Ms. Sheffield

January 20, 2012

 

We’ve had another busy four-day week at school. In math, we continued our geometry unit on solid shapes. We read Captain Invincible and the Space Shapes to learn more about the recognizable features of geometric solids. The children worked on a Webquest, where the children explored several great internet sites to learn about the attributes of solid shapes and to learn about the plain shapes that make up solids. The children really enjoyed visiting the computer lab to complete their Webquest project.

 The past two weeks have been the perfect weeks to learn about Martin Luther King, Jr. and the contributions he made to our country. After viewing a Discovery Education video about his life, we had a great discussion about the character words: honor, justice, compassion, and liberty, and how Dr. King exemplified them in his life.  The children completed a timeline of his life and added him to their Heroes Journals.

  In language arts, the children are beginning to develop their ideas for the non-fictional writing they will complete during this nine-week period. They explored Pebble Go, an online research site for children, and chose topics they will use for their first non-fiction writing piece. Pebble Go is part of Cobb Virtual Library and can be accessed at home using the username and password that your child has written in his/her planner.

 We enjoyed celebrating Max’s birthday this week. Thank you for the yummy cookie cake!  Happy Birthday, Max! 

  Have a great week-end!

December 2, 2011

I hope you all enjoyed the Thanksgiving holiday.  It was really nice to have the whole week to enjoy friends and family.  A little extra sleep was great, too!  We’ve had a really busy week this week.  We continued working on plane shapes and angles in math. We also started working on telling time.  Please provide opportunities at home for your child to use an analog clock. Also, please continue practicing subtraction math facts as we will work on addition and subtraction throughout the year. Also, get the coins back out because we will begin working on money and how to count back change next week.

In social studies, we have learned more about Mary Musgrove and Tomochichi as we continue to study James Oglethorpe and Georgia’s beginnings. We used Timeliner in the computer lab to learn how to build timelines. The children are making a timeline of Mary Musgrove, Tomochichi, and/or James Oglethorpe.

Today was Miss Bidlack’s last day in our classroom. She has been very supportive and helpful. The children and I will miss having her with us, but wish her well as she pursues her career in education.

Eduardo has been our star student this week. We enjoyed learning more about Eduardo as he shared things that are special to him. Thank you for sharing, Eduardo.

We celebrated two birthdays this week. Holden’s special day was Tuesday and Emma C.’s day was Thursday. The delicious treats they shared with the class were wonderful and enjoyed by all of us. Happy birthday, again, Holden and Emma

Emma H. did a great job presenting the weather on TRNN today. Way to go, Emma!

Special thanks to Mrs. Hay for being our Thursday folder volunteer during the month of November!

Have a great weekend!

11/11/11

We’ve been busy this week at school. In math, we have continued working on subtraction with regrouping. The children are learning that estimating and addition are two concepts that are useful tools when working with subtraction. We have also worked on Venn diagrams. The children are becoming much more confident with classifying, comparing, and contrasting items using Venn diagrams.

In language arts, in addition to responding to literature through writing, the children explored homophones. I read a cute book, Dear Deer, which was a great introduction to how words that sound the same are often spelled differently and have different meanings. Using homophones is challenging for students of all ages and is a skill that we will be working on throughout the year.

Miss Bidlack taught her first lesson this week. She introduced the children to three types of energy: heat, light, and motion. The children compared sources of energy that we use today with those of colonial Georgia.

We really enjoyed meeting Evy’s dog, Murphy this week. Evy also shared some things that are special to her. We really enjoyed reading the book her grandfather wrote, too. It was fun getting to know Evy better this week.

The children and I enjoyed Adventures in Reading this week. Melanie’s mom shared several poems and stories written in rhyming patterns. The children really enjoyed how she used “Elmo” to share the illustrations from the book. Thank you, Mrs. Patterson for being our reader this month!  

Finally, we all enjoyed celebrating Timber Ridge today. It was fun to see everyone dressed in blue, and the “Blue Bell” ice cream treat from the cafeteria was great. Thanks for your help in supporting Timber Ridge and helping make it a 1^st rate school!

Enjoy the weekend!

November 4, 2011

This has been another full week at Timber Ridge. We started the week with lots of fun Halloween related activities throughout the day on Monday.  Lorelei brought some yummy caramel apples decorated like jack-o-lanterns. Thank you, Mrs. Uschold and Lorelei, for the great Halloween treat.

We also started our unit on subtraction with regrouping. The children are beginning to grasp the concept of when regrouping is necessary.  Continue to allow your child to use the paper base ten blocks they brought home this week to help them as they go through the process. One thing that I’ve noticed this week is that many of the children need to review their basic subtraction facts. Please include this as part of your child’s daily homework time. Some of the math links on the blog are helpful ways to practice facts.

