New Class Activation Code for Scholastic Book Orders

Dear Parents,
After Back to School Night I logged into my Scholastic Class account. Because I had more than one account they made me change some of my login information. This caused them to reset or assign me a new Class Activation Code.





You can go to www.scholastic.com/bookclubs and look for the Parent first time registration. You may be prompted to enter the Class Activation Code LF2DZ


If you have troubles email me. elizabeth.taylor@jordandistrict.org

Sorry for the change and the inconvenience.

Welcome to 2nd Grade 2012-2013

Tuesday, September 11, 2012

Welcome to 2nd Grade 2012-2013

Dear Students and Parents,
Welcome to 2nd Grade at Elk Meadows Elementary. My name is Mrs. Liz Taylor and I am enjoying getting to know my new students, and their parents. I hope you students have enjoyed a nice break from school for the summer. We have been involved in starting to remember how to act in class so that we can begin learning again.

I am hoping we can use our class blog as a means of communication to help us all be aware of what is going on at school, what the homework assignments are and when they are due and so we can also share some of the fine work of the students through this technology. I am hoping you will check this blog at least once or twice a week to stay current on what is going on. I generally send an email, to all those that I have addresses for, when I create a new post to the blog.

You can contact me through my school email which is
elizabeth.taylor@jordandistrict.org
or by phone at the school 801-446-3200,
or just send a note to school on the student's planner and I will return a note the same way.

My philosophy is to try to make school a place your child will enjoy coming to and then to help them learn those things that will help them build a strong foundation in math, literacy, writing, science and the other areas of whole child education.

Our three class rules are:
1 - Be Honest - no lying, cheating or stealing
2 - Be Respectful - of self, of others, of your environment (inside and outside)
3 - Be Responsible - Do Your Best Work - this means to really work hard

I try to encourage the children through positive talk such as, "Your handwriting is much improved." , "I love how you are following the directions that I gave you." , "I appreciate how Joe is walking so quietly in the hall today," etc. I use a system of class points and individual tokens that the children earn by doing their work and following the rules. The tokens are used to buy things at the Token Store which is held about six to eight times during the year. The store is parent supported with donations of inexpensive items the children will enjoy buying. I also use the boxtop money I recieve to help support the token store- so please send in any boxtops that you can. I usually need one volunteer to help run the store on those Token Store days. I would greatly appreciate your support for this activity as it truly is a wonderfully successful incentive program to encourage responsibility in the children both in their work and in their behavior. This year I am using both a Smiley Face chart and our Leader Letters as a way to track both their positive and negative behaviors. This is explained more in the 2nd Grade Disclosure.

If you have not already provided these it would be helpful if your child had the following items:
A pencil box - about 6" by 9" - with child’s name on it
A personal pencil sharpener with catch container for the sharpenings - with child’s name on it
A water bottle - with child’s name on it
A set of Twistable colored pencils for finer coloring
24 crayons
Elmers School Glue and a few Glue Sticks
2 Pocket Folders


We would also greatly appreciate donations of the following for the class use:
2 reams of white copy paper
1 package of sharpened #2 pencils
Ziplock type bags Snack, Quart or Gallon sizes
Later in the year we may need more Boxes of tissues
Items for the token store throughout the year



The classroom temperature varies greatly - as fall approaches I would encourage you to send a jacket to school to stay here for the times when the room is too cool for your child.

Often I have students who brag about how they stay up until 11:00 at night. All of the research as well as common sense tells us that children of this age need nearly 10 hours of sleep a night or more. If they do not get this sleep their ability to learn and their behavior in the classroom is impaired. I can see it in individuals and in the class when they have not had enough sleep. I would encourage you to set up a family routine concerning homework and bedtime that will be the best for your child's health and education.

I see education as a three legged stool; the teacher, the student and the parents are the legs on the stool. Without any one of them the education is unbalanced and less than the strong foundation that each child deserves. Please be involved by helping your child with homework on a nightly basis. Then if you can please volunteer your time to help in our classroom either as a room mother, party helper, field trip volunteer, spelling volunteer, in the classroom on a regular basis or by doing things at home to help prepare materials.

