Week 9

 Dear Parents,

            This week in reading we learned how to find the central idea of a story. We read the Important Book and wrote our own class book! Your children did an amazing job!

We read a Scholastic News called Monster Pumpkin and took a comprehension check. We took all the seeds out of a pumpkin, measured the diameter of the pumpkin, measured the height of the pumpkin, and weighed it. We also got a pumpkin treat! We started a pumpkin science book which we will finish next week.

             In math we continued counting money, including $1.00. We counted from an amount to a dollar and sorted coins to add up the amounts from greatest to least. They are doing very well! 

           In writing we continue working on narratives. We are all in the writing process. Some are on their rough drafts, some are revising and adding details and some actually published. They will get to share their narratives next week.

            In science we began our sound unit by listening to sounds and trying to guess what they were. We then learned that sounds are vibrations. The more energy that is used to make the sound, the louder the volume is. We experienced the vibrations by touching our voice boxes while we spoke, put our ear to our desk and tapped softly, then loudly, and listened to musical instruments. We learned that the vibrations travel through solids, liquids and gases. Their favorite demonstration was watching how the vibrations of a tuning fork, splashed water.

               Friday was so fun! We loved field day! I was happy to see so many family members come join us as we did our rotations. The children were very good sports and focused on having a good time. After it was finished, we came inside and had a popsicle! We had such great weather and an amazing day!

If you haven’t already done the below, we could use your help:

 📣 Coyote Ridge Families — We Need Your Voice! Coyote Ridge is working toward becoming a Leader in Me Lighthouse School, and we would love your help! 💙🐺We are asking ALL families to take a few minutes to complete our MRA Family Survey. Your feedback is an important part of this process and helps us celebrate what we are doing well while identifying opportunities to continue growing. 🎯 Our goal is 100% family participation! Every response counts, and we want to hear from YOU! 🎉 BONUS: If we exceed our school-wide survey goal, our students will earn EXTRA RECESS! 🙌

👉 Complete the Family Survey here:
https://www.leaderinme.com/s/coyote-ridge-elem-tx/families

Thank you for supporting Coyote Ridge and our students. We appreciate you!

This is Coyote Ridge’s 9th year using the Leader in Me Program. To continue supporting growth and learning at home, we will send home a newsletter each month that focuses on a different habit. By the end of the year, we will have discussed all 8 Habits at both school and home.

In your child’s Friday Folder, you will find the October Habit Newsletter. Attached to the newsletter is a QR code that corresponds to October’s habit, Habit 1: Be Proactive.

• Please scan the QR code or use the link below to complete the quick survey and qualify for Lighthouse Family status.
• Lighthouse Family Sign-Up Link for Habit #1, Be Proactive!

Week 7

 Dear Parents,

           This week in math we learned about personal financial literacy. We learned about saving and spending money. We learned what it means to be a responsible and irresponsible borrower. We learned that when we lend, there are costs and benefits. We learned who a producer is and who a consumer is and that with every purchase it involves both. On Friday we had a unit test review.

           In reding/Social Studies this week we learned about our rights as citizens of the United States. We learned that our leaders help us make laws for us all to follow. We read about Johnny Appleseed and took a comprehension check. We watched a brainpop jr. about him, and labeled the states where he visited and planted his apple seeds. We did an apple tasting at snack time: apple sauce, dried apples, and apple juice.

           In writing we took our BOY story through the writing process to final Copy. We then learned what a personal narrative is and began planning, then writing the beginning.

            In Science this week we reviewed our unit academic vocabulary, took our unit 2 assessment, and had an engage activity with our new unit, changing and combining matter. We took a piece of paper and changed it into a paper airplane, thanks to our expert engineer, Kaleb! We has a flying contest and Jeremiah’s airplane flew the farthest! We talked about the physical properties we changed and wrote about it in our science notebook. We saw a slideshow about changing physical properties, and discussed what we saw. On Friday we did a melting and freezing Investigation.

Week 6

 Dear Parents,

                This week in reading and social studies, we read passages about the flag. We highlighted important information and used that to answer questions. We also completed sentences that tells how we are to treat our flag. We learned about why we celebrate Constitution Day. We read about it and filled out a page together of important facts. We read and discussed The Kindness Challenge, a Scholastic News Article. We answered comprehension questions, and questions about a calendar.

               In math this week we focused on reading math story problems, filling out a strip diagram to match the story, then writing a number sentence to solve. We took a quiz on Friday over this skill.

              In writing we took our beginning of year writing check to be scored on a rubric. We will take one at the middle of year and then, the end of the year to show growth. They wrote to a prompt about someone who made them feel special. We began revising and editing our writing and will take it to final copy and publish it.

                In science we sorted objects by their properties, and then be4gan learning there are more properties than size, shape, mass, color and texture. We learned that we can use our senses to find out if an object is hot or cold, flexible or not flexible and much more. We then talked about the states of matter as we turned chocolate from a solid to a liquid in a microwave. We then used the liquid chocolate to draw with. We left it over night and it turned back into a solid. Today we will read an article about properties of matter and then fill in a cloze procedure paper.

                We had a wonderful time at Swim class this week! We learned so much that will keep us safe around water! Charlotte’s mom was one of our swim coaches!!!! That made it even more special.

