Open House Notes

We are well into the swing of things now at school.  We just finished up our second full week of school.  This week was especially crazy because we had parent orientation one evening as well.  No matter how much I prepare and adjust my power point, it always seems that I forget some important tidbit that I want to share with parents!  However, I do love meeting moms and dads and letting them know what being in second grade is all about! As a beginning writing project we created a small display for the parents and wrote about ourselves in my Guess Who project.  There are many of these available for purchase, but I created my own and like that I added a line at the bottom asking them what the best thing about them was.  I love seeing all of their thoughts, from being good at football to being smart or being pretty!  Here are some of my kiddos hard at work...

One of my students finished a little quicker so I asked them to draw my picture.  I'm holding a pencil and you can see my desk in the background.

I also used this activity to set the expectation for drawing in second grade.  We talk about no stick people drawing, making sure we are wearing clothes, and adding some detail into our drawings so that we are not floating in space!  Unfortunately our school district does not have art for the elementary students, and loving drawing myself, I try to include some of that into our work in class.  I draw for the students on the board and they can follow along if they like on their own paper to help with their drawings.

These were hanging in the hallway as their parents came into our classroom for them to see and guess who was who!  You can buy this activity in my TPT store!

I also use parent night to emphasize how important our nightly reading is!  We have calendars in second grade that the students fill out and have parents initial.  I check these calendars every Monday.  I have tried checking them once a month, however, I found that some children were not keeping up with the daily expectation.  I created this calendar of September.  It is also available in my TPT store.  Please be on the look out for upcoming months!

It was a busy week!  I know many of you may just be starting school this week!  I hope you can find some of these useful!  

On a more fun note, we are enjoying the "last" weekend of summer with some family fun!

 A BBQ!  My grandmother immigrated to the USA from Germany in 1925.  She went on to become a Kindergarten teacher until she started her family and had 6 children.  She passed away almost 20 years ago.  There are 11 grandchildren and now many, many great grandchildren. Here are many of us pictured along with her sister's family.  Enjoy your long weekend!