Mrs. Liz Taylor’s Class Schedule

8:30 -9:00 Weather/Starter activity/ Spiral Math Review/
Morning Message – Grammar and Conventions/
Business/Calendar
9:00-10:15 Math
10:15-11:30 Language Arts – (Guided Reading, Spelling and Centers)
11:30-12:15 Lunch
12:15-1:30 Language Arts – (Writing) or (Guided Reading, Spelling and Centers)
1:30-2:15 Rotations (Mon. – Science/Social Studies, Tue. – Art, Wed. - music, Thur.-P.E.)
Please make sure your child wears tennis shoes on Thursday for P.E..
2:15-2:30 Recess
2:30-3:00 Vocabulary and Planners
Thurs. – 5th grade Buddies
3:00-3:05 Clean up and home


Curriculum

Reading: Students will keep a reading response journal. They will read at least 15 - 20 minutes every school night and write at least 1-2 sentences telling how they connected with the book. This is done in the back of their Homework Folder. I am only asking for Reading Responses to be done 3 times each week. These will be recorded on Friday by the Homework Helper Mom.
Students will learn how to select a book that is just right for their reading ability.
We will focus on developing good strategies for accuracy, fluency, vocabulary and comprehension in reading.

They will read in many different genres and do a good deal of reading about non-fiction subjects which are in the Science and Social Studies core.
Spelling: Our first test is scheduled for this Thursday September 13th. The spelling lists will be comprised of frequently used words in the English language, word chunks, and sight words that are individually chosen for your child. Each week we will focus on a phonics principle and learn to spell words using that principle.
The list will come home on Friday so you have the weekend as well as Monday-Thursday morning to study the words.

Spelling tests will be given on Thursdays.

Math: We will continue working on basic math facts of addition and subtraction. I have a goal for each child to be fluent in these facts by the end of December. It is important that you work with your child to learn these. Basic facts are one digit plus one digit numbers and the subtraction fact that goes with it, for example: 9+9=18, 18-9=9. The students will be learning strategies to help them learn and memorize these math facts.

Students will learn problem solving strategies as well as create some strategies of their own.

We will learn about fractions, addition and subtraction with regrouping (some of us remember 'carrying' and 'borrowing'), measurement skills, time to the quarter hour, and geometry. A lot of work will be done in firming up the children’s’ number sense understanding.

Social Studies/Science: We will be studying rocks, plants, weather, life cycles, movement in the night sky including phases of the moon, season, map skills, some American history concerning the American West and the Long Journey to Freedom (Civil Rights), communities, cultures, and citizenship.

Library: We will have library on Tuesday. Please make sure that your child has his/her book to turn in each Tuesday. I will allow the children to take home the library books, however if the books do not come back each week I will have them keep them at school. If they are not finished with the book they may renew it. Since more children are at school all at one time it is important to return the books promptly.

P.E. We will usually have PE on Thursdays. Please make sure that your child has sturdy and comfortable shoes suitable for activities and that they wear them on Thursdays.

Character Education - Our school will be using the book "The Leader in Me" by Steven Covey to help us learn to implement and teach to the children the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. This is involved in a program aimed specifically at school age children. There is a companion parent/adult - and child book that we will also be using to help teach the students. This book is "7 Habits for Happy Kids" by Sean Covey. It would be a great resource for each family to have in their homes to help the school and home to work together to teach our children great character habits.

Book Orders: From time to time we will send home a book order form. If you are interested, please return the form to school with your money. Please send checks only made out to Scholastic Books. The orders will be due on the Friday following the day they are sent home. I am sending information that will allow you to order the books and pay for them online. Each time an online order is placed we receive $3.00 in an account for me to purchase books for the classroom. If you have questions please email me.

The Blog- Instead of a weekly newsletter I put important information on the class blog. You can access it at: http://www.ltaylor2.blogspot.com/ I also provide links to important and helpful information on the blog. It can also be accessed through the grade pages on the school web page.


Volunteers: We love volunteers in our classroom. If you are interested in helping out in our class please sign up on the paper provided with the dates and times you are available. We need volunteers to help with spelling tests, reading, math games, and home projects. The PTA has been telling us about 'Gold Medal Schools' and one of the goals of these schools is to have every parent donate at least 3 hours of volunteer work for the school.

The keyword or phrase is "Be a Leader" - please write it on your child's planner page and they will be rewarded for your efforts to keep current with what is going on in class.


Please feel free to email me with any questions, or something I need to know about your child. I am here to be a help to you, educationally, as you raise your child.

If there are mistakes in this blog post I apologize, in my classroom it is ok to make mistakes. We just try to not keep making the same mistakes over and over.

Summer 2012

I am enjoying my summer break but still thinking about the upcoming school year. I have been having back to school "nightmares" but really I know I will love the upcoming year as it comes. My family and I have been on a 2200 mile road trip to Washington and Oregon to visit family and friends. We spent a day at the beach in Ocean Shores, Washington. I have brought back some seashells to share with my new students. I look forward to meeting each of you new 2nd graders in just a little over a month.  I hope you are having a fun summer.