The children are also learning more about ways to respond to literature through writing. We are writing letters to the author of a book we read earlier in the year, My Grandmother’s Patchwork Quilt.Through their letters, the children are expressing their feelings about the book, sharing connections they made, and asking questions they would like to ask the author.

Our student intern from Kennesaw State, Miss Bidlack, will be with us every day throughout the month of November. In addition to observing and assisting in the classroom, she will be teaching a few lessons during her stay with us. The children and I are enjoying having Miss Bidlack with us for a few weeks.

We also really enjoyed meeting Luke’s dog, Scout this week. Luke also shared some of his other favorite things with us. Thank you for sharing, Luke, during your Star Student week.

Thank you to Mr. and Mrs. Garrison for volunteering each Thursday in October as our Thursday folder helpers!

Have a great weekend and enjoy that extra hour of sleep as we “Fall” back with our clocks.

October 28, 2011

It was great to see you all during your child’s conference this week. Thank you for sharing this time to reflect on your child’s progress.

Even though we’ve had early release all week, we’ve really been productive. In math, the children have been working on place value with four digit numbers. They were also introduced the concept of subtracting with regrouping. We will be working on this skill for the next couple of weeks. Just like with addition, we’ll spend a lot of time developing the concept behind subtraction with regrouping before working with the more familiar algorithm, or procedure. Please reinforce this math unit by practicing subtraction facts at home.

In social studies, we completed our writing about Sequoyah. Next week, we’ll identify goods and services and will learn how the early Georgians obtained their goods.

During Red Ribbon Week, we discussed drugs and compared helpful drugs, such as prescription and over-the-counter drugs, with those that are harmful. We also learned ways to say no to drugs. Congratulations to Emma C. for winning first place in the second grade, school-wide poster contest using the theme: Drug Free is the Key.We enjoyed learning more about Jordan this week as she was Star Student. We really enjoyed meeting her dog, Jezebel, too. Thank you for sharing, Jordan. 

Thank you to everyone who supported the Timber Ridge Foundation at the Monster Mash last night. It was fun to see everyone in their costumes. Also, thank you to all who were able to visit the Book Fair. We had several new books donated to the classroom. The children really enjoy our classroom library!

Have a wonderful week-end!

October 7, 2011

 

We have had a great week at school this week. In math, the children have worked really hard to complete their picture and bar graphs using the computer program, Graph Club. We also explored the relationships of time such as number of seconds in a minute, minutes in an hour, and hours in a day.

The children completed their favorite places paragraphs and are beginning their next writing focus: personal narratives.

We continued learning about the states of matter in science. The children enjoyed the interactive websites and activities that we explored in the classroom and in the media center. They especially enjoyed observing how matter changes as Coke (liquid and gas) and Magic Shell (liquid) are added to ice cream (solid). Of course, eating their experiment was the most fun of all!

The children are doing well with the Daily Five each day. They are becoming very independent with their choices during this block. We are working on reading skills in small groups during this time. We have talked a lot about making connections while they read. We are also learning to identify story elements in fiction books. We will continue working on this comprehension strategy next week, too.

We were excited to meet Emily’s cat, Leah, this week. Emily has been our Star Student, and we enjoyed learning more about her throughout the week. Thanks for sharing, Emily!

Enjoy the beautiful fall weather this weekend!

September 30, 2011

  
We’ve had another great week at school. Our math focus has been building and analyzing pictographs. The children surveyed 40 of their friends and classmates to gather data about a topic of their choice. They gathered their data on a tally table and transferred the information to a pictograph. The children learned about how a key is necessary to use when symbols on a graph equal more than one number. They also created questions that could be answered using the data shown on the graphs. I was impressed with many of the higher level questions that were asked!  Next week in the computer lab, they’ll create a bar graph, too, using the computer program, Graph Club.

We continued working on descriptive paragraphs about their favorite places. The children are using the writing process with this project and are currently working on revising their work.

The children loved sharing their items for the Matter Museum. Throughout the week, we observed, experimented, and shared how matter can change from one state to another when affected by outside forces.

Our counselor, Ms. Salmons, presented a great lesson this week about how to handle annoying situations using the “DEBUG” system.  Ask your child if he/she can tell you what each letter of the acronym means.

We enjoyed celebrating Sowmya’s birthday on the 29th!  Happy Birthday, Sowmya, and thank you for the yummy treats!

