Super Spellers

I have several students who are incredible spellers so keeping them challenged is always, well, a challenge. Here are some websites that provide some spelling fun:

http://www.spellingbeethegame.com/

http://www.bigiqkids.com/SpellingGame/SpellingGameContest.html

And for vocabulary on the same website: 

http://www.bigiqkids.com/VocabularyGame/VocabularyGameContest.html

http://www.visualthesaurus.com/bee/

http://word-games.pogo.com/games/tumble-bees

Challenging words to practice:

http://www.myspellit.com/need2know.html

Rock Collection Project

Vacations are a wonderful time to spend with the family but sometimes all that family time leads to parents who never get a break. ;) If you are looking for something educational and fun to occupy your little one, why not consider starting a rock collection?

In class, we recently read If You Find a Rock written by Peggy Christian. We enjoyed thinking of rocks as skipping rocks, climbing rocks, wishing rocks and splashing rocks. It gave new life to something we encounter all the time and provided us with a fresh perspective. It also got us talking about rock collecting.

To get started, you may wish to visit Salt the Sandbox, a website created by a parent who has two very curious boys. The site details how his boys go about finding, collecting, naming and playing with their rocks. We visited the site together at school last week and the children were excited about the ideas presented. I offered extra credit to anyone who wanted to create a collection and share about it when we return to school in January.

In addition to the ideas on the website, children also have fun sorting rocks (and lots of other items, for that matter.) They can be sorted by color and size or grouped like they were in the book we read, but here are some photos from rock sorts my students have done in the past to give you some other ideas:

However you decide to approach the project, I hope that it will be fun for your child and maybe even fun for the whole family!

Please note: this is not a mandatory project, just a suggestion.

Raz-Kids is here!

By popular demand, we're now online with Raz-Kids! Thank you so much for the generous contributions you all made to help with the purchase of a year-long license, especially during a time of year when every penny counts. The children are so excited about using Raz-Kids and it's great to see their motivation (especially related to SCHOOLWORK!)

Your child may access Raz-Kids at school or at home so this makes for an ideal learning activity during weekends and vacations. I will put a card in your child's binder with his/her login information on it in case s/he forgets any of it. I will be opening up the Rocket Room during vacation and about once a month so that the kids don't spend too much time in there during school hours. If you'd like me to provide access at other times, just send me an email and I'll take care of it.

Night Under the Stars ~ Happy, Happy Kwanzaa

Are you familiar with Kwanzaa? "Based on African harvest festivals, this holiday celebrates African-American people, their culture and their values." During our Night Under the Stars performance, LdVCS students will be singing songs that honor several different holidays celebrated at this time of year and the sense of togetherness that makes this such a special season.

Our class will be singing Happy, Happy Kwanzaa so we've been learning facts about this holiday and discussing how the values that are celebrated during Kwanzaa relate to all of us. We have also been comparing the holiday to other holidays we are familiar with. Here's a link to the interactive website we've been using as a part of our study: http://teacher.scholastic.com/activities/holidays/kwanzaa/

 
The song we'll be singing can be found on iTunes. Here are the words:

Happy, Happy Kwanzaa

Chorus

Happy, Happy Kwanzaa
Light the candles one by one
Happy, Happy Kwanzaa
Can be celebrated by everyone

The 1st day of Kwanzaa stands for unity
We are one big family

The 2nd day of Kwanzaa
Self-determination
We make our own way under the sun

Chorus

The 3rd day of Kwanzaa
Responsibility
We can do it together
Joyfully

4th day of Kwanzaa
We buy from each other
Sharing with our neighbors
Is helping one another

Chorus

The 5th day of Kwanzaa
Our purpose is to know
Whose shoulders we stand on
And that is how we grow

The 6th day of Kwanzaa
Beautify your world
‘Cause we’ve got special talents
Each and every boy and girl

Chorus

The 7th day of Kwanzaa
Believe with all your heart
If you believe your dreams come true
Each day’s a brand new start

So let’s celebrate this Kwanzaa
Like one big family
We can change the world together
You and me... Everybody

Chorus

Clap your hands, everybody
Stomp your feet, it’s Kwanzaa
Do your dance, be happy
Sing it with me, come one now
Touch your heart, can you feel it
Close your eyes, can you see it
See your dream, make it fun
Now reach for the sky

Happy, Happy Kwanzaa (Pass it on everybody pass it on now)
Light The Candles One By One (Light one everybody light one)
Happy, Happy Kwanzaa (Pass it on everybody pass it on now)
Can be celebrated by everyone

Cause an UPROAR for the Big Cats!

On Halloween, our class was able to collect $65.00 to help the big cats *YAHOO!* and we will be receiving bracelets from National Geographic soon as a thank you. But our work doesn't stop there! When we return to school after the winter holidays, we will continue our focus on animals and we'll be working on letter writing as well. We will participate in the Letters to Lions campaign as a way to practice letter writing with a purpose. (See below for more information.) Tomorrow begins NatGeo's Big Cat Week and they have lots of great educational shows scheduled that you may want to watch with your family.

One of our second grade writing standards is letter writing:
2.2 Write a friendly letter complete with the date, salutation, body, closing, and signature.

