THIS WEEK:

• Autobiography Presentations
• Begin Poetry Unit: Don’t worry about sending the book. I have poetry packets for each student so we can annotate-Yay!
• Math is mixed review and test 9

UPCOMING:

• Popper’s Penguins- grab a copy if you don’t have one yet.
• May 6th is field day. Wear RED There is still a need for volunteers. Please consider signing up.
• May 7th is our field trip to Bricks4kids and Chop House. The students will be bringing home a kid’s menu to practice ordering. Please help them know what they will be ordering. We will be practicing dining etiquette on Tuesday and Thursday. 
• Friday U Registration is beginning next week. As you make your choices, please note that our wonderful assistant Ji Koh is teaching 2 courses that I highly recommend.

 

 

Galatians 6:9 Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.

Truth be told I have started a countdown (only 10 coop days; 14 if you come Friday) I want those days to count, I want them to be enjoyable and productive, But I am feeling tired, I am sure you are too! This is important work and God will help us finish strong if we lean into to Him!

THIS WEEK: I’m looking forward to hearing and seeing student’s dragons on Tuesday!

Tuesday-Send in 26 Fairmount Avenue we will read through chapter 7

Thursday- students will need AAR Reader

Please check they also have an interesting book to read independently!

LAST WEEK:

MATH: We had a strong start to our money unit last week. This week we will have more money races, and menu math to go along with our lessons in making change.

SCIENCE: We learned about God’s incredible handiwork in the stars. How they display his majesty and creativity. Students read an article and made a mini-book. We touched on constellations and made our light up constellation cubes. 

LITERATURE: We were still learning about autobiographies. We created a timeline of our lives and decided on our top 4 character traits. Those came home to you to as options to help assist in the autobiography due next week, Tuesday April 30^th

AFRICA UNIT: Finish Landform map start our study of Egypt. [I plan on focusing on Egypt, Kenya & Madagascar]

Thank you for sending in 26 Fairmount Ave, we started that book yesterday! And students will be writing an autobiography over the next 2 weeks. In class yesterday, we brainstormed an "all about us alphabet" and a list of questions went home. Tomorrow we will look at character traits and a timeline of their life. All of these are just to assist in the writing process and give students a framework to write from.  

Autobiographies will be presented in class on Tuesday, April 30^th.

 

Reminder you still have time to work on the Dragon Essay and Craft: Students will share those in class next Tuesday, April 23^rd.

 

Upcoming 2^nd Grade Field Trip

You will be receiving information next week about the Tuesday, May 7^th field trip. Mrs. Dawn started taking a field trip to Bricks4Kids and Chop House two years ago. And I am glad my class gets to join in this year to continue the second grade tradition. Don’t worry- we will have plenty of time to complete the syllabus work before we leave that day! Leading up the fieldtrip, students will work on and practice restaurant etiquette and manners. They will also practice menu math, sales tax & tip!  We walk to both places & take one parent to Bricks4Kids per class. But students only at Chop House. Cost and permission forms will go out next Thursday!

I am overwhelmed by your appreciation and generosity! Thank you for my gifts, cards, words of affirmation hidden in eggs, for my beautiful flowers and time to have a quiet lunch with my co-workers. Most importantly I thank you for entrusting me with your child. I am incredibly blessed to be part of the Oak Grove community. Thursday was a treasure.

Our amazing classroom assistant writes to you:

I am deeply grateful for your gifts, delicious foods and treats, and warm-hearted gestures and cards during Teacher Appreciation day. Your support and kindness mean a lot to me!

With hearfelt thanks, 

Ji Koh

The natives were getting a little restless this week. I could sense a little spring fever. But we pushed through and ended with a great day (Friday). We studied the space shuttle, saw a video about the Discovery shuttle, and watched SpaceX launch their crew. Students constructing rockets (paper airplanes) that we launched in the castle. Our class competed with Mrs. Latham’s in a friendly rivalry. We then measured the distance of the top 3 winners from each class for a “fly off”. Wyatt was our champion and launched his rocket more than 384 inches! It was great fun!

Noteworthy:

Subtraction with regrouping was introduced Thursday. It took a bit to get into the groove so we wanted to keep the momentum and completed the whole lesson. A gift for you!

I would like students to present their “My Room” descriptive essays on Tuesday, March 19^th.

Just a note: We begin our day with a journal entry. I ask them for 3 complete sentences and a small illustration. These are kept in a folder that will come home at the end of the year. If they write 5 sentences they get a warm fuzzy for the class jar.

Have a wonderful Spring Break enjoying time with your family and make sure to rest! I am stepping up my academic and behavior expectations these final 9 weeks to prepare them for 3^rd grade. I am looking forward to teaching 3^rd grade next year and having some of them again.

