Greetings Seussville Alumni! I miss you already and I hope your summer is off to a relaxing and wonderful start.  Summer is such a perfect time to recharge our batteries, enjoy the sunshine, and slow down a bit.  It is also an excellent opportunity to continue learning.  Even though you aren’t coming to the classroom every day, you are still learning and might not even realize it.  It might look a bit different but can be just as much fun AND help you develop the lifelong learner habit.

Summer is one of the times when I am able to catch up on professional development (learning for teachers).  I came across a blog post and some tweets last week that inspired me and I just had to share them with you.

1. #IMWAYR (It’s Monday! What Are You Reading): This is a hashtag on Twitter where people from all over the world are sharing what they’re reading every Monday. This of course got the gears in my brain thinking.  How could I incorporate this over the summer?  PADLET! One of the very best things you can do this summer is read.  Read every day.  Read all types of books and texts.  Then share your reading with others.  Start your very own reading challenge.  Will you try to read every Caldecott Medal winner book? Or is there a series of books you have been anxiously awaiting time to dig into?!  What better time to do that then NOW!  Here’s how it will work: every Monday during the summer, head on over to our #IMWAYR Padlet.  Post a picture of what you are currently reading.  Then write the title and author and perhaps what you love about it or if you recommend this book to others and why.  Your picture should include you and the book in whatever creative way you choose!  You could even give a brief summary (What makes a really good summary?) or a short book review (Who can remember how to organize one?).  Then if you are ever stuck on what to read next, head on over to the Padlet for some fresh book recommendations.  If you scroll all the way down to the bottom of this Padlet, you can see some posts from Seussville Alumni last summer.  You never know when a surprise guest might post on our Padlet too! 🙂

https://padlet.com/spitzer/IMWAYR

2. Summer Reading Bingo..er…Reado: Are you wanting to read this summer but aren’t sure where to even start?! Have no fear READO is here! I created a Summer Bingo (READO) card.  In each tile is a type of book you can read.  Be sure to check out the bottom of the card for fun prizes.  If you decide to compete for the prizes, please sign the bottom, have your parent(s) sign it, and return it to school on August 15, 2017 (the first day of school!)

Summer Reading Bingo Card

3. #KidsWritingLife : I was reading a blog post the other day that inspired me and reminded me that just because it is summer, doesn’t mean our writing lives should stop. They also mentioned a book I had never heard of before called The Scraps Book by Lois Ehlert.  In this book the author talks about what inspired her to create art and write books.  She even shares some of her brainstorming techniques and story inspirations.  This book was by far the coolest book ever and I just had to share it with you too.  Check out the video I created of it below:

After you have watched the video, I want you to think about your own writing life.  What are things that inspire you?  What objects do you have that you could turn into a story?! Have you found a new treasure, made a new memory, or created something amazing? What can you collect or look for outside that could become your next great writing piece?  Take what you learned during the school year, inspiration from The Scraps book, and head over to our #KidsWritingLife Padlet every Monday and write! It can be about any topic, any genre, and be as long or as short as you want.  I recommend trying all different types of writing this summer and encourage you to write about science, math, social studies, nature, vacation, and the world around you.  Feel free to include media (pictures/videos) too if you wish.  Please make sure to have a title and include your name on each piece. You learn to write better by reading.  You learn to read better by writing. Reading and writing work together to improve your ability to think.

https://padlet.com/spitzer/KidsWritingLife

Kids Writing Life Blog Post Inspiration

4. Symbaloo: Remember your Log-In cards also went home this summer too. Please feel free to use any of tiles on the Symbaloo page to continue learning at home.
https://sososeussey.edublogs.org/1-fish-2-fish-seussville-tech-fish/

Last but certainly not least, make sure to take some time to relax, play, sit in the sun, draw with chalk, blow bubbles, take a walk, ride your bike, laugh, eat popcorn, have a movie night, and enjoy your family.  I miss you but I’m look forward to interacting with you on our Padlets!  Happy reading, writing, and math fact practicing!

