Happy Holidays!

It is so hard to believe that 2010 is coming to a close! I have really enjoyed working with your children these past 4 and a half months. They are such a respectful and enthusiastic group, and I will be looking forward to seeing them all again in January!

I wanted to let you know what things we will be studying in our class to kick off 2011! In math, we will be beginning a unit on data collection and graphing. Today, students were assessed on 2-digit addition, money, and number sequences. They did an excellent job! I was thrilled to hear that many students remembered to practice their math skills last night at home. Their hard work shows!

In science, 2nd graders will be starting a month-long unit of study on the weather. During this unit we will discuss the water cycle, types of precipitation, storms, wind, and types of clouds. Students will make daily weather obervations and learn about the seasons. Now that we are quickly approaching a Kansas winter, I am sure that we will have some...exciting...weather to observe during this time!

A favorite writing unit is coming up...POETRY! During the month of January, students will learn how to write couplets, shape poems, acrostic poems, cinquains, and free verse poems. We will read and listen to poems by many different authors, and students will have the chance to create their own poetry books about weather! They may even memorize a popular poem or two...stay tuned for more information on that!

Our author study for January will be Tomie dePaola. He is the well-known author of the Strega Nona books, the character "Big Anthony", and many other books...some of which tie into our study of the weather! If your child has any Tomie dePaola books and would like to share, feel free to send them in! In the month of January, we will also be starting a new read-aloud...my favorite children's book of all time, Mr. Popper's Penguins. As we read this book, we will do some fun penguin writing activities. Reading groups will resume the first week after winter break.

During the "word work" portion of our language block, we have been working on many different skills. Since school started, we have taken this time to study parts of speech (nouns, verbs, adjectives), syllabication, compound words, prefixes and suffixes, alphabetical order, plural nouns, and contractions. Next month, we will spend quite a bit of time talking about homophones and homographs, as well as dictionary use. These would all be excellent skills to discuss at home!

This Friday (December 17) will be our winter party. All Langston Hughes students are invited to have a "pajama day" that day.

As always, thank you for all that you do. It has been a wonderful year so far, and I look forward to a great start to 2011! Have a safe and beautiful holiday with your family, and I will see you in the new year!