2nd Grade Mrs. Oines

Dear 2nd Grade Families,

Thank you for a wonderful school year!  I appreciate how supportive, kind and thoughtful you have been this year.  You’ve done so much to help your children this year…homework, lunches, fundraisers, First Communion classes, volunteering, recess duty, sports, art and more!  You are amazing!

We’ve learned, played and prayed so much this year!  I’m so proud of the growth each child has made.  School work and projects will be coming home this week, so check your child’s folder each day.

This summer it is so important that your child continues to read and practice math.  Your child should spend about 30 minutes weekdays reading and doing math.  The “summer slump” won’t affect your child if you require them to do reading and math.

St. John Summer Super Heroes: https://st-johnschool.org/2018/05/31/be-a-summer-superhero/

1. Mathletics.com – I set up a summer program to review 2nd grade math.
2. xtramath.org – 5-10 minutes of daily practice is needed for retention of math facts. Summer flyer goes home with report cards.
3. Sign up for Seattle Public Library summer reading program.  spl.org

Book ideas and check reading level and lexile # on the MAP scores and STAR test:

Book lists 3rd-grade-summer-reading-list and lexile.com

When summer’s over, Free Dress on Friday, September 7, for students that complete either a reading or math program over the summer.  Do both programs to earn a bonus treat!

You are invited to sit us with for mass on Friday at 9am.  I hope you can join us!

I pray that God will bless you this summer.  Be safe and have fun!

Bless you!

Mrs. Oines

 

Dear Parents,

It’s hard to believe this year is coming to a close.  We’ve learned so much, grow in our faith and have had so much fun!  We’ll end the year with a playful week!

Monday– last day to bring $1.00 for free dress on Wednesday- the money is being raised by our middle school students and will go to “Charity Water.”

Tuesday- READ-IN Day and Buddy lunch

•       READ-IN DAY: Kids may bring sleeping bags, pillows, stuffies and books.    We’ll cozy up with our favorite books and enjoy relaxing day.
• Buddy Lunch: Students will enjoy a picnic with their Buddy Classes. This is a free lunch day for all students Preschool through Grade 8. Students will enjoy recess and then dine with their buddies in Egan Hall. The menu:  Roasted Turkey sandwiches, chips, fruit, dessert, and a drink. Cheese sandwich available as vegetarian option.
• Please consider volunteering for this fun end-of-the-year event. Many hands are needed!
• http://www.signupgenius.com/go/5080445a5ab23a75-hotlunch
• 1:45- 8th grade celebration assembly

Wednesday– GAME DAY

• Kids may bring non-electronic board games, card games and puzzles to share with their classmates. 
• ***Free dress for children who donated $1.00 or more by Monday to the Charity Water Drive.

Thursday–  Cleaning Day and Movie Day (and a fun surprise for the 2^nd graders J)

Bring one paper sack to hold desk supplies. No XDC

Friday: Dress Uniform for Mass and Last Day!  All are welcome to attend the 9:00 am Mass

**10:30 dismissal- no XDC

 Details for Summer Learning will be sent home on the last day.

God bless our last week of 2^nd Grade! It’s been a wonderful year and I’m sad to see my lovely students go. I’m incredibly proud of them!

Mrs. Oines

Community Project Sharing

Hello 2nd Grade Families,

Wow, what a fun, jammed-packed week…First Communion masses, 1st Communion Brunch, Greenwood Library visit, Spring Concert, Class mass, Jump-a-thon and parent art.  Besides all of that, we worked on measuring in math, learned about changes in states of matter and began our last S.S. Unit about communities.  We are working hard!! Please continue to keep Mrs. Hendrickson in your prayers as she spends time in Montana.

Home Book Report

Today your child is bringing home directions for our last home project, due May 23rd.  Your child chose a book from the Seattle Public Library on Tuesday.  They will read the book and then create a book cover and report.  These reports will be on display at our Open House, May 23rd.

MAP Testing

The children will take the spring MAP test next Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday from 8:30-10.  Please come to school on time and have your child get a good sleep and eat a healthy breakfast.  You can help your child get ready.  Talk about persistence, having a good attitude and trying their best.  This test will show how much your child has grown in math, reading and language since the fall.

Dates:

• Tuesday-Thursday, May 15-17, Measures of Academic Progress (MAP Test)
• Friday, May 18th, Mass at Blanchet High School, turn in permission slips
• Wednesday, May 23rd, BOOK REPORT DUE
• Wednesday, May 23rd, 2nd Grade OPEN HOUSE, 7:45-8:15, 3:00-3:30
• Tuesday, May 29th, 12:30-1:30, Last Greenwood Library field trip.

Thank you for support our school at the auction and with car wash coupons!