Dear Families;

I give you back your child, the same child you confidently entrusted to my care last fall.  I give them back, inches taller, months wiser, more responsible, and more mature than they were then.  Although they would have attained this growth in spite of me, it has been my pleasure and privilege to watch their personality unfold day by day.  I give them back reluctantly, for having spent nine months together in the narrow confines of a classroom, we have grown and we shall always retain a little bit of each other.

Ten years from now if we met on the street, your child and I, a light will shine to our eyes, a smile to our face, and we shall feel the bond of understanding once more, this bond we feel today.  We have lived, loved, laughed, played, studied, learned, and enriched our lives together this year.  I wish it could go on indefinitely, but give them back I must.  Remember that I shall always be interested in your child and their destiny, wherever they go, whatever they do, whoever they become.  Their joys and sorrows I’ll always be happy to share.

Thanks for your support and all that you have done to make our year complete! Check out our year as a Seussville citizen in our video below.  Here’s to a successful year of learning and for the many more successful years to come.  Remember Dr. Seuss says, “Don’t cry because it’s over.  Smile because it happened!”

What was your favorite part of second grade?  What did you enjoy learning the most?  I would love to hear your thoughts in the comment section below!

~*The Pitzer Post*~

May 22-24, 2017

In this weekly post, you will find information about the academic content and special events happening in the upcoming week. 

Literacy (Reading & Writing)

We have completed all 16 themes of our reading and writing curriculum! WHOO! I am so proud of all of our hard work this year.  We have learned the following:

Vocabulary Words:
We learned 96 vocabulary words this year:

cabin, visit, memory, tradition, relatives, generation, rely, role, member, identity, sibling, symbol, fascinate, exploration, journal, measure, calendar, interval, daily, orbit, position, solar, ray, rotate, crossing, rural, build, purpose, social, urban, reside, route, state, journey, boundary, terrain, essential, wheel, machine, reduce, labor, effort, attract, magnet, object, operate, field, effect, result, vote, wait, government, duty, election, contribute, police, volunteer, participate, influence, emergency, nourished, farming, maintain, bounty, various, produce, freight, consume, distribute, available, taste, range, interest, earn, increase, value, browse, spend, market, business, prepare, provide, obtain, wages, droplet, puddle, cause, stage, transform, precipitation, fresh, careless, amount, critical, parched,  and drought

Your child should be able to define each word and use it in a sentence correctly!

Phonics Patterns
We learned 62 patterns this year:

diagraphs (ph, th, ch, sh), short vowels, ake, ine, oke, ute, ail, ain, ay, eed, ea, eat, oat, ow, ue, ui, or, orn, art, ir, urn, air, eer, ear, ore, are, ire, oom, ew, au, aw, awn, alk, all, ood, ook, ank, ink, unk, ice, age, arge, oil, oy, ound, out, ow, contractions, kn, wr, dge, tch, adjectives with er and est, prefix un, suffixes (ful, less, er, ly), plurals ( s, es), plurals (y to an i and add es), y plus er & est, verbs (ending in ed), verbs (ending in ing), and compound words

Your child should be able to spell and read words correctly with the above patterns!

Genres
We learned 8 genres this year in writing:

personal narrative, expository (informational)/observation log, letter, biography, opinion/response to literature, story (realistic, fantasy, humorous, fable, mystery, fairy tale, and folktale), poetry and procedural text!

Your child should be able to explain what each type of genre is, provide examples of books and write text that would fall into to one of these genres!

We were also able to get to 40 minutes of guided reading stamina! WOW!  Next week, we will review what we have learned in creative and neat ways!

Math

Wow we were able to complete 15 chapters in math this year! In those chapters we learned the following concepts:

Place value to 1,000, addition with and without regrouping to 1,000, subtraction with and without regrouping to 1,000, bar models, multiplication, division, balanced equations, metric measurement, money, fractions, time, picture graphs, lines & surfaces, shapes & patterns.

