Greetings from 2nd grade!! We have conquered our first full week of school! I am exhausted J. The kids are doing very good. We are still getting into the routine and going over rules and procedures. As a class we need to work on coming in quietly in the morning and READING THE BOARD. I asked the kids to do the steps in order. Some are skipping around and forgetting steps. I told the kids I would really be cracking down this coming week with following rules/directions. I hope they enjoyed the week. As soon as we have everything down, we can really start having fun. I just need them to understand my expectations and realize that we can have fun and learn as long as they can handle it. I have enjoyed the week and getting to know your children. Here are some things to take not of:
Remember if your child passes the basic words (not the challenge) with 100% on Monday they will not have to take the test on Friday.
Don’t forget to sign your child’s behavior chart every evening. If it does not come back signed they will owe a few minutes of recess. In addition, check your child’s homework. The math fact practices that come home need to be timed for 2 minutes. That will help prepare them for the tests.
Next Wednesday, August 26th, chapel will be at 12:45. If you remember, your kids can bring an offering. I believe this quarter our offerings are going to the Brighton food pantry.
The school carnival is Friday, September 25, from 3:30-7:30. I hope to see you all there. We are still looking for volunteers to sign up and work the 2nd grade booth. There is a sign-up sheet outside the classroom door. We appreciate your help.
I just wanted to let you all know that there is a student in our class with a peanut/treenut allergy. If you send in treats for birthdays/class parties please let me know if they contain peanuts/treenuts or not so I can give him an alternative snack if needed.

Here’s what we have been up to this week:

Religion: This week in religion, we talked about how God created the world. God made the entire world from nothing. He simply used His words. He said, “Let there be….and it was so.” With each thing that God made he saw that it was good. What a powerful, amazing God we have. He has the power to do things we could never do. God gave us a beautiful, amazing, wonderful world to live in because He loves us so much. But….people sin by doing bad things. Sin has made a mess of God’s creation…..it is no longer a perfect place. But God has remade us through Jesus, our Savior. Jesus takes our sins away and creates new hearts and new lives in us. Because of Jesus, we are new creatures. Jesus has made us children of God. In addition, we have a job here on earth to take care of God’s creation. We can show out thanks to God by caring for the plants and animals. We also can show thanks for the people that God has put in our lives by loving and forgiving them. I thank God each and every day for the children He puts in my care!!

Math: For the first couple weeks you may notice that we are not doing our math lessons in order. The beginning of the curriculum is a lot of review. It may seem very easy right now so I will be skipping lessons for the first couple weeks. We practiced our doubles math facts ( 9+9, 8+8, 7+7, etc) and moved onto adding 0, 1, and 2. Continue to practice these facts at home. If you have flashcards I recommend using them. We are reviewing telling time by the hour, left and right, writing the date (not the short form), counting , etc. Like I said, it may seem easy for some, but it is important for me to get a feeling for where everyone is.

Reading: This week took a couple picture walks, which means we page through a story and only look at the pictures. We use clues from the pictures to write a prediction. As a group we also talked about summarizing a story. We worked with the following high frequency words (HFW) that showed up in our story: end, far, quietly, family, left, and street.

Science/SS: In science this week we started out with the basics. We worked on differentiating between living and nonliving things. We got a chance to go outside and observe these things. In social studies, we talked about natural resources and how we use them in everyday life. We discussed the following: water, land and trees, air, and fuel. In addition, we briefly talked about conservation and how we can use less of our resources or reuse them. The kids had some good ideas!! For our study skill we practiced reading a picture graph. We will probably review these topics a bit next week.

Language Arts: Again, we started with the basics. We practiced differentiating between and sentence and a sentence fragment. This is a very important concept. I have already noticed in small writing activities that some struggle writing in complete sentences. If you notice this at home please remind your child. In addition, we have started to talk about sentence punctuation. We need to use the clues to let us decide when to use a ., ?, or !.

Spelling and Phonics: This week we studied words that have the short “a” sound. Next week we will be working with the short “e.” Please study these words at home. In phonics we worked with initial consonants and final consonants. This seemed to be review for most.

Please take time this weekend to enjoy God’s beautiful creation!! God’s blessings in the week ahead!

In Christ,
Miss Rempfer

Spelling Words: pet, leg, ten, yes, bed, help, set, went, pen, wet, any, said, get, red
Challenge Words: elk, penguin

Memory Work: How many are Your works, O Lord! In wisdom you made them all; the earth is full of your creatures. Psalm 104:24