite books to read to the class.  Please also feel free to bring in photos to share.  The class will sing and present a special book to the birthday child.  Please email me in the week prior to your child’s birthday so we can set up a mutually convenient time.

 I hope as many of you as possible will be able to attend Back to School Night.  It will begin at 6:30pm on Tuesday, September 13 and we will meet initially in the Anschutz Commons.  This evening will be an opportunity for you to meet the entire 2nd grade team, learn about our curriculum, see the classroom, and ask any questions you may have.  If you are unable to attend, I will post the powerpoint on the grade level webpage.  Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions after looking it through.

Future communication will be via the grade level push page, which will have information that pertains to the entire grade level.  If you are not signed up for notifications you may do so by emailing Ruth Segal at rsegal@graland.org  More specific information and photographs about what is happening in our room can be found here on our class blog (jhall2016.blogspot.com). There will be a link to our classroom blog from our grade level push page.

Finally, Ashley and I have really enjoyed getting to know your child this week and we are looking forward to a great year.

If you have any questions at all, please feel free to contact me by email jhall@graland.org or by phone 303-398-3669.

Thanks so much for your help and support in making this first week such a positive start to the year.