The most important skills to take away from second grade are the first four concepts listed.  Those are skills your child should have mastered or be very close to mastery.  We also learned stamina.  We sometimes have to try, erase, try, erase and try again.  It is hard but when we apply what we have learned and use our critical thinking and problem solving skills, we can do wonderful things!

Next week will be spent reviewing our skills in fun and engaging ways!

MIFEnd_of_Year_Letter

Upcoming Events

Monday, May 22, 2017 

• Lunch: Hot Dog
• BEACH DAY!
  • Your child can bring a beach towel, sunglasses, sandals, hat, etc. (no bathing suits, please)
• Visitors can join us for our last reading camp beach front style! 9:30am-10:00
• Followed by the premiere of our end of the year movie
• Yearbook signing in the Gym/Playground @2pm

Tuesday, May 23, 2017 

• Lunch: Cheese Pizza

Wednesday, May 24, 2017

• Lunch: Sub Sandwich
• Last Day of School @1pm

Celebrating Our Greatness!

• Wrapping up our reading, writing and math curriculum
• Selecting 5 books for our #SummerShelfie reading challenge
  • A note coming home with more details!
• Realizing just how much we have learned this year
• Creating compound word posters to highlight what we learned about this phonics pattern
• Designing a picture made entirely of shapes in Google Drawings
• Working hard to level up on the super improver wall
• Meeting our end of the year goal in World Language and getting to wear our PJs to school
• Celebrating AR and perfect attendance accomplishments at the DGS awards ceremony

~*The Pitzer Post*~

May 15-19, 2017

In this weekly post, you will find information about the academic content and special events happening in the upcoming week. 

Literacy (Reading & Writing)

Click the link to view our upcoming theme skills!
Theme 16 (week two)
Phonics Words: backyard, flashlight, landscape, upstairs, weekend, isn’t, lost, watermelon, yellow
Vocab Words:  critical, parched, drought
Grammar Skill: Review Simple vs. Compound Sentences

Math

Chapter 18: Lines & Surfaces
Vocabulary: part of a line, curve, flat surface, curved surface, slide, stack, roll
Objectives:

• Recognize, identify, and describe parts of lines and curves
• Draw parts of lines and curves
• Identify, classify, and count flat and curved surfaces
• Identify solids that can stack, slide, and/or roll

Chapter 19: Shapes & Patterns
Vocabulary: plane shape, hexagon, trapezoid, figure, pattern, pattern unit, shape, repeating pattern, size, turning
Objectives:

• Recognize and identify plane shapes
• Combine smaller plane shapes to make larger plane shapes
• Separate larger plane shapes into smaller plane shapes
• Combine and separate plane shapes into figures
• Draw plane shapes and figures on dot paper and square grid paper
• Recognize and identify solid shapes
• Build models using solid shapes
• Combine and separate solid shapes

MIFChapter18
MIFChapter19

Second Step

This week students were able to apply Second Step skills in a fun and collaborative way with Mrs. Weiss’ class.  We are working collaboratively to design a slide that reviews the skills we have learned this year.  Students were placed in groups and are using Google Slides to focus on one particular skill.  We can’t wait to show you the finished project!

Science

Check out this cool video about the water cycle!

We now know important words like evaporation, water vapor, and precipitation (vocab word!) We’ve also had great discussions about ways to save and reuse water on our planet.

Upcoming Events

Monday, May 15, 2017 

• Lunch: Turkey/Cheese Croissant
• “critical” note card comes home, due Tuesday
• STAR Math Testing this week!

Tuesday, May 16, 2017 

• Lunch: Nachos
• “drought” and “parched” note cards come home, due Wednesday
• Potbelly Night for Awesome Addison 5pm-8pm

Wednesday, May 17, 2017

• Lunch: Corn Dogs
• STEM Mayhem

Thursday, May 18, 2017

• Lunch: Chicken Nuggets
• 5^th Grade Rocket Launch @12:50pm
• Phonics paper due tomorrow

Friday, May 19, 2017

• Lunch: Cheese Quesadilla
• DGS Awards Ceremony 9am
• DGS Night at Peoria Chiefs Game @6:30pm

Celebrating Our Greatness!