Mrs. Oines

Congratulations 2nd Graders on your First Communion!  I feel so blessed to be a part of your child’s First Communion.  I beamed with pride at how poised, reverent and beautiful they were.  Thank you for your support in their faith journey.  I pray that your children will always be close to Jesus and will feel His love each time they receive Him at mass.

Our learning:

2^nd Grade OPEN HOUSE May 23rd (7:45-8:15 and 3:00-3:30)

Science: States of Matter –We’re ending the year with a fun, hands-on science unit.  We’ll learn about the 3 states of matter: solid, liquid and gas and will discover what happens when items are heated or cooled.  Some changes can be reversed and some cannot.

Reading and Writing: Hooray for fairy tales, folktales and fables!!  We’re reading these types of fantasy in May.   To celebrate this genre we’ll be performing a reader’s theater of folktales and writing our own fractured fairy tale later in the month.

Math: Measurement and story problems

Handwriting: We’ve almost learned all the capital cursive letters.

Coming Up:

• Tuesday, May 8^th – Jump-a-thon from 12:45-2:45, wear sport clothing
• Wednesday, May 9^th – 2^nd Grade Class mass
• Tuesday – Thursday, May 15-17, MAP TESTING – 8:30-10.
• Wednesday, May 18th – Mass Bishop Blanchet High School Field Trip – DRESS UNIFORM
• Wednesday, May 23rd, before and after school: 2nd Grade OPEN HOUSE –  Come see our Flat Stanley projects and see our community projects.

God bless you and your family!

Mrs. Oines

Hello parents,

It is a jammed-packed newsletter. Please read carefully so you don’t miss any important events.

Our Learning:

Reading and Writing: We’re wrapping up Poetry Month. I was delighted to listen to each child recite their poem. Many children brought props and happily recited their poem 2 or 3 times for us to enjoy. Every single child recited from memory! Hooray 2^nd Graders!!

Author Visit and Book Fair:

We thoroughly enjoyed our Author and Illustrator visit last week.  Author Samantha Berger and Illustrator Mike Curato were fantastic speakers and inspired us to be authors and illustrators.  Here’s a preview of their book, What If?  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dEMXjBz1DCU There are still 2 copies left of What If, so if your looking for one please get in touch with Mrs. Bodmer at mbodmer@st-johnschool.org

Scholastic Book Fair will also be running after school from May 16^th-18^th!

Science: We have spent the last three weeks learning about how plant adapt to their habitats, how pollinators help plants and wrote plant reports for homework that were shared in class. We also enjoyed a visit from a real beekeeper, Britt McCombs. The kids wrote letters to Ms. McCombs to thank her and share what they learned about bees. We ended our plant unit by watching a beautiful documentary about pollinators, titled Wings of Life, narrated by Meryl Strep. This is a great film for the whole family. We learned that we can help pollinators by planting flowers, avoiding pesticides and lowering pollution. Our little seeds have sprouted. As soon as they are big enough to transplant, your child will bring home their own flower or vegetable to plant in your yard or planter box.

Math: measurement unit

• inches, feet, yards, centimeters and meters
• using the correct tool
• estimating length
• length story problems

Religion:  First Communion is nearly here!  We will have a brunch May 7th to celebrate the children’s First Communion.  This is a student only brunch.  Thank you for the volunteers who signed up to set up and bring food.  I’m so excited for the 2nd Graders.  One week to go!

Social Studies: Flat Stanley has traveled the world! We will create a simple book this week to show where all the Flat Stanley’s visited. If Stanley hasn’t returned to school, it’s not too late to share. Please send him as soon as possible.

Important Dates:

• Tuesday, May 1st: Crowning of Mary 9am- bring a flower
• Saturday and Sunday, May 5-6: First Communion Masses
• Monday, May 7^th: First Communion Brunch
• Tuesday, May 8^th: Greenwood Library Field Trip
• Tuesday, May 8^th: SPRING CONCERT, 7pm
• Wednesday, May 9^th: 2^nd Grade Class Mass
• Wednesday, May 9^th: Jump Rope for Heart: Jump-a-Thon for primary classes
• Tuesday-Thursday, May 15-17: MAP TESTING, 8:30-10
• Friday, May 18^th: Field Trip for Mass at Blanchet for 2^nd graders
• Wednesday, May 23rd: OPEN HOUSE in 2nd GRADE CLASSES, 7:45-8:15, 3:00-3:30.

Thank you for all your support!

Mrs. Oines

Rainy Day Art!

Hello parents,

Happy Easter! God bless you with Easter joy!  It’s been fun this week to hear about the 2nd graders’ spring break adventures.  We had a busy week learning about plant adaptation, poetry and geometry.

