Congratulations to Libny for being chosen as our Caring Character Kid of the Month. She enjoyed lunch and a dance party with Dr. Musick and Mr. Steele on Friday!

Congratulations also goes to Julian for reaching 100 nights of reading. He will get to celebrate with lunch in the classroom on Wednesday.

We have reached our goal of 2,000 Frederick Five Hands! Our entire class will enjoy lunch and treats in the classroom soon. Way to go! Our next goal is to reach 2,500 hands in order to earn a movie party!

As part of our school wide focus on caring, our school is collecting donations of toiletries for our troops. Any new / unused items you can donate would be greatly appreciated. A list of suggested items came on the yellow sheet sent home last Friday. Student council will be organizing the boxes and shipping them at the beginning of March. It is our school goal to collect at least 500 items.

In honor of Dr. Seuss’ birthday and Read Across America Day on March 2nd, second grade will be having a pajama day and read-in this Thursday afternoon. We are asking all students to bring any Dr. Seuss books you may have at home. Kids may wear their pajamas that day, as well as bring a pillow, blanket and/or stuffed friend to read with!

Reminders:
ONLY ONE WEEK LEFT!!!!!!!!! The March 4th deadline to order yearbooks is fast approaching. Books can be ordered at a cost of $12.50 with the form that was sent home, or by going online at YBPay.lifetouch.com, ID Code 10849713.

Keep using MyOn for nightly reading! This can be recorded on the home reading log.

Friday was the last day of second trimester. Report cards will be coming home soon.

What are we learning this week?

Reading: Writing: Next week will begin our non-fiction focus in writing. This unit will be split into procedural and informative styles of writing.

Math: We are continuing our short unit on telling time. We are focused on telling time to the nearest 5 minutes, but will address time to the minute as well.

Science: We’ve begun working on our own comics to show all that we’ve studied so far in science. We plan to publish these in the Comic Life program in the computer lab on Wednesday!

Social Studies: Our focus continues on the study of landforms such as mountains, plains, hills, valleys, etc. We will be taking our final assessment this week.

Word Study/Spelling: Our spelling test next week will cover the silent letter patterns of OU and OW (about, town). We will take our spelling pretest on Wednesday to determine our new word lists. The new focus will be on words with the KN and WR patterns (know, write).

Weekly Peek...

Happy Birthdays to Libny (Feb 22nd) and Diego (Feb 24th)!!
Monday: Music
Tuesday: Art
Wednesday: PE, Library, Computer, Spelling Test,
Thursday: Music
Friday: NO SCHOOL



Upcoming Events:
March 4th: Second Trimester Awards Assembly (2:00)
March 6th: Late Start

Raptor Night is THIS WEDNESDAY!! To celebrate Thunder Valley’s new mascot, please join us from 5:30 - 7:30 to see live raptors, learn about the latest plans for the school, give your input about school programming and enter to win Thunder Valley items! Dinner will also be served at a cost of just $1.00 per person. Don’t miss it!

Reminders:
The March 4th deadline to order yearbooks is fast approaching. Books can be ordered at a cost of $12.50 with the form that was sent home, or by going online at YBPay.lifetouch.com, ID Code 10849713.

Keep using MyOn for nightly reading! This can be recorded on the home reading log.

What are we learning this week?

Reading: How Do Machines Work? is our theme for Rigby. Our focus continues to be Synthesizing Strategies and the genre is humorous fiction. Our new vocabulary words are essential, wheel, machine, reduce, labor, and effort.

Writing: We are wrapping up our Mentors as Authors unit before moving on to non-fiction writing.

Math: After taking our unit assessment on double digit addition, we are now moving on to a short unit on telling time. In addition, all students will be taking the Galileo math test on Tuesday to assess skills taught during second trimester.

Science: We’ve begun working on our own comics to show all that we’ve studied so far in science. We plan to publish these on the computer soon!

Social Studies: Our focus is now on the study of landforms such as mountains, plains, hills, valleys, etc.

Word Study/Spelling: Our spelling test next week will cover contractions. We will take our spelling pretest on Wednesday to determine our new word lists. The new focus will be on words with the OU and OW patterns (about, pound, down, flower)

Weekly Peek...

Monday: No School - Presidents’ Day
Tuesday: PE, Galileo math test
Wednesday: Music, Library, Computer, Spelling Test, RAPTOR NIGHT!!
Thursday: Art
Friday: PE, End of 2nd Trimester



Upcoming Events:
Raptor Night: February 20th
No School March 1st

Congratulations to Aiysis and Yessenia for reaching 100 nights of reading! We enjoyed lunch in the classroom on Wednesday. Way to go!!