                Congratulations to Vincent for being our first Leader of the week. He presented his poster and the class all told him why they think he is a leader! Vincent’s swim coach also was impressed with him and came to me to tell how much he grew over the two days.

                Thank you for all the kindness you showed me on my birthday. I was spoiled all day long by present and past students!

Week 5

 Dear Parents, 

          This week in reading we Listened to the story Picture Day Perfection. We created mental images as we read and discussed the story. We learned that this story was realistic fiction. Everything in the story could have happened, but it was a made up story. We then took a comprehension check about it. We listened to the story It’s Only Stanley. We stopped just as there was an explosion. The children drew a picture about what they thought happened because of what they had heard thus far. We continued Learning about how to be a good citizen at school, home, and in our community. I led them on a guided direction page and assessed them at how well they followed directions. On Friday we learned about Labor Day and why we celebrate this holiday.

           In Math we had lots of fun as we asked questions, created our own, and created addition and subtraction stories about bar graphs and pictographs. We are really good at organizing our data. We also began fluency flight on iready which will help us with memorizing our addition and subtraction facts.

            In writing we learned how to be fearless spellers and use charts such as an alphabet chart, consonant cluster chart, and a word wall chart to help us spell.

            In science we continued to learn about how scientists stay safe, the tools scientists use and what an engineer does and why he/she does it. Next Week Wonder Wagon will be coming. If you are signed up in Volly and would like to come help during our time, here is the link to sign up for 9:30-10:40 on Sept 10th:  Voly Link   

 

• One student lost his or her Leader in Me Poster- I have it. I just need to know who to give it back to.

 

Have a wonderful, relaxing three day weekend with your family!

 

Week 4

 Dear Parents,

      It was a great week of learning in math. We built addition and subtraction problems within 10 and twenty. We played a fun game to do this with a partner. We looked at number sentences and number families. We realized that the four number sentences that make up  a number family all have the same three numbers! We took our assessment on Friday.

       In reading we took our BOY of year iready test for two of the days. We read the story Violet the Pilot  and discussed how characters have external and internal traits. We read a Scholastic News article called “Five Ways to Try Your Best”. We took a comprehension check for a grade. We read a story about an engineer called Rosie Revere Engineer. We wrote responsesw how we can be engineers too!

            In writing we learned what we can do when we are finished with a writing, how to write from a picture and how to write like authors we know.

            In science we learned about being digital citizens for three days, we worked on a science page to learn new vocabulary as we read a passage. On Friday a real engineer came to school to talk about her job and what she does.

Week 3

   Dear Parents,                

         This Week in reading we read our first Scholastic news about how to make friends, We answered questions about a graph. We learned what the setting of a story is. We read Clark the Shark and had a class discussion about the story and took a comprehension check for a grade. We listened to the story I Like Me and wrote six sentences about things we like to create a project.

             In math we began unit 1 of our new math program. We talked about what mathematicians use to solve problems, that there are many ways to solve problems, and how math is used in our every day lives. We read the unit story to see what math skills a class used in the story. We then were challenged to put an addition table together. One group did it in the time given. Others will have a chance again another day.  We played a game using number cards! We were making addition and subtraction problems that the sums and differences were numbers 0-10. Today we also did some addition and subtraction in our new math books for a grade. 

          In writing we are getting into the swing of writing workshop. We have written about things close to our heart, written about an idea reading a book gave us, and written about things we did this summer. We took our first Spell Check and were tested on our first 10 sight words.

            In science we learned that there are many kinds of scientists. We learned that they can look very different from what we pictured. We met three scientists as we rotated between the second grade rooms. It was so much fun! We learned that scientists observe and record things in their science notebooks. We also took our BOY test over what we learned in second grade.

          So far I have 4 parents who volunteered to sharpen pencils. Is there anyone else that would like to help?

               

I sent home the second grade packet  (to parents who could not make it to orientation) that we passed out that night. Here is a link to the slideshow:

 

https://canva.link/wgiifsfhy3w9q13

       

Week 36

 Dear Parents,

         We had a great week of learning! In math we carried on with our personal finance unit. We solved word problems about people saving and spending money. We also solved problems about repaying a lone. We learned about responsible borrowers and irresponsible borrowers. We continued on with our weekly focus on time, money, and daily intentional problem solving. We will continue this next week as well.

          In writing we finished up some writing projects that will be coming home this last week of school. These projects are about our lucky charms, our friends, and what career we’d like to have in the future. We are also finishing up our capital, cursive letters.

         In reading/ social studies we read Sea Otter pups, reviewed nonfiction text features and filled out a graphic organizer showing what we found in the story. Next week we will take a comprehension check over the story just to show what we learned.

          In science we finished up our unit on animals and the characteristics that help them survive. We looked at body parts like ears, eyes, teeth and limbs and how each of these can help animals get food, water, or evade predators.

             It seems like it was just yesterday that I saw your child’s shy, smiling face at the door and now it is time to let them go. They have each grown in many ways. I feel they are ready for the challenges of third grade. We have built relationships that will last beyond my classroom. I am always interested to see the accomplishments of my students in the future. Please keep me updated. I love celebrating them! Always remember- once in my classroom, forever in my heart!

 

Have a wonderful Summer!