Our Learning and Projects:

IMPORTANT: Native Plant Report: Due next Friday, April 20^th. Your child chose a NW native plant to research today. Look up facts about the plant using the scientific name provided with your child. Help your child write 3 sentences that tell about what the plant looks like, where it grows, special features or interesting facts.  Draw or print a picture of the plant.  We will share the reports Friday, April 20^th.

NEW Science UNIT: We are learning how plants adapt to survive in their habitats and how plants spread their seeds or pollen. We started off by reviewing what plants need to survive. Then we created a Plant Habitat booklet to describe how plants adapt in different habitats. We watched a Bill Nye the Science Guy video about how plants grow and make their own food. Today we planted 3 seeds. We will observe how long it takes each seed to germinate or sprout. After the plants get big enough the kids will take them home to plant in your yard or give to me for my yard!

Reading and Writing: It’s Poetry Month! We will read and write poetry all month.  We will learn haiku, diamante, free verse, I Know a Place… and color poems.  Students will collect write and illustrate a few of their favorite poems.

Poetry Celebration Day on April 25-27 – Please help your child rehearse their poem over and over again until they have it memorized. Poems must be at least 8 lines. Have fun!

Math: fractions, symmetry and reviewing 3-digit addition and subtraction

Religion:  Learning about the 7 sacraments and praying the Morning Offering Prayer

Important Dates:

• Tuesday, April 17^th, Greenwood Library Day
• Tuesday, April 17^th 6pm and 7pm, First Communion Bread Making Class
• Thursday, April 19^th, Jump Rope for Heart Kick Off Assembly
• Monday, April 23^rd, Beekeeper Guest Speaker visits
• Tuesday, May 1^st, Crowning of Mary – bring a flower
• Monday, May 7^th, First Communion Brunch for all 2^nd Grade students

Mrs. Oines

God bless you this Holy Week!  I hope you will get to set some time aside to pray this week.  We have a beautiful Holy Thursday and Good Friday service at 7pm this week.  I highly recommend bringing your child to one or both!  We will be spending time this week praying and reflecting on Jesus’ Passion.  We will make a timeline of Jesus’ life, write about each holy day and attend a special Stations of the Cross on Friday, led by the 8th graders.

Our learning this week:

Religion:

We are growing closer to Jesus by participating in the primary prayer service each morning, praying at Adoration every Thursday and going to Stations of the Cross each Friday.  We also listen to faith-inspired music in class by some of my favorite artists, MercyMe, For King and Country, and Hawk Nelson.  Each day of Lent, a student adds a piece to our Lent Calendar to mark the days.  We’re at day 35, just a few days until Easter Sunday!

*Coat drive and soup drive for 1 more week.

Mrs. Rousso, our school counselor, has been doing friendship, self-control and social filter lessons weekly this month.  We learned that when a thought comes to your mind sometimes thoughts need to be filtered first.  If it’s not kind or appropriate you can filter your thought by saying it in another, kinder way, or just don’t say it!  We practiced several scenarios to practice choosing what to do.  Say it, or filter it, or don’t way it.

Zones of Regulation:  Last week we created a class book of emotions. Each child chose an emotion, drew a person with that emotion and a caption to explain it. Our next step in Zones of Regulation is identifying the zones we’re in and learning tools to manage our zones.

Ask your child: What are the zones of regulation? What zone are you in? What does you body feel like in that zone? What tools can you use to manage your zones?

New Math Unit: Geometry

• names and attributes of 2-D and 3-D shapes (trapezoid, parallelogram, pentagon, quadrilateral, side, angle, etc.)
• Sort and categorize shapes
• partition rectangles in columns and rows and count the boxes within

Clifford the Big Read Dog Engineering Project: Last week, groups of 2 and 3 students designed and constructed a dog-biscuit container for Clifford to use when he takes dog biscuits to his family. The groups drew a blueprint, constructed the container, rehearsed sharing their design and finally presented it to the class. Wow! They had some creative ideas. Pictures below!

Biography Reading and Writing: We finished up writing a biography about a classmate this week.   Each child exchanged their biographies as a gift.  They turned out so well!

Phonics: Adding prefixes and suffixes to words such as- big to bigger, swim to swimming, bake to baking, help to helpless, kind to kindness, bump to bumpy, wrap to unwrap, tie to untie

Cursive: We have almost learned all the lower case cursive letters and will soon start learning upper case letters.

Flat Stanley:  Thank you to the students who have shared their Flat Stanley reports with the class last week!  Students can bring in their Flat Stanley projects anytime, preferably by the end of April.  The projects can be a poster, binder, book or just the materials you mailed.  Students should practice reading their project at home so they are ready to present.

God bless your Lenten season! Thank you for your support and for all you do!

 

Mrs. Oines

Biography Reports

Clifford Engineering Project and Sharing

 

 

  Wonderful job!

