Landform Islands

Here's the beginning of our landform island project. We'll continue working to finish our landforms and begin the brochure later on this week. We've had so much fun creating!

Junior Achievement

Our class is lucky to have a Junior Achievement volunteer for the next 6 weeks. Our volunteer's name is Blair and she works at a local credit union. Blair will help our class acquire the knowledge and economic reasoning skills to make wise financial decisions now and in the future. The curriculum is aligned to our social studies, reading, math, and writing standards. By the end of our unit, students will be able to:

• Describe a community
• Identify the variety of careers people have in a community and how each job requires specific skills
• Identify how businesses and government jobs help a community
• Explain how taxation supports government services
• Recognize voting as a way citizens act and contribute to meet a community's needs
• Describe the flow of money in a community's economy

Take a look at our first class! Each student was given a "job" and found the location of their job on a community map. 

Next week students will work together to create a product to sell. I hear this lesson ends with donuts!

Word Study April 11-15, 2016

Here are the word study video links for the week of April 11-15, 2016

Yellow List: Sort # 28 or, ore, oar, w+or

Click text for Yellow List Video Link

Green List: Sort #40 Final e: -ce, -ve, -se, -ze

Click text for Green List Video Link

Blue List #47 Long -a homophones

Click text for Blue List Video Link

Lanforms Final Project--Making Our Own Island!

Hi Families,

Next week we'll be doing a super fun culminating activity to our landforms unit. Each student will use salt dough to create an imaginative island that includes 5 landforms. After building and painting their island, students will design and write a postcard as if they were a visitor to the island or a brochure encouraging visitors to their island. To make enough salt dough for each child to do this project, I'll need some donations. If you are able to donate a container of salt, a bag of flour (regular white all-purpose), or $2 towards purchasing supplies, I would very much appreciate it! We'll start this project next Tuesday, so donations can be brought tomorrow or Monday.

Thank you in advance for your help,

Mrs. Hoschouer 

DonorsChoose.org Grant

Hi Families,

I want to make sure my students have the materials they need to succeed, so I just created a DonorsChoose.org classroom request. 

Empowering Students Through Art with Surrealist Elephants 

Give to my classroom by April 9, 2016 and your donation will be doubled thanks to DonorsChoose.org. Just enter the code LIFTOFF during checkout and you'll be matched dollar for dollar (up to $100). 

In return, you'll get awesome photos of your gift in action and our heartfelt thanks. 

Thank you so much,
Ana Hoschouer

P.S. If you know anyone who may want to help my students, please pass this along! 

Mayor Tammy's Walking Club

Mayor Tammy will be walking with the students of Chief Joseph Elementary on Thursday, April 7^th from 12:15 PM to 1:15 PM.  Joining her will be a special guest from Primary Health Medical Group who is the title sponsor for Mayor Tammy’s Walking Club.  In addition to Mayor Tammy and a Primary Health representative, Fleet Feet Sports Meridian will also be there to set up racing flags and an inflatable arch for the students as they all are walking and running around the school track.  Mayor Tammy will be handing out walking club buttons and the Primary Health representative will be handing out water bottles for students who are walking and running around the track with them.


Mayor Tammy’s Walking Club will be providing prizes to the top three classrooms with the highest average miles per student.  The first place classroom will have lunch with Mayor Tammy and a representative from Primary Health as well as get the choice of a safety reflector to clip on their backpack, a hacky sack or a Frisbee.  The second and third place classrooms will have the same choice of a safety reflector to clip on their backpack, a hacky sack or a Frisbee.  Each classroom will also be presented with an award certificate for their hard work.


Let's hope for warm, sunny weather!


=) Mrs. Hoschouer

Word Study March 28-April 1

Students received their word study list today and have an extra week (spring break) to practice. Here are the word study video links for the week of March 28-April 1.

Yellow List: Sort # 26 er, ear, eer

Click text for Yellow List Video Link

Green List: Sort #38 consonant digraphs plus r-blends and squ-

Click text for Green List Video Link

Blue List #45 plural endings -s and -es

Click text for Blue List Video Link

Lucky Charms Graphing

Our class had so much fun graphing data they collected from everyone's favorite breaksfast treat--Lucky Charms! In celebration of St. Patrick's Day, each student tallied and graphed the number of marshmallows in their bag of Lucky Charms. We also used the "X" shaped cereal pieces as a non-standard measuring tool. Check out some pictures below!

Word Study for the week of February 22-26, 2016

Sorry for the late post! Here are the word study video links for the week of February 22-26:


Yellow List: Sort # 23 Short and long -i and -o (VCC)
Click text for Yellow List Video Link




Green List: Sort #35 -ou and -ow

Click text for Green List Video Link




Blue List #42 tch, ch, & r, l, n, +ch

Click text for Blue List Video Link

Word Study for the week of February 15-19

Hi Families,


Here are the links for the word study videos. Please remember that we do NOT have school on Monday, February 15 in honor of Presidents' Day. Student should cut and sort their words on Monday (or sooner) so they're ready to practice in class on Tuesday. As always, thank you for your support!


Yellow List Sort #22 Short i and Long I (the title of this video is incorrect, but the word sort contains the correct words)


Green List Sort #34 wa, al, ou


Blue List Sort #41 dge, ge, r/l/n+ge

Book Order

Hi Families,


Yesterday I sent home a book order with the students. It included the February 2nd grade book order, the February Lucky book order, and a movie-themed book order called Blockbusters Ultimate Showdowns! Please submit orders online or to me no later than Friday, February 19. If you order online, the website is scholastic.com/readingclub and our class activation code is H7HPW.