We will be celebrating Valentines’ Day this Thursday with lunch and valentines in the classroom. Students are welcome to bring valentines for classmates beginning Wednesday. We only ask that if your child is bringing valentines, that s/he is sure to bring one for everyone in the class - we wouldn’t want anyone to be left out. A class list of our 28 students came home last week.

Please check your child’s Friday folder for a page to indicate your plans for next year. Returning the form will help us in planning for the new Thunder Valley K-8 School next year. Thanks for completing these and returning them as soon as possible.

Raptor Night is coming!! To celebrate Thunder Valley’s new mascot, please join us on Wednesday, February 20th from 5:30 - 7:30, to see live raptors, learn about the latest plans for the school, give your input about school programming and enter to win Thunder Valley items! Dinner will also be served at a cost of $1.00 per person. Make plans now to join us!

Reminders:
Yearbooks can be ordered at a cost of $12.50 with the order form that was sent home, or by going online at YBPay.lifetouch.com, ID Code 10849713.

Keep using MyOn for nightly reading! This can be recorded on the home reading log.

What are we learning this week?

Reading: How Do Machines Work? is our theme for Rigby. Our focus continues to be Synthesizing Strategies and the genre is humorous fiction. Our new vocabulary words are essential, wheel, machine, reduce, labor, and effort.

Writing: Our writing focus is Authors as Mentors. We continue to look at the strategies various authors use in their own writing in order to inspire and improve our own pieces. Recently, we have been trying out the use of ellipses, repeated lines and bold, capital words to express feeling.

Math: We are nearing the end of our unit on double digit addition. Although these concepts will continue to be a main focus, we will assess this unit before moving on to a short unit on telling time.

Science: We are working on our study of magnets as we attempt to answer the question of whether it’s possible to determine if something is magnetic without using a magnet to test it.

Social Studies: Our focus is now on the study of landforms such as mountains, plains, hills, valleys, etc.

Word Study/Spelling: Our spelling test next week will cover words with the OI and OY patterns. We will take our spelling pretest on Wednesday to determine our new word lists. The focus will be on contractions. It is important not only for students to be able to spell the contractions, but also to know how each word is formed.

Weekly Peek...

Sunday: Happy Birthday Yessenia!, PE
Monday: Music
Tuesday: Art
Wednesday: PE, Library, Spelling Test,
Thursday: Happy Birthday Annette!, Music
Friday: Art



Upcoming Events:
No School: Presidents’ Day - February 18th
Raptor Night: February 20th

Thank you to everyone who donated items for our 100th day math equation trail mix. All students were challenged to create an equation to equal 100, given different restrictions. The result was a yummy snack of exactly 100 items for everyone. We greatly appreciated your help!!

Thank you so much to the many volunteers we’ve had during the month of January! Marco Cervantes, Chico Garcia, Sue Ellen Gonzalez, Sheila Peck, Robert van der Hoeven and Diana Whittenburg have all generously donated their time to help us out this month! Thank you!!!!

It was great to see everyone at conferences last week. I look forward to meeting with the rest of our families this Wednesday!

The Book Fair will be here through this Wednesday, February 6th.

Reminders:
Yearbooks can be ordered at a cost of $12.50 with the order form that was sent home, or by going online at YBPay.lifetouch.com, ID Code 10849713.

Keep using MyOn for nightly reading! This can be recorded on the home reading log.


What are we learning this week?

Reading: How Do Machines Work? is our next theme for Rigby. Our focus will be on Synthesizing Strategies and the genre is humorous fiction. Our new vocabulary words are essential, wheel, machine, reduce, labor, and effort.

Writing: Our writing focus is Authors as Mentors. We continue to look at the strategies various authors use in their own writing in order to inspire and improve our own pieces. This includes ensuring that every piece includes correct capitalization, punctuation and grade level spelling.

Math: We continue our work on double digit addition. We are using strategies to efficiently add two or more, double digit numbers. Our work will also include money and patterns.

Science: We are working on our study of magnets as we attempt to answer the question of whether it’s possible to determine if something is magnetic without using a magnet to test it.

Social Studies: Our new focus is now on the study of landforms such as mountains, plains, hills, valleys, etc.

Word Study/Spelling: Our spelling test next week will cover words with the hard and soft “G” sound. We will also take a new spelling pretest on Wednesday to determine our new word lists. The focus will be on words with the OI and OY patterns (coin, point, enjoy)

Weekly Peek...

Monday: Art
Tuesday: PE
Wednesday: LATE START, Music, Library, Computer, Spelling Test, Conferences
Thursday: Art
Friday: PE



Upcoming Events:
Late Start: February 6th
No School: Presidents’ Day - February 18th
Raptor Night: February 20th