God blessed us with gorgeous weather for our field trip to Pike Place Market.  We experienced the sights, sounds, smells and tastes of the market.  I highly recommend returning with your child so they can give you a tour.  The food bank staff sends their thanks for the food donations.  Rachel the Piggy Bank appreciates all the donations too!

Coat and soup drive going on until Easter.  Please consider donating gently used kid and adult coats.

Our Learning:

NEW prayer: Morning Offering – We made a poster of the first line of the prayer.  It was sent home today.  Please post somewhere in your home and practice the prayer.  It’s a lovely prayer, “Oh Jesus, through the immaculate heart of Mary, I offer you my prayers, works, joys and sufferings of this day. Amen.”

Math fact practice – keep working on it!
Adding suffixes to words, drop the y and add i
Reading, interpreting and creating graphs
More cursive strokes
Biographies – Dr. Seuss, George Washington Carver (inventor) and presidents
Reading and making timelines
Zones of Regulation Lessons

Zones of Regulation:

Ask your child what the 4 zones are:

o  Blue = low energy, moving slowly

o  Green = ready to learn, content, happy, calm

o  Yellow = starting to lose control, frustrated, silly, anxious, upset, annoyed, excited

o  Red = loss of control, aggressive, mad, yelling, elated, feeling mean

Ask: When was a time you were in the green zone? Yellow zone? red? blue?

How can knowing your zones of regulation help you?

Greenwood library field trip, March 6, 12:30.  If you haven’t returned Seattle books, do so ASAP.  They were due on Tuesday.  I returned SPL books that were in the classroom.

Next Week:

We will write a biography about a classmate, make more graphs, learn about prefixes, continue learning about Zones of regulation and share our personal timelines.

Pike Place Market pictures:

We love Pike Place Market!  Thank you for a wonderful field trip.

Blessings,

Mrs. Oines

Pike Place Market Information

• This Monday, Feb. 26
• Wear uniform and warm coat
• Chaperones come at 8:50am, bus leaves at 9:15.
• Optional: Bring one can of tuna or peanut butter for the food bank.
• Optional: Bring some coins to donate to Rachel the Piggy Bank
• Bring sack lunch, no hot lunch.
• We will return around 1pm.
• No shopping allowed during the tour. Take your child back to the market and they will give you a tour.

NEW: Zones of Regulation Unit

We are learning about emotion, impulse control and managing our levels of alertness and focus. This poster shows the zones of regulation and the colors to go with it. We created Zones folders with emotion faces to match each zone. We will be spending time daily working on this unit. The strategies the kids learn can be used at school and home. Read the parent information to learn more and then you can use the Zones at home.  I attached the parent information in the email.

Math: We are reading, interpreting and making graphs.    The 2^nd graders made surveys to ask the class a question about their favorite things. The kids turned their survey into a pictograph.

Religion: We attended out first Stations of the Cross today.  We are preparing our hearts for Jesus.  Please send in used coats and cans of soup for the St. Vincent de Paul.  Thank you for you generosity!

Have a wonderful, snowy weekend!

Mrs. Oines

 

 

Hello everyone,

Thank you for the thoughtful Valentine’s cards and treasures you sent to me and the class.  The kids had a blast exchanging cards and I’m pleased to say they loved my chocolate chip cookies!

Lent is here and we’re ready to “PRAY, FAST and GIVE for JESUS!”  The kids have written their Lenten Promises and will mark each day on our class and individual calendars through Lent.

PRAYER opportunities this Lent:

• Monday- 5 minutes of silence
• primary prayer Tuesday-Thursday at 8:25
• Stations of the Cross every Friday, 2:30
• Adoration Thursday, 10-10:10
• Class prayer and songs

FASTING opportunities this Lent (Kid’s ideas):

• fast from complaining
• fast from blurting
• fast from being mean
• fast from whining
• fast from video games
• fast from watching TV

GIVING opportunities this Lent:

• BRING tuna or peanut butter to Pike Place Market’s food bank
• coat and soup drive from Saint Vincent dePaul food bank
• Rice bowl giving- put change and bring to church or school during Holy Week.
• Give to Catholic Community Services to support our homeless neighbors

Parents!! This is for you!!  Sign up for this amazing Lenten opportunity, BEST LENT EVER by Dynamic Catholic.  It’s free and simple!  You get daily short videos inspiring and encouraging during Lent.  I love doing this every year!  Please check it out.  https://dynamiccatholic.com/bestlentever

God bless your Lenten Journey!  I pray we will see God and learn to love Him and others more fully.

Dates:

Pike Place Market, February 26th.  Chaperones come at 8:50. SACK LUNCH DAY!  Please bring some coins for Rachel the Piggy bank and a can of tuna or peanut butter for the food bank at Pike Place Market.  Send to class any time.   Thank you!

Have a wonderful long weekend!

Mrs. Oines