Homework Survey

Hi Families,


I sent an email today with a link to a survey I created. I'd like your input on homework for your 2nd grader. This is totally anonymous, so please be honest. This will help me better meet you and your child's needs.


Here's the link: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1DPw9b8DtcK5HTbCHY29IL9eLXJ9jyZ0mqbDPddmPYak/viewform


Thank you for your time and feedback!

Word Study February 8-12, 2016

Here are the word study video links for the week of February 8-12:


Yellow List: Sort # 21 Short -u and long -u
Click text for Yellow List Video Link




Green List: Sort #33 -aw and -au

Click text for Green List Video Link




Blue List #40 Final e: -ce, -ve, -se, -ze

Click text for Blue List Video Link

News, Notes, and Words Study Links

Hi Families,


Tuesday, February 2 is class photo day. Students who returned their portrait permission slip will also have their photos taken individually.


If you have any BoxTops at home, please send them in! The next collection will be on Monday, February 1.


January reading calendars are due on Monday, February 1, but will be accepted until Wednesday, February 3.


Here are the links to the word study videos for the week of February 1-5. Please make sure your child cuts their words and sorts them accordingly. This is an important part of word study!


Click for Yellow List: Sort #20 short and long o


Click for Green List: Sort #32 words with oo soon/good


Click for Blue List: Sort #39 Hard and Soft c and g

Intent to Re-Enroll

Families,

The intent to re-enroll forms were due on January 22, 2016. If your child will be attending CJE next school year, PLEASE return the form ASAP. This is mandatory to ensure your child will be enrolled next year at CJE.
If you have a friend or family member who is interested in enrolling a student for next year, the lottery application is due by February 4, 2016. This can be done online at the CJE website: http://www.westada.org/Domain/11. CJE would LOVE to offer a full-day tuition kindergarten for the 2016-2017 school year. If you're interested in enrolling a child for full-day tuition ($250 per month), please indicate so on the application. We'll need 20 kiddos for this amazing program!


Thank you to those who've already re-enrolled their child(ren).

Word Study for January 25-29, 2016

Families,


Here are video links to each spelling list for the week of January 25-29, 2016. These are great for kids to watch before cutting and sorting their words at home. Here's a great video on how word sorts should look at home (and in class): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=psgw8cVy7fA


Yellow List: Sort # 19 Short and Long a

 Click text for Yellow List Video Link


Green List: Sort #31 -o, -oi, -oy

Click text for Green List Video Link


Blue List # 38 thr-, shr-, squ-

Click text for Blue List Video Link

Word Study January 19-22, 2016

Families,

Here are video links to each spelling list for the week of January 19-22, 2016. These are great for kids to watch before cutting and sorting their words at home.


Yellow List: Sort # 18 Review of CVVC Patter (ai, oa, ee, ea)

No Yellow Video Sort this week! This is a review of past weeks' words. The categories are: ai, oa, ee, and ea. Keep in mind that these are CVVC (consonant vowel vowel consonant) words. CVVC refers to the sounds, not necessarily the number of letters. The word throat is a CVVC word even though the beginning consonant is a combination of sounds made by the letters thr.

Green List: Sort #30 Review of ar, schwa-plus-r, and or

Click text for Green List Video Sort


Blue List # 37  Triple r-blends scr, str, spr

Click text for Blue List Video Link


Please make sure your child is cutting and sorting their words at home!


Thank You!

Word Study January 11-15

Families,


Here are video links to each spelling list for the week of January 11-15, 2016. These are great for kids to watch before cutting and sorting their words at home.


Yellow List: Sort # 17 Short e (CVC & CVVC) and Long e (CVVC [ee and ea])


Click text for Yellow List Video Link


Green List: Sort #29 ur, ure, ur-e


Click text for Green List Video Link


Blue List # 36 Silent Beginning consonants kn, wr, gn


Click text for Blue List Video Link

Word Study

As you may have read in the January 8 newsletter, we will now have 3 spelling groups in our classroom--yellow, green, and blue. These groups were created based on first trimester word study achievements, classroom observation, and a spelling screener given after the winter break. As I spoke with kids about practicing their words at home, may mentioned that parents have a difficult time helping them sort words into categories. To help, I send a Word doc to all parents on my distribution list to help with each word sort. As you help your child with word study, here are a few things to keep in mind:

• Word Study is NOT an isolated “spelling” grade on the report card.
• Word Study (RT 4) IS:
• being able to identify long and short vowels when reading or writing 2nd grade words
• reading and spelling words that contain common vowel team spellings
• reading two-syllable words with long vowels
• reading words with grade level prefixes and suffixes
• reading words with common spelling patterns that don’t follow the normal rule
• reading and writing grade level words that do not follow a regular spelling pattern

The Words Their Way program that I use in my classroom helps support the skills identified above. I've done my best to place your child in a word study group where they will be challenged, but not beyond their academic abilities. If your child seems to be having a really difficult time with their word sorts at home, please let me know. Additionally, if you feel that the word sorts are far too easy for your child, let me know.


Please keep in mind that the word study homework is now a part of the homework packet that comes home on Mondays. Students should cut out their words to sort them. This can be done over the weekend, as word study words come home on Fridays. The physical movement of the words on the paper helps to reinforce the spelling patterns we're learning.


Here are some video clips (click on text) that show two types of word sorts:


Lay-and-Say Sort


Blind Sort