• Learning how vital specific directions are when writing a procedural text
• Teach-Okay: we love to teach our friends what we are learning during lessons.
• Tweeting out our learning throughout the day so our families and the world can see how cool it is to be a Seussville citizen
• Defining what second grade means to us
• Exploring geometry through HyperDocs

~*The Pitzer Post*~

May 8-12, 2017

In this weekly post, you will find information about the academic content and special events happening in the upcoming week. 

Literacy (Reading & Writing)

Click the link to view our upcoming theme skills!
Theme 16 (week one)
Phonics Words: driving, running, shining, trying, waiting, ask, next, delaying, studying
Vocab Words:  fresh, careless, amount
Grammar Skill: Other joining words: but, or, so

Math

Chapter 18: Lines & Surfaces
Vocabulary: part of a line, curve, flat surface, curved surface, slide, stack, roll
Objectives:

• Recognize, identify, and describe parts of lines and curves
• Draw parts of lines and curves
• Identify, classify, and count flat and curved surfaces
• Identify solids that can stack, slide, and/or roll

Chapter 19: Shapes & Patterns
Vocabulary: plane shape, hexagon, trapezoid, figure, pattern, pattern unit, shape, repeating pattern, size, turning
Objectives:

• Recognize and identify plane shapes
• Combine smaller plane shapes to make larger plane shapes
• Separate larger plane shapes into smaller plane shapes
• Combine and separate plane shapes into figures
• Draw plane shapes and figures on dot paper and square grid paper
• Recognize and identify solid shapes
• Build models using solid shapes
• Combine and separate solid shapes

MIFChapter18
MIFChapter19

Second Step

This week we learned the importance of playing fairly on the playground.  We used S.T.E.P. to help friends solve their problems and came up with impressive solutions.  Can your child explain STEP? (don’t forget the motions)  How can they use S.T.E.P. at home?

Upcoming Events

Monday, May 8, 2017

• Lunch: Cheeseburger
• “fresh” note card comes home, due Tuesday
• STAR READING TEST!

Tuesday, May 9, 2017

• Lunch: Chicken Alfredo
• Field Trip money is due today
• “careless” and “amount” note cards come home, due Wednesday
• Parent’s Club Meeting 7pm
• DHS Cookie Sales

Wednesday, May 10, 2017

• Lunch: Bring cold lunch ( we are eating at 10:20am due to our field trip)
• Field Trip to Linden Hill Dairy Farm: bus leaves at 11am and will return by 2pm

Thursday, May 11, 2017

• Lunch: Spaghetti and Meat Sauce
• Phonics paper due tomorrow
• Talent Show Auditions for St. Jude Benefit

Friday, May 12, 2017

• Lunch: Bosco Sticks
• Muffins for Moms 7am-7:30am

Celebrating Our Greatness!

• Exploring life on a dairy farm
  • Did you know cows have 4 stomachs?!
• Utilizing HyperDocs to explore picture graphs, Earth Day, and Procedural Texts
• Practicing time management on Chromebooks with timers and learning menus

Poem #30

For the Heroes A Pep Talk by: Kid President

**BONUS POINT ALERT**
To celebrate the end of our Poetic Quest, write a poem about the person that inspires you, encourages you, and supports you on the Padlet and include a picture with them.  Then thank them for helping and supporting you! 🙂 
100 points

Poem #29

HooPoe Voodoo by: Deborah Ruddell

On April 28, 2017, the second graders at Dunlap Grade School celebrated National Poetry Month with an all-day Poetry Café.  Parents and grandparents were invited to join in on the fun by participating in poetry activities with the kids.  Our day started with a Poetry Picnic.  We snugged up with a book of poetry and read with classmates and or our special visitors.  We spent the time reading all sorts of poetry and looking for alliteration, rhyming words and how the poets play around with spacing.

The rest of the day was spent exploring poetry in the following activities:

Newspaper Poetry: This is where poets cut out words/headlines/letters out of newspapers and rearranged them until a poem emerged.