Reminder: If you have concerns or requests please send an email to Elaine. She is doing an incredible job keeping the integrity and heart of the coop in place as she makes decisions for Oak Grove. I am so thankful for her.

I know many of you are travelling next week. I’m praying for safety and protection over all of your dear families.

Blessings,

Sara Johnson

Last week

Students created a South Korea flip book and then we had the privilege of Mrs. Koh presented about South Korea for our Asia study. She shared pictures of where she grew up, brought in traditional clothing and beautiful fans she made in college. We are so thankful for her.

In Science we learned about the asteroid belt and created our own clay asteroid.

In Math, Students took Math Test 7, they did really well, with the exception of a question regarding kilograms. I will revisit weights and conversions on Thursday during our review time.

Working with Poetry was so much fun- We read MANY poems and talked about stanzas, rhyming pattern, and word choice. I’m looking forward to hearing their poem choices on Tuesday.

We managed to get to the 3^rd and 4^th Grade History Fairs this week! They were incredible. I loved seeing how engaged the class was. I could see their wheels turning about who they will pick next year!

Friday was all thing Dr. Seuss. Some pretended they didn’t love him, but once I started reading the Lorax aloud they were transfixed : )

Looking Ahead

Poetry Reading Tuesday, March 5^th. Students may recite a poem they have memorized or read one the one they wrote last week.

We begin Boxcar Children this week

Math: regrouping twice in addition and once in subtraction

Study of Jupiter

Progress Reports Go Home Thursday

Time Change & Spring Break!

Back at Oak Grove again on March 19^th for our final 10 weeks.

Hello 2^nd Grade Families. We made it through a stormy week. We weren’t sure what to expect from day to day.  This is true with our days ahead as well. Many Changes seems to be our theme. I am finding the need to lean into my Heavenly Father a little more heavily these days. He is our one constant! He is the same, yesterday, today and tomorrow!

This week: Syllabus Change. I moved up the presentation date for the Sam, Bangs, and Moonshine composition.  I would like these to be read in class Tuesday, January 30th. I know this takes away days of preparing at home- but I think reading through the final draft on Monday a couple times is enough practice for this “book report”.

 I want you to be able to devote the next co-op week completely to This is New York’s writing piece which is a mini research assignment on a city of their choosing. I am asking that they write a final draft of this composition and prepare to share it on Thursday, February 8^th. This is a great fit with our study of geography and landmarks for social studies.

And since we are on the topic of changes: I did not do the solar s’mores lesson this week in science because there wasn’t any sunshine on Thursday. Instead we began our Sun & orbiting planets craft.

For Math we worked with making even hundreds with tens, adding up to the next hundred and Monday you will continue work with subtracting hundreds.

Students really enjoyed the Literature this week. Sam, Bangs and Moonshine evoked great discussion about lying and imagination, the power of our words, what we do when we feel lonely, and why lying is called “moonshine” in the story.

 I am impressed with how much students already know about the sun and the solar system. We had a great time sharing what acronym students used to memorize the order of the planets. And why poor Pluto doesn’t make the list. This week will focus on Mercury and inertia,

/ea/ phonogram was introduced. We took turns coming up with sentences that included a word for them word cards. We compared /ea/ to /ee/ words and made chart. I took them on a journey to a time when news was printed and thrown at your doorstep. We created a help wanted ad for a dog-walker as a class.

We added even more European countries to our list. I think we are more half way to the 42 total countries. They are getting pretty proficient with their map skills.

                                                      Upcoming

 Tuesday, January 30th Composition from Thomas’ perspective read aloud

                                           Send in AAR reader

Tuesday, February 6^th Send in Math Test 6

Thursday, February 8^th  City Research Paper read aloud

Tuesday, February 13 European Experience

Thursday, February 15^th Valentines Treat and Card Exchange! We have 12 total students.  Please leave the address label blank or write something generic to save a little class time during distribution. Thanks!

It was wonderful to be back together this week! Happy New Year!

Overview of Week-January 9th

Math: Skip counting by 10s, and comparing numbers. Students did well counting up but some got a little tripped up when counting down by 10s. Something to practice.

 

AAR: Double oo phonogram. Imagine how much fun we had with those words!

Students read Gabby Goose and compiled a list of words with double oo.

 

Science- How to do we care for the earth? We created a small poster, watched a video about what happens to all of our trash, and talked about recycling.

Next week we begin our unit on  the Solar System. It's going to be awesome!

Literature-We learned all about Wilson Bentley and his study of snowflakes. We looked at photographs of snowflakes and diagrammed them on the board.

