Mrs. Ballnik's Second Grade

Newsletter, September 7, 2018
Classroom News from
Mrs. Ballnik’s Class My email is ballnic@dearbornschools.org
Friday, September 7, 2018
Important Days to Remember
Open House (Please come to school with your child) – Thursday, September 13, 2018 from 6:00 – 7:30 pm

School calendars are located under the District news at the Dearborn Website.

Gym on Monday-Please remember to wear tennis shoes and bendable clothes (not jeans).

Parent Conferences are on November 8, 13 and 15 from 4:00 – 6:30 p.m.. Thank-you for signing up for parent conferences at Open House. If you are not able to come to Open House, please send me a note with the date/time and I will tell you if it is taken. If you email me, it will be easy for me to reply.

Carnival- PTA will have their carnival on Friday, September 14. Tickets will be sold.

BOOK BAGS- PLEASE SEND IN A BOOK BAG THAT YOUR CHILD USED IN FIRST GRADE, IF YOU HAVE ONE.

PLANNER
Please bring them every day. We will start by putting spelling words in our planners. We will start out slowly with our planners. Use it as a homework folder, or supply your own, if you choose.
Please read through the planner with your child. There are many things about what we do at school and useful items, such as the number grid inside the back cover.

FRIDAY SPELLING TESTS
Every Friday there will be a spelling test. Please study the words and the spelling pattern. For example, the spelling pattern this week is short a and short i words. I sent home the 10 words with short a and short i on the test. They will also get 5 words from the Dolch word (very common words in reading list) to practice. These will be written by your child in their planner on Mondays. Please practice every day with your child so that they will do well on the Friday Spelling test.
Spelling tests will be corrected and sent home on Monday.
I don’t have time to correct and record them on Friday.

MATH
Review addition and subtraction homework as it comes home. Homework is usually due the next day. Please continue to review addition sums to 10 and then above to 20 with your child.
I hope that the addition fact review homework is easy for your child. If your child has a hard time with the addition/subtraction homework, please work with real objects and flashcards because we will be using much higher numbers, eventually.

SCIENCE. – MYSTERY BAGS CAME HOME YESTERDAY!
The mystery bag should be returned by Tuesday, September 11th. Please help your child fill in the paper describing the object that they put in the bag. Our class will have fun trying to guess the object when your child reads the description. Please work with your child on this.
We will continue to learn that our world is made up of Matter and ways TO DESCRIBE THAT MATTER, such as, words that tell its color, size, texture and shape.
We will have a fun 5 senses activity with something in a bag, next week. Ask you child to tell you about it, next week when I give it to them. Can he/she name the 5 senses?

SOCIAL STUDIES- We continue to learn what a community is in Unit 1. Our class is becoming a nice small community and getting along well!
READING- Read, Read, Read!
Please be sure that your child reads something at least 30+ minutes per day. In addition, reading aloud to your child is important also.
We are starting to improve our reading stamina and I am testing everyone in reading. This takes awhile.
Star of the Week!
We will start the Star of the Week by having a name picked out of the can of sticks with everyone’s name on it. Each child will make a “I like (student’s name) because” _______page for the Star of the Week book that each Star will get. The Star also takes home a poster to fill out and bring back the next day to present to the class. Star students will get to be the line leader and have other special jobs!

Remember, the easiest way to communicate with me is by email, ballnic@dearbornschools.org and look at my BLOG on the Dearborn schools website.

Have a great weekend with your wonderful child!
Mrs. Ballnik