Mrs. Ballnik's Second Grade

Dearborn Public Schools

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Newsletter, November 3, 2017

Classroom News from
Mrs. Ballnik’s Class My email is ballnic@dearbornschools.org
Friday, November 3, 2017
Important Days to Remember
Gym on Tuesday-Please remember to wear tennis shoes and bendable clothes (not jeans or slip on shoes).
no school on November 7-. Teacher PD Day .
Parent/Teacher Conferences are November 9, 15 and 16. Thank-you for sending back if you could come to the Parent/Teacher conference.
PLANNER
Please bring them every day.
FRIDAY SPELLING TESTS
Every Friday there will be a spelling test. Please practice every day with your child so that they will do well on the Friday Spelling test. Corrected tests are sent home on Monday for you to sign and send back to show me that you know the score.
We started to put the 16th word on the spelling test to challenge the students that get the spelling test correct every week. It is just for fun and no one is required to study these extra credit words. They come home in a worksheet each week, that we go over. They are not meant to be second grade level words and we would usually learn to read them and understand them, but not spell them.

MATH MATH MATH MATH MATH
I will share the Unit 2 test with you at parent conferences. You can also request that I send home the test for you to sign and return. I am very happy with most of the class’ scores. Thank-you for helping your child with math and working on homework concepts at home.
Our new Unit 3 will be on time to the five minutes and money. Please make sure that your child knows the name and value of the coins, penny, nickel, dime and quarter. They will be adding (skip counting) by 1’s, 5’s and 10’s.
Science
Ask your child if they enjoyed the mystery science experiment about materials and if they melt or not. We had different candies in bags and put them in hot water to see which candies would melt first. We decided that these were more meltable. We also learned that things such as plastic has a liquid form and changes to solid. We further discussed why this made so many toys made out of the material called plastic. Melting is a property to describe different kinds of matter. Learning about properties will continue with our mystery bags’ descriptions and another experiment about melting properties of candy.
Social Studies- .
Our new unit is on Geography and is called Communities Where we Live. We will be using maps in this unit.

Writing
We will write an informational report about the first Thanksgiving. This will be while we learn about this time and write our own play about the first Thanksgiving. Your child will choose his/her part and write what that character might say. We will make simple paper hat costumes and scenery. Then we will put the play on for parents and friends. This date will probably be November 28th, which is the last day before Thanksgiving vacation. Please come to either the morning or afternoon performance if you can. The students will work hard to create a play. This helps them in all the school subject areas and usually is what students come back to tell me that they remember about second grade with me.
Reading- Read, Read, Read!
BOOK BAGS! Please observe how your child does with these books. Every book at level 18 (the level for second grade entry) for example, may not be read easily depending on the words. Please ask your child to write a list of the words that they do not know, so you can work on them.
Please keep them in the bag and count the books, so they do not get lost. I will trade out the books every other week or so. Students should reread books until they are smooth and fluent when reading. Students record on their log when they read.
I gave out new books, if your child is finished with their other book bag books. Some are not reading enough!

BOOK IT CALENDARS
Send in the October calendars for a pizza coupon! November went home.
HALLOWEEN CELEBRATION
Thank-you to everyone that came to watch and or/ sent things in for the Halloween Celebration. A special thank-you to Sally’s mom and sister for helping out that day.

Congratulations to Robih Chami for being the Star of the Week!

Have a great weekend with your wonderful child!

Categories: Class News

Cheryl Ballnik


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