Letter to Parents

February 7,2012

Just a note about a few items

· I have set the date of Friday February 17^th as the next Token Store. We will have the store from 10:00 – 11:30. I could really used help in three ways

o I need one parent to help me man the store during that time

o We need donations of items to the token store, we have $50.00 from the PTA but more items would be welcomed

o The students have earned their 200 point goal – they want to do some origami during the token store. I would need parent help with this. If you know any origami or are willing to learn a little please let me know so I will know if we can do this with the students.

My email is elizabeth.taylor@jordan.k12.ut.us please let me know if you can help

· We will be presenting the mini-musical “Stone Soup”. The production for the parents is at 10:30 am on Thursday February 23^rd. We will have two dress rehearsals that will be performed for the other students in the school at 9:00 am on Wednesday February 22^nd and Thursday February 23^rd.

· On February 14^th we will be having a Valentines “Friendship” Party at 1:45 pm. Please contact Mindy Paras if you can help. The children will be exchanging valentines. (It really is best to just write your child’s name on the Valentine in the from section and no name in the to section. Then they can just pass out one to each classmate. It is much easier this way.) If you want to label them here is a list of the students to help you and your child prepare.

Carter B. Bailey C. Payton D. Matt E.

Gabi B. Logan H. Brynn H. Hallee H.

Tyler J. Brigham J. Nathaniel L. Libby M.

Easton M. John M. Leo M. Zaylie P.

Gabriel P. Khloe R. Ethan S. Kacey S.

Courtney S. Gage S. Caleb T. Cassie T.

Matthew W. Aiden W. Joseph Z.

This is a record 2nd post in one week. Please be sure to read the following post and find the keyword there.

I'm Back

My life has gone a little crazy the last couple of months. I apologize for not blogging more regularly. It is 2:30 am and I am waiting for my son to arrive home from Logan after working 16 hours between two jobs. I am awake to call him every few minutes to make sure he stays awake on the drive home. It has been a very productive evening as the family is sleeping and I have had no distractions. I have graded every paper that I have brought home to grade including the 30 late papers from various students that come back at different times so of course they have to be graded and entered individually rather than with the group of like papers. Please encourage your child to stay on task and complete their work in class. Then I would not need to send work home with a "Finish and Return" tag on it.

Homework
Just a reminder - I am now sending home one math and one language arts homework page each Monday. These are stapled and stamped with the red "Homework" stamp. These need to be completed and returned by Friday. Other Math homework from our math program will also be stamped and will come home as we come to it in the book. It should regularly be completed and returned the following day. However, on Wednesday evening I want you to focus on spelling practice with your child so if I ever send a math sheet home on Wed. it will be due on Friday.

Each night your child should be reading 15-20 minutes and writing one response sentence in their RRJ. They should also be studying spelling and math facts each night. They especially need to work on subtraction facts.

Stone Soup
The Second Grade will be producing the mini-musical "Stone Soup" this month. Twenty-one students have speaking parts. All the students will be singing in the chorus and three students will have solo parts. We will use our rotation time for the next three weeks to prepare for this event. We will have two dress rehearsals, they will be at 9 am on Wed. and Thurs. Feb. 22 and 23. The actual performance will be on Thursday Feb. 23rd at 10:30 am in the gym.

If your student was chosen for a special part please support them and help them memorize their part quickly. The narrators can read their lines. If your child will not be here on Feb. 22 or 23 please let me know ASAP.

Math
Last week I sent home two yellow pages explaining the patterning and ratio work we are doing right now. We should complete that unit this week.

Reading
I am in the process of individually testing each student on their reading skills. We will be offering a special 15 min. per night homework program to the families of students who did not meet the state benchmark or other students who might be struggling with fluency. This will replace the 15-20 min. of reading and RRJ for those students. Look for a letter soon to see if your child is invited to participate.

Spelling
This week we will be focusing on past tense verbs. We have been finding the irregular past tense verbs in our shared reading of the book "Henry Box Brown". These would be words like: catch/ caught, fly/flew, see/saw, send/sent, etc.

For spelling we will focus on words ending in -ed. These words might have one of three different sounds even though they are all spelled with an -ed.
Example: worked ends with the /t/ sound
turned ends with the /d/ sound and words like
tested end with the /ed/ or /id/ sound

Writing
The students have been working on skills in writing opinions. They are getting better at this as the year goes on. They will make a mini PowerPoint Presentation in computers this week.

They will also be writing a narrative piece about either: how they would escape to freedom or how they would fight for equal rights. It sounds like high level stuff but these kids have really gained a lot of knowledge and understanding about "The Long Journey to Freedom" that African-Americans have had to travel. This is the title of Unit 4 in the new Language Arts Common Core.



I will finish this blog entry in the morning, or rather later in the day as it is now 3:30 am.

I will tell you that the keyword is "grandson".