December Newsletter
Mrs. Halderman’s
Class News
News from 2nd Grade!
Welcome to our last month of school for 2014!! This year has flown by so
fast! I am so proud of my students. They are doing an excellent job this
year! They are very creative, hard working, and I’ve seen big improvements
with their academic abilities! With only 3 weeks left, we are going to be
busy, busy, busy!
READING
This week we will begin reading different holiday stories. Each is
about how different countries/cultures celebrate the holiday
season and traditions. We will be reading several versions of the
Gingerbread Man and comparing the settings, characters, and
problems.
We will also continue our small groups in the Comprehension
Toolkit. We will be working on the strategies learning and
wondering, wondering about new information, Using Questions as
Tools for learning.
Keep up the reading minutes!!! They are doing a
fantastic job. Remember, reading is SO
important to your child. He/she should be doing
a combination of reading independently, reading
out loud to one or both parents, as well as
listening to you reading to them. Reading to your
child is a great opportunity for them to read
beyond their grade level and engage in conversation
about the selected book topic. Give them the gift of
your time and your commitment to their learning and
being the best they can be.
Social Studies
We will begin our studies of traditions
throughout the world. We’ll travel the
continents and learn about the traditions of
many countries. We have wonderful stories
to read, Internet work to explore, crafts to
make, and a lot to learn as we depart from
Oklahoma and travel to Mexico, Spain,
Sweden, England, Italy, and then finally
return to the USA to learn about Hanukah,
and Kwanzaa.
If you have a holiday tradition, family heritage, or have
traveled to different countries and you’d like to share with us
please email me. We would love to have you come to school and
talk with us, read a story, or share memories.
In addition, we will be creating compliment stockings. Each
of the students will create their own stocking and we will hang them
in our classroom. However, they will not be filled with gifts,
but instead kind words. Each student will be responsible for
writing one compliment for each child in the class. On the
day of our winter party, each student will open their
compliment stocking and read their compliments written by
their classmates. Hopefully, they will see the true meaning of
the Holiday Season.
Math
Please continue to practice addition and subtraction at home.
This is very important for the students to master.
We are finishing up Unit 2 and will be taking
our Posttest and benchmark assessments this
week. Unit is about measurement, money, and
graphing. I think that the children are going to
enjoy it.
Language Arts
We will review capital letters. We have learned about capitals in names, days of the
week, months of the year, cities, states, and capitals, along with I, capitals at the
beginning of sentences, in book titles, holidays, and after the speaker’s first word.
We are working on the application of these in our work. We will also continue to
practice correcting mistakes in sentences. We are continuing our work in
homophones, and contractions.
Writing
We are going to be writing stories about an elf. The students are
practicing and applying the various writing techniques and strategies
we’ve been learning this year. They are also using onomatopoeias in their
stories as well as a good beginning sentence that “captures the audience”.
Dates to Remember:
Collaboration Day: 12/4 School begins at 10:40.
Winter Party: 12/18 at 1:15
Holiday Break: December 22st – January 2th
School Resumes: January 5th
Happy December! 