Wingo

End of the Year Information

It hardly seems possible that we are planning the end of the year activities already! There are so many things that still need to be accomplished! We will work very hard until the end of May 22nd to get it all done.

Thanks for the great turn out for our Mother's Day celebration. The kids practiced and practiced and had their poem and songs ready for our honored guests! I was so proud of their performance and good manners during our celebration.

This week, all reading logs for the last nine weeks are due. I must have all the reading logs no later than Friday. Each child that turns in a reading log will have his/her name put in a drawing for a new bike provided by the Springville Masonic Lodge. There will be one boy and one girl bike winner from the second grade at Varner.

Monday, May 18th is Field Day for K, 1st and 2nd grades. There will be more information sent home this week about appropriate dress and schedule for the day. Your child will need a water bottle with his/her name on it and tennis shoes.

Tuesday, May 19th is Awards Day for Second Graders. You will get an invitation if your child is getting an award at the school assembly. We will have  classroom awards later that day.

All library books were due last Friday, May 8th. If your child has a library book at home, please return it  ASAP! Also, please look around for any reading books that were sent home and not returned. I would like to have all books back this week so I don't have to hold anyone's report card.

Please check your child's lunch money account and make sure that he/she has enough money for the rest of the school year. There will be no charging lunches for the remainder of the school year. This includes breakfast money as well. Several students took home yellow reminder slips on Friday.

Hooray for April!

We have worked very hard on the CRCT yesterday and today. All we have left to complete is the math section tomorrow. The kids have listened and followed directions well and I am proud of how they have handled themselves and test pressure.

We came back from Spring Break and didn't stop! The test will be over tomorrow, but there are still several weeks of school, and we have so much to learn.

I'm sure you have heard about our baby caterpillars' arrival and now they have formed chrysalids and are transforming into butterflies before our eyes. Everyday is exciting as we await the transformation! We will keep the adult butterflies for a few days after they emerge and then release them back to nature.  It's a very wonder-filled time in Second Grade. In May, we will have life cycle rotations with each pair of Second Grade teachers instructing the classes about the life cycles of different animal groups. Mrs. Grubbs and I will do mammals, and the other groups will cover amphibians, birds, and plants. Our in-school field trip will reinforce the life cycle unit.

Remember that the Evening with the Arts is Thursday, April 30th and your child's artwork will be on display for your viewing enjoyment, and available for purchase as well.

The half-price book fair will be in the media center the first week of May. This is a great time to stock up on books for summer reading. Hope to see you all there! 

Let The Celebration Begin!

Our wonderful class was challenged this nine weeks to read 10,000 minutes and they DID IT!!! I cannnot tell all of you how proud I am! We paraded next door to tell Mrs. Grubbs' class and we went to the office and media center to share our good news!

Thank you to all the parents who read, read, and read some more with their children! Your dedication and determination helped us reach this outstanding goal. I have re-issued the challenge for the last nine weeks, and I know we will make it again!

Spring!

It already feels like spring, even if the calendar doesn't say it is!  I guess the Pennsylvania groundhog was right! We are working on many things that will help us get ready for the CRCT at the end of April. I have sent home the web address for the on-line CRCT practice  and have stapled each child's test ID number into his/her planner. Please use this important resource to help your child get ready for the kinds of questions that he/she may encounter on the test. I have asked the class to take one each of the reading, Language Arts and math tests by the end of this week. They can certainly take more if they want to! We will do lots of review, but this is an excellent way to help your child prepare.

There are so many things that occupy the minds of students at this time of year...ball games, good weather to play outside, and sports practices of all kinds. Please remind your child that school is not over and that Mrs. Wingo needs 100% of their attention every day. It's so easy to get distracted with all these extra-curricular things going on, but your child should remember that school comes first. I appreciate your help with this!

A special thank you goes to all of you for the wonderful Teacher Appreciation Week I had last week! You were both generous and thoughtfuland I truly felt appreciated! It is truly an honor and a priveledge to have your children in my class every day.

Remember that it is very important for your child to be at school on time every day.  We have so much left to learn and do before May and your child will miss so much if attendance is not a priority. On the other hand, please don't send your child to school sick. We have had lots of coughing, sneezing, and have been through more than a box of tissue a week for the past few weeks. If your child is truly sick, please keep him/her at home until they are well to help keep everyone else healthy.

Spelling words are written in your child's planner every Moday. Have your child go over them and spell them out loud or write them on paper at home sometime during the week. You can have them write the words in ABC order, put them in groups by vowel sounds, or write five sentences per night with some of the words. This takes little preparation on your part, but makes your child see how important his/her learning is to you.

Great Resources

Parents,

On February 5th, I sent home a sheet with some very valuable resources for extra practice and review at home. The web site to access our mathematics book is: http://www.eharcourtschool.com and the user name is varner2 with the password set as viking. Your child can get on our math book and then do some additional practice work if you go to that site. We are finishing up Chapter 18 this week.

You may also want to access the Cobb Virtual Library by going to http://cvl.cobbk12.org/

 Click on elementary and then the user name is cobbes and the password is tree.  After logging in, there is a page listing free online resources available to you.

Happy computing!

Fabulous February and Marvelous March!

We have had such a busy few weeks and we won't slow down until May 22nd! Our firefighters were wonderful and we learned so much about staying safe from fire. Thanks for your assistance with fire escape routes at home and procedures to follow if there is a fire. I know our second graders will be safe!

We have learned about Martin Luther King, Jackie Robinson and civil rights. We have discussed liberty, justice, and equality. That's a lot for second graders, but they really get it! They also have a vested interest in fairness.

