Hi Families,

Today we cut up our place value disks. In writing, we are writing about where our animal lives. My name is Odanny and I am researching about hippos. They live in salty rivers and waters. We got an elf that is watching us to make sure we have behave. His name is Stewie. This week for phonics we are learning about long u words. They say either "u" or "oooh" like a mule says "u". A mule is a kind of donkey and looks like a horse. We read Clifford and looked for problem and solutions in it. We will be doing this by ourselves tomorrow. On Thursday night, we will be having Light the Night (at 6:30) please come! Have a good evening all dads and moms.

Sincerely,
Odanny

 Stewie has arrived!

 We are working on a class informational book on dolphins the students can use as a model for their own independent books. 

 The prefixes we learned about during November. This is a school-wide initiative to build our language skills. 

 This is our page from today. All students wrote about where their animals live.

We also read Clifford Keeps Cool. We discussed the problem, steps the character takes to fix the problem, and the solution. Students will be expected to do this tomorrow independently, as we have practiced this skill several times as a class. 

A Perfect Wednesday! Wednesday, November 25, 2015

Hi families,

Today was a great day because we had so much fun. I got to use Ms. Petzold's iPad. I am playing Stack the States and learning about the capitals of each state. I also played Sushi Monster. It was so much fun. It is a math game where you have to add. We did math and we did a math. The test went good but it was also very hard. We wrote letters to a special person in our family, but shhhh they are a surprise! We had so much fun today. Happy Thanksgiving!

Love,
Noah

We wrote notes to family members today to let them know how grateful we are for them. Also in their home school folders are grateful books the students have been working on throughout November. Please take a moment to read through their grateful books -- each child found so many things to be grateful for. 

iPad fun -- favorite class apps: Sushi Monster (math app) and State the States (geography/social studies app) 

Tuesday, November 24, 2015

Hi families,

We learned about math. We learned how to find how many tens are in a group of hundreds. There are 10 tens in one hundred. We did a high five greeting this morning. We went to an assembly in the auditorium. A girl danced like a ballerina. We saw pictures of us on a slideshow. We talked about what we are grateful for. I am grateful for Ms. Petzold. Tomorrow we have a math test. It’s just like our homework – so work hard on the homework!!

Have a good afternoon!

Love,

Rhianna

Here are some pictures of from the assembly:

Mrs. Donovan sharing what she is thankful for.

 Students receiving integrity awards.

Fourth graders reading Thanksgiving poems! 

Monday, November 23, 2015

Hi families,

Today we learned about diagrams. Diagrams show the reader the parts of the animal. My animal is deer. We read Jack and Annie Thanksgiving on Thursday. Jack and Annie were just about to leave. They were in 1621 at the first Thanksgiving with Squanto and the Pilgrims. We got to play at recess. I was person of the day. In math, we did counting on a number line. It was tricky. We have a math test on Wednesday. We are going to practice tomorrow to get ready. I am excited for Thanksgiving because my uncle is coming. At the end of the day, we did our grateful books. 

From,

Suri

Some important announcements:

In your child's home-school folder is a PURPLE form about conferences. Please send back your availability as soon as possible. I will assign slots on a first-come first-serve basis based on times desired. 

Also in your child's folder is their drafts from narrative writing. Please read the orange letter regarding their drafts and let me know if you have any questions. 

A few important reminders!

Hi Families! 

Happy Friday! A few important reminders:
-We are making information books and will be completing an All About the Author page. If possible, please send in a recent picture of your child for the page. If you need me to print it, please e-mail it to me and I'd be happy to do so! 
-Friday journals are in backpacks! Please read all about our week! 
-Math quizzes are in backpacks as well. Please look it over and let me know if you have any questions.
-Conferences will be held Thursday, December 10th and Friday, December 11th. Sign-ups will be coming home next week. Please plan on joining me for a 10 minute conference one of those days. 
-This coming Wednesday (Nov 25th) is an early release day. No school on Thursday (Nov 26th) or Friday (Nov 27th). 

As always, send me an e-mail with ANY questions, concerns, comments, or thoughts. :-) Have a wonderful weekend!

Ms. Petzold
http://adventuresinroom217.blogspot.com/ 

Thursday, November 19, 2015

Hi Families,

Today we did pirate math. We learned about counting money in math. We used different dollar bills to get to numbers. We used hundred bills, ten bills, and one bills. In writing, we kept working on our animals. I am learning about raccoon. I like raccoon. When the raccoon is big it eats things that are really small and sometimes dead things. We read Thanksgiving on Thursday. Jack and Annie are back at Pilgram times in the first Thanksgiving. We are figuring out the problems the face and the solutions they come up with. We wrote in our grateful books.

From,
Angelina

 Based on our class read aloud Thanksgiving on Thursday. It is a Magic Tree House book which is a great series for second graders to be reading! We have been analyzing the two main characters, Jack and Annie, by looking at their character traits and analyzing the problems they face and the solutions they come up with to solve the problems. 

A math word problem we did today and the four ways we have learned to express numbers this week.

Awesome Wednesday - Wednesday, November 11, 2015

Hi Families,

We learned how to do unit form, word form, expanded form, and standard form. For the number 234 standard form is 234, word form is two hundred thirty-four, expanded form is 200 + 30 + 4, and unit form is 2 hundreds, 3 tens, 4 ones. We learned about animals. We are researching them. Our aniamls are sharks and manatees. I learned manatees play dead when a boat comes. The whale shark can be up to sixty-four feet long. Today we made the cover, too. We played  7-up at the end of the day because we were good kids today.