Performance Poetry: Poets were placed into groups and chose a poem to perform for the class.  The groups practiced fluency and created actions to go with their poems.

Pass the Plate Poetry: Poets worked in collaborative groups.  Each group had a plate with one word written in the middle.  The plate was then passed around, with each student adding his or her word somewhere on the plate.  The word they wrote needed to go with the word in the middle.  The goal was to pass the plate as many times as possible.

Roll- the-Dice Poetry: Poets explored syllables while writing these poems.  A pair of dice was used to roll numbers that needed to be added.  Whatever the total amount was that was the number of syllables the line of the poem had to have.

Selfie Poetry: Poets used Chromebooks and Padlet to write Selfie poems that talked all about themselves!  They could write about what they liked, disliked, what we looked like, and or what they were proud of! They then took a selfie of course to include with their poem. Check out our poems here: Selfie Poetry Padlet

Book Spine Poetry: Poets worked in groups to arrange books that had titles written on the spine.  Then they had to stack the books in a way/order that created a poem.

Magnetic Poetry:  The day ended with making our own magnetic poetry by finding words in magazines and attaching them to magnets!

It was a fun day of embracing the perfectly poetic world of poetry.  The Poetry Café really helped us practice authentic writing, develop a purpose for writing and share our writing with a real audience.  It was great to see so many families participate and engage in poetry and celebrate this wonderful genre of writing with us.

What poem was your favorite?  What poem was easiest to write?  Which one was the hardest?  What poems will your write in the future?

~*The Pitzer Post*~

May 1-5, 2017

In this weekly post, you will find information about the academic content and special events happening in the upcoming week. 

Literacy (Reading & Writing)

Click the link to view our upcoming theme skills!
Theme 15 (week two)
Phonics Words:  carried, dreamed, dried, melted, talked, car, six, hundred, listened
Vocab Words:  stage, transform, precipitation
Grammar Skill: Compound sentences joined with and

Math

Chapter 17: Picture Graphs
Vocabulary: picture graph, key, symbol, record, tally chart
Objectives:

• Read, analyze, and interpret picture graphs
• Complete picture graphs
• Make picture graphs
• Solve real world problems using picture graphs

MIFChapter17

Upcoming Events

Monday, May 1, 2017 

• Lunch: Chicken Patty
• Teacher Appreciation Week Begins
• STAR Benchmarking begins
• “stage” note card comes home, due Tuesday

Tuesday, May 2, 2017 

• Lunch: Beef Taco
• “transform” and “precipitation” note cards come home, due Wednesday
• Parent’s Club Meeting

Wednesday, May 3, 2017

• Lunch: Chicken Fajitas

Thursday, May 4, 2017

• Lunch: Hot Ham and Cheese
• Phonics Practice Paper (front and back) due tomorrow

Friday, May 5, 2017

• Lunch: Cheese Pizza Bread
• Last Day for Library visits
• All School Reading Camp Out from 10am-10:30am! Students may wear PJs
• Kona Ice Truck will be here 12:20-2:20pm! Please send in $3.00 for your child to purchase a small ice.

Celebrating Our Greatness!

• We have learned all upper and lowercase cursive letters! WHOO-HOO!
• Exploring, reading, and writing all forms of Poetry at the Poetry Café!
• Working extremely hard on following our 5 classroom rules
• Extending our learning by exploring HyperDocs to learn more about Earth Day and Picture Graphs
• Reviewing STEP in order to solve our own problems on the playground

Poem #28

Weatherbee’s Diner by: Calef Brown

~*BONUS POINT ALERT*~

You can write any of the below poems from Poetry Cafe Day:
-Pass the Plate Poetry
-Roll the Dice Poetry
-Selfie Poetry
-Book Spine Poetry

For each poem written, published on the Padlet, and a picture included, you will earn 25 points. (Max 100 points)

Please publish any of these above poems on our Poetry Quest Padlet: https://padlet.com/spitzer/PoetryQuest17