National Geographic Kids website offers a great opportunity to practice this form of writing while doing something good! From the site - "Lions are in danger of extinction across Africa. Filmmakers and National Geographic Explorers-in-Residence Dereck and Beverly Joubert want you to help save lions! Write letters to lions and the Jouberts will deliver them to African leaders to let them know how important lions are to kids everywhere. And we may feature a few of them in a gallery on the National Geographic websites and in print!"

For more information about these beautiful animals, click here. Nat Geo Wild will be supporting National Geographic's Big Cats Initiative with Big Cat Week starting December 11th. Check it out and cause an uproar!

Scholastic Book Club Ordering

This week, I will be sending home book orders - our first of the year. The children have varied abilities in reading so I like to provide book orders for all levels. You'll see that there are several different flyers.You can order using the order form on the flyers or you can order from the Scholastic website. http://clubs.scholastic.com/   Our "Class Activation Code" is DL6GB - you'll need this if you order online.

Orders for this round will be due by October 14th. The books usually take just under 2 weeks to arrive.

Frequently Used Websites

In the classroom, there are some websites we use a lot. These sites are available to students for quick access from our school computers, but they may want to visit them at home as well.

http://everydaymathonline.com
This is the online component of our math program. Your child will have login and password information in his/her binder, attached to the Math Letters sleeve.

http://www.worldbookonline.com/kids/home
LdVCS students have access to World Book Online. There are five different options to allow access by all levels of learners. We primarily use World Book Kids but World Book Student is another great option for more advanced readers.
Login: sdcoeldv
Password: library

http://wonderopolis.org/
Learning is happening everywhere, all the time! We have bottled a little bit of that learning in each Wonder of the Day®. Experience a daily dose of time with your child to make the most of each and every moment together — learn something new, try out an idea, create a masterpiece, imagine possibilities. It’s easy. It’s fun. But the learning is big!

 http://www.starfall.com/
Starfall.com opened in September of 2002 as a free public service to teach children to read with phonics. Our systematic phonics approach, in conjunction with phonemic awareness practice, is perfect for preschool, kindergarten, first grade, second grade, special education, homeschool, and English language development (ELD, ELL, ESL). Starfall is an educational alternative to other entertainment choices for children.

http://www.abcya.com/
ABCya.com is the leader in free educational kids computer games and activities for elementary students to learn on the web. All children's educational computer activities were created or approved by certified school teachers. All educational games are free and are modeled from primary grade lessons and enhanced to provide an interactive way for children to learn.

http://kids.nationalgeographic.com/kids/
The kids version of the amazing National Geographic website.

http://www.funbrain.com/
Since 1997, kids, teachers, librarians, and parents have enthusiastically turned to Funbrain for its free educational games, online books, and comics. Funbrain, created for kids ages preschool through grade 8, offers more than 100 fun, interactive games that develop skills in math, reading, and literacy. Plus, kids can read a variety of popular books and comics on the site, including Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Amelia Writes Again, and Brewster Rocket.

Teachers and librarians can confidently encourage students to use Funbrain during their free time in class, assured that kids will enjoy an educational, safe online learning experience. Funbrain's games help students build on what they have learned in class and acquire new skills in reading, math, and problem solving.

Word Study

When you were in elementary school, no doubt you were given a list of spelling words on Monday, a week's worth of homework assignments to practice the words, followed by a test on Friday. This method of learning to spell may work for some students but studies have shown that a more effective way to teach students to spell is Word Study. In this kind of program, students are not encouraged to simply memorize the words but rather, the emphasis is placed on understanding the patterns found in words and in understanding the structures of the language. Word Study includes work in phonics and vocabulary and leads to greater success in reading. Check out this article from LD Online for more about Word Study.

We will spend two weeks on each of our Word Study lists, starting with a basic list of words from our language program, Imagine It! The lists are based on sounds and spelling patterns so that the children may investigate the words and figure out the patterns on their own - much more powerful than if I were to tell them how the words are similar or should be grouped. These basic lists will work well for many of the students but other children may need more of a challenge or a shortened/simplified list. This differentiation helps me ensure that all students are doing work appropriate for their own individual level.

During the first week of each study, we will work with the words together in class. We'll go over the words together and then work with them in many ways, discovering the common spellings associated with certain sounds as we go. The children really are becoming word detectives at this point! We will then try to find other words that fit into the same patterns.

During the second week, the children will continue to investigate and work with the words in class and will practice them at home as well. They will also spend time working with the 5 high frequency words that go along with the list. These words don't fit the patterns we are working on but they are words that second graders will use a lot and should know how to spell.

Spelling & Vocabulary City is a website the children can use to practice their words during homework week or at any time. http://www.spellingcity.com/

More Fluency Practice

My sister is five years old. She wants to learn to ride a bike. I told her I have an idea. If I have time after school, I will help her. I will run beside her and keep her bike going in a straight line. Have you ever helped someone learn to ride a bike?

See this post for more information about fluency practice.

A Nation Remembers: 9/11

Tomorrow I will begin some discussions with the children about 9/11. We will talk a little bit about the events that occurred that day but will focus more on the outpouring of support and patriotism that followed. We will talk about what makes us feel better during difficult times and the importance of providing a helping hand to those in need after a crisis. We will also reach out to heroes in our community so if you have any suggestions about people we can contact, please let me know.

Your child may have questions about what we talk about in class or what they see in the media. Here's a great article with some resources and a link to a tip sheet that will help with the conversation.