From,
Ave and a friend :-)

***Families, please see the purple letter that is coming home today about our new and exciting informational writing unit. Each child has chosen an animal to research and I have gotten them books about them from the library. Each day we will complete a different part of their informational book. Yesterday, we began doing research. Today, we worked on the cover page for the books. If you have a recent printed picture of your child please consider sending it in for them to use for their about the author page.

Working diligently on cover page for our information books.

Researching animals on Tuesday.

More students working hard on research!

Creating cover pages!

November 16, 2015

Hi families,

We did pirate math today. I think I got up to +10, I knew all my +9 facts. I was the person of the day and I had a lot of fun on the wobbly chair. In math, we learned about unit form. Unit form is where you write how many hundreds, tens, and ones. We also did number bonds. We got to look at animals and we picked three animals we would want to learn about and the teacher gets to pick one that's from our list for us to research. I hope I get raccoons. This week we are learning about long O words. We are learning about the -ow pattern like crow or grown and -oa pattern like boat and groan. I'm excited for Friday free time at the end of the day on Friday.

From,
A student in Ms. Petzold's Classroom

Thursday, November 12, 2015

Dear all families,

Today we had a mystery reader. It was Josh's mom. She read one book about Thanksgiving. She brought two ducks and one snake stuffed animals. I got a magic treehouse book and it is a tough book. We had math partners. There are colored dots for us to sit on at whole group time, mine is orange. I got to use the iPad. I played this game called Sushi Monster and you have to add up the numbers to different sums. It was pretty easy. We learned about character traits. We did a paper where we had to describe Raphael and Maya's character traits fromGoing Places We read the book twice, the second time at our desks we had to listen and think about the inside and outside traits and write them down. We are going to start writing non-fiction books on animals on Monday. I don't know which animal I want to learn about yet. We also went to P.E. We played hockey. We ran around in a circle in the gym. Then we stretched. When we were done we dribbled the hockey pucks all around the gym. We got partners to pass it around. My partner was Gabriel. We did math. If you were on 476 and need to count to benchmark numbers. So you could 477, 478, 479, 480. Then you can count by 10s, like 490, 500. Then by hundreds to 600. We did a math paper and helped our partners.  I was person of the day today and I got to do calendar and the place value chart and days in school chart.

From,
Ezekiel

Our Mystery Reader Today - Mrs. Andam! 

The Super Duper Day - November 10, 2015

Hello families!

We had a busy day today. We did math, specials, and reading! We learned about place value and hundreds. We counted with benchmark numbers.

From,
Ivan

P.S. We had fun and a good day!

Hi Families,
Yesterday, we had a substitute. We had gym. We learned about long o words like globe. A globe is a ball that has continents and oceans on it. We read Don't Eat the Teacher, and it had sharks in it. My favorite was when it said, "Don't eat the teacher!!!"

From,
Garrett

Some pictures from last week (pumpkin pictures will be posted soon!!)

Our Morning Meeting

 Our first mystery reader! Sign up here to be one here: http://www.signupgenius.com/go/20f0b4aa4ad2da0fd0-mystery

Place Value Math in Small Groups

Module 3 Resources Now Avaliable!

Hi Families,

We have moved onto module 3 in math. I have updated the resources on the Parent and Family Resources page on this blog. This unit is all about place value. By the end of this unit, my hope is that students will have a thorough understanding of numbers, digits, and the value of each digit. They should be able to count with efficiency -- which means both quickly and accurately. This means that instead of counting by ones, we will teach students to count to benchmark numbers (also known as friendly numbers). Benchmark numbers are groups of tens or hundreds. Once at benchmark numbers, students will learn to skip count by tens or hundreds to get to their end goal. We will continue to practice skip counting -- counting at home is also encouraged! It is especially tricky to count across hundreds... for example 80, 90, 100, 110, 120, 130. Students often get stumped at 100, and say 101 when counting by tens. We will work with popsicle sticks and rubber bands to give students a concrete visual model when we are counting in class. Each time we get to ten ones, students will have to bundle together those ones with a rubber band to get to one ten. When we have ten groups of ten, we will bundle those together to equal one hundred. We will also learn many different ways to write the same number: standard form (also known as number form), expanded form, unit form, and word form.

Here is an example of each form with the number 352.

Standard form (or number form): 352
Unit form: 3 hundreds, 5 tens, 2 ones
Expanded form: 300 + 50 + 2 (looking at the value of each of the digits)
Word form: Three hundred fifty-two

I will continue to send home homework helper sheets daily. As always, please let me know if you have any questions as we move through this unit!

Also, I will be posting pictures from our Pumpkin Math Activity on Friday very soon -- stay tuned!!

Best,
Ms. Petzold

Wacky Wednesday - November 4, 2015

Hi Families,

Today we did math centers. We did lots of math. We are learning about place value. Today at recess we played basketball. We got books at library. For morning work we wrote phonics sentences for -ight and -ie long i words. It is Jeremiah's turn to be person of the day. We did a pinky greeting. We have been in school for 43 days. 43 has four tens and three ones. We are still reading The Absent Author and are almost done. Jeremiah - "I have already finished it and know what happens." We got to work with the teacher in small groups for math. We played race to one hundred which is a place value game. We were reading to self at the end of the day.

From,
Jeremiah and Joshua