Thanks to all of you who were able to help with our booth at the Fall Carnival last Friday. Everyone seemed to enjoy the golf and the prizes. Currently, our class proudly displays the carnival poster outside of our classroom as we won a blue ribbon for its design. Thanks to Mrs. LaBouff and Mrs. Hampton for helping with the poster and scheduling our class volunteers.

Have a wonderful fall weekend.

September 23, 2011

 

 
We’ve had a great week at school. In math, we continued to work on addition with regrouping. Most of the children understand when they need to regroup, and we’ll continue working on using the skill in word problems. Please continue reviewing math facts to 18 as they are really helpful to the children as they regroup two-digit addition problems.

Our spelling patterns focused on short and long o words. Remember that five high frequency words will be added to their word sorts each week, too. Be sure to check your child’s planner for those words.

We began working on descriptive paragraphs about their favorite places. The children are learning how to make their writing more descriptive by using sensory words.

We moved into our science unit on the states of matter. Your child is being asked to bring in items to put in our Matter Museum. We will use the items as we begin to classify states of matter by their properties.

We also completed our performance-based assessment about Georgia. The children had fun and did a great job creating their maps which included the five regions, several of the rivers, natural resources and landforms found in our state, a compass rose, and a map key. This was a great culminating activity for our Social Studies unit

We visited the computer lab this week. The children are continuing to work on their first nine week goal of creating a drawing with Kid Pix. They are also adding descriptive writing to their illustrations.

We enjoyed celebrating Melanie’s birthday with her today!  Happy Birthday, Melanie, and thank you for the yummy treat!

We also enjoyed a yummy snack that Evy brought in yesterday. The apple crisp was a perfect treat to welcome the beginning of Fall. Thank you, Mrs. Higdon, for sending in the Fall snack.

I’m looking forward to seeing many of you at the Fall Carnival this evening!. Have a wonderful weekend!

September 16, 2011

 
We have had a very full week at school. In math, we began exploring two-digit addition with and without regrouping. The children are using their understanding of place value as they explore different ways to add. Using tools such as base ten blocks, number lines, hundreds charts, and tens frames, children are developing strong number sense while seeing multiple ways to solve problems. Before teaching the traditional algorithm of addition with regrouping, which I call a shortcut, we spend a great deal of time exploring the concept behind regrouping. We’ll continue working on that next week, too.

The children are enjoying learning more about nutrition. They participated in an in-school program called “Just Eat It”, presented by Wellstar. The children learned about the new balanced food plate which is replacing the food pyramid. We talked about the importance of eating a balanced meal and choosing foods that are lower in fat, sugar, and salt. Hopefully your child is sharing some of the new things they’ve learned about nutrition and will use their vinyl placemats as reminders of the importance of making healthy food choices.

This week we worked on long and short i words and common spelling patterns for those words.  The children also added their first five high frequency words in their planners. Please help your child review these words at home each week.  

We had a great time at Safety Village today. In addition to fire safety, the children learned about topics such as bicycle safety, car seat safety, how to stay safe around a pool, and safety in stores and other public places. Safety Village is a great resource for our Cobb County students, and the firefighters and police officers that teach the lessons do a great job with the students. Thank you to Mrs. Hays and Mrs. Manulkin for helping chaperone our trip.

Have a wonderful weekend!

September 2, 2011

We have had another full and exciting week. In math, we are continuing to work on place value and varied ways to represent numbers. We have also been working on the meaning of math symbols and their importance in number sentences.      

In social studies, the children started reading about the regions of Georgia. We are using the acronym, “PCRAB”, to help remember the regions’ names. The children are writing and illustrating their own flip book about each region.

In Language Arts, the children completed their cinquain poems. They had fun illustrating them, too. The poems will be compiled in a class book for the children to enjoy throughout the year. We also started our descriptive writing about the special items the children brought from home. They really enjoyed sharing their items with their classmates.

We had the first part of Cobb County’s fire safety program this week. Firefighter Kelly, from the Cobb County Fire Department, shared information about how to be prepared and stay safe if a fire occurred at home. The follow up lesson will be presented on Sept 16 when the second graders visit Safety Village. They will also learn about other ways to stay safe in their homes, in cars, and in their communities during the field trip. Please read, review, and return the coloring book your child brought home by Friday, September 9. Many of the items covered in the book will be reviewed at Safety Village. 

Yesterday, your child should have brought home his or her reading log. Please help your child record his/her reading every day. The directions for the logs are inside the folder. The reading logs should be returned each Monday. Please return it on Tuesday next week since we won’t be in school on Monday.

I’m looking forward to seeing you at Open House next Wednesday evening! Have a fabulous Labor Day weekend!