In math, we have begun working with numbers into the thousands.  We are making several names for numbers, too. For example, 285 is two hundred eighty five in words, 200+80+5 in expanded notation, and two hundreds, eight tens and five ones  in base ten blocks. Your child should be able to tell you several different names for any three digit number that you give him/her.

Our regular library day is Wednesday so your child needs to bring his/her library books on that day to renew or return. Many of them are not coming to school on Wednesday with their books. Please help them return their books in a timely manner and I have instructed them to write LIBRARY in their planners on Wednesday to help them remember.

Love is in the Air!

We had lots of fun delivering, reading and enjoying our Valentines.  It was a special day for all of us, especially since we had our first fire safety lesson AND a mystery reader - all from the Vance family!

Your child needs to bring in his/her Six Flags reading log (it's on a pink sheet of paper) no later than Tuesday, February 24th. No reading sheets can be accepted after that date. Your child's total must be  360 minutes or six hours. Please be sure that you total and sign the reading sheet before you send it in.

We are not having  a  regular reading packet for homework this week, but we will have homework every day. Yesterday's homework was additional practice on fractions and today's is counting back change.

Please check your child's planner every day. There is important information in there and it should be up to date each day.

This Friday we will have our third fire safety lesson and a visit to the fire safety house right here in our own bus lanes. We are also scheduled for a Black History assembly Friday morning. It will be a very busy day!

A heads up for a few weeks from now - another early release day is scheduled for Tuesday, March 3rd.

Movie Night is planned for Friday night, February 27th so mark your calendars. I don't know the title yet, but you will be notified. Sounds like fun so please make plans to attend.

During this difficult economic time, keep in mind that you may apply for free or reduced lunches at any time during the school year - not just at the beginning. Contact Mrs. Mallam in the cafeteria if you need more information.

As we get closer to third grade, encourage your child to be more self-sufficient and begin doing more things for him/herself. Make your child responsibile for gathering up things needed for  school  and packing his/her own backpack. As we discussed at conferences, have your child write his/her own books on the reading log and keep it in a safe place so it doesn't get misplaced. It's always good for children to have special chores they alone are responsible for at home. This helps them become more independent and will give parents some needed breathing space as well.

Happy New Year!

Welcome to 2009 and a new year! We have so much to do and very little time to get it all done,  so everyone must give 110% from now on. I hope you spent much of your vacation reading and practicing math facts. These are important skills that we will  build on and having mastered them will make the rest of our work easier.

There will not be a reading packet for homework this first week back. There will be plenty of other things for us to work on, and I thought the class would enjoy a little freedom from reading packet homework. Everyone must read at least 20 minutes per night, even if there is not a packet.

Please sign and total your child's reading log and turn it in by Friday, January 9th. This will be used to see who can participate in Books for Breakfast with Mrs. Crommett, so please get it in on time.

Thanks for getting those conference forms in to me so quickly. It's hard to believe that conference week is a month away, but it will be here before we know it!

A few reminders:

1. January 19th is a holiday  for everyone. No school that day.

2. Conference week is January 26th - 30th and school will be dismissed at 12:30 every day that week. Please make appropriate plans for after school for your child.

3. Please read the blog and newsletters when they come home. They both have important information for you and will help keep you and your child current in assignments and classroom activities.

 

Happy Holidays!

We have had a very exciting last few weeks! Our student teacher said goodbye and we will all miss her. We have had the anticipation of Christmas and our party and the stockings and lots more!! I hope you and your family have a wonderful, restful two weeks off! I also hope that Santa brings you everything you wish for!

Please keep your child reading and practicing math facts during the holiday. They have come a long way in their abilities and I want them to keep moving forward! Two weeks is too long to not have any practice in those important skills.

Thanks for getting those conference letters back to me so quickly. I am looking forward to seeing all of you and letting you know your child's strengths and the areas in which we need more work. Keep a list of any questions you may have between now and then and we can discuss them at your conference.

The reading logs are due when we get back from Christmas holidays. Please be sure that you total and sign their logs before they are turned in.  I want to have more boys and girls at the Books for Breakfast celebration.

Many thanks to our room mom, Kristie Vance, for all her hard work making our party a huge success.  Thanks, also, to all of you who sent in the items we needed for our party. The kids were wonderful and they all had a great time! I am especially thankful for the parents who showed up to help! Eveything ran smoothly and it was a wonderful time for all of us!

See you all in 2009!

It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year!

Second grade is busily getting ready for the holidays! There is so much excitement and lots of enthusiasm for the coming few weeks. I hope that you are all practicing subtraction with and without regrouping (you and I learned it as borrowing). This is a very important math skill and the  boys and girls need to practice at home to keep their skills current.

Our student teacher, Ms. Frazier, is working very hard her last two weeks with us. She is teaching the class about our government and previous presidents. The class is very excited about her Social Studies unit.

I have sent home a letter about our class' Christmas stocking and hope that your child will deliver that letter to you soon. They are very excited about stuffing each other's stockings. Let me know if you do not get the letter about the stockings.

This weekend is the Winter Festival and there will be many fun things that your child will enjoy. I hope you all will make plans to attend. Many in our class have already signed up for the Reindeer Run and I know they will have lots of fun.

Remember to check your child's planner every day for important information about our class. Each child has a reading packet every week to complete and return to school by Friday.

You will probably get information from our room mom about the Holiday  Party that is scsheduled for Thursday,  December 18th, from 12:45-1:45 PM.

I was so glad to see so many of you at the Thanksgiving lunch. The children loved having their families with them for that special lunch