 

Composition-We looked into the life and contribution of Marie Curie. We explored many books and completed a brief overview. I sent home a template to aid in writing if you choose to use it. 

We had free art time Thursday with play-doh and a directed drawing (a stack of puppies)from ArtHub for kids. Great resource for all young artists! These are great on a rainy/snowy day.

 

Friday we created marshmallow snowflakes, played a math game comparing 5 digit numbers, learned about Picasso and Cubism, completed Spelling Lesson D*, and practice with the homophones too/two/to

 

Monday: Martin Luther King Jr. Day

Tuesday: Teacher Inservice Day

Wednesday: Follow Syllabus, note the change to spelling

This is your student’s first lesson with dictation. 2nd Home Day will now be “E” instead of “D”. Read directions on how to do dictation with your student on TG p. 24

Thursday: Send in Spelling Book 2. Notice that the emphasis is on copywork and dictation. You may want to implement a traditional spelling list if you find your student struggling.

 

A couple highlights from this last week:

1. The Oak Grove Christmas Gathering Monday Night was a sweet time!
2. This is the first week in a long while that every student was in class the whole week!

The Johnson Dozen was reunited!

 Glad they are healthy.  I struggled with my voice this week, but my spirits were good. Praying we can all be well to enjoy this advent season and take time to reflect on God’s perfect gift to us- Jesus.

3. The Rain Cloud in a Jar experiment was a beautiful success.
4. Poetry is always a delight with this group. They are so engaged!

Reminders for Next Week:

Pull out Math Test 5 for Tuesday 12/12

1. Find Math Workbook 2 for the lessons Thursday
2. Tuesday is  our Poetry or Christmas Tradition Reading
3. Students have filled the warm fuzzy jar and I told them I got to pick the reward (they don’t know what it is yet) I'm planning “melted snowman cookies”.  I will bake it -they will decorate it. Ingredients: 1 Pillsbury sugar cookie, powdered sugar icing,  1 marshmallow, 2 gluten free pretzels.       I have a “snowball” game planned as well. We will do this at the end of Tuesday when all our work is completed. If you have any concerns about this treat- Please email me.

Looking ahead, I would like to show the Veggie Tales movie “Merry Larry & the True Light of Christmas” as part of our celebration day on December 19^th. If there are any objections, please email me.

First, I want to thank you for blessing me with thoughtful birthday wishes, coffee, and generous gift cards. What a nice way to the start the week.

Literature & Writing: This week we worked with patterns and geometry in math, Students really enjoyed this. Reading and watching the Polar Express was a sweet way to start the holiday season. I love the excitement and anticipation in their hearts. We worked with adverbs, wrote about our favorite Christmas tradition, and came up with a summary of the story.

Science: We worked to memorize the water cycle with a video, diagram, craft and experiment.

For Grammar we read Squirrel Antics. Have you seen any Mark Rober videos on youtube with his squirrel Olympics? He combines science and engineering in such a fun way. Here is a link to his first squirrel maze in 2020 that has since evolved into quite an elaborate event. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hFZFjoX2cGg

The class filled the board with the bossy r words that include ur.

Social Studies: We began our study of Antarctica with a mapping activity and looking at the “land”. This class loves their animals. So, I brought in lots of books about them from the library.  They added to the 4 million Antarctic penguins Friday by creating one of paper.

In spelling we expanded our study on double consonants and discussed what flavor a “Christmas pie” is. Any guesses?

*Remember Next week to send your student with their AAR Reader. They do not need to bring the large Poetry book to co-op. I will have what they need for Literature.

*Next week they will choose a Christmas poem to memorize and present in class on Tuesday, December 12^th.

 Have a wonderful weekend! I hope to see you Monday Night at the Oak Grove Christmas Gathering, December 4th at 6pm at Grace Church: 1610 Midpark Road

Tuesday, Miss Stefanie filled in for me so I could enjoy making memories with my family. In addition to completing the syllabus she and Miss Dawn's class combined classes for science videos and an experiment about buoyancy in salt water.

Thursday, We crammed in Math Test 4,Spelling, AAR review of IR words, a Mark Twain re-read, Lightning Lit summary & grammar, Devotion and a birthday celebration. All before our Thanksgiving Lunch & Party. Students loved the games and the beaded Indian corn craft. Thank you Lisa and  Delaine for heading that up!

Friday. Devotion, Fall Math games, Thankful Bracelets, & a Thanksgiving Fact Scavenger Hunt

I am incredibly thankful to be part of Oak Grove and honored to teach your student. Have a Blessed Week! See you Tuesday, November 28th

Sara Johnson