Hodgson

Holiday Gift Bears

Dear Sope Creek Famiy.

We are holding our annual Holiday Bear gift card program and would like you to consider making a gift card donation to help our Sope Creek families during this holiday season. Bears with store and amount designations are posted on the main bulletin board in the school lobby. Please consider helping by taking a bear and obtaining a gift card. Gift cards can be returned to your child’s grade level counselor by December 15. Your generosity will help to make this a brighter holiday for many of our children and their families. Thank you in advance, and may each of you have a wonderful holiday.

Your Counselors

PTA Reflections Contest - Entries Due October 7th

"Diversity means..."

Unleash your artistic talents through the 2011-­2012 PTA Reflections program! The National PTA believes all children deserve a quality arts education and encourages students to pursue artistic expression through participation in its annual arts Reflections program.

The program offers students the opportunity to create works of art for fun and recognition.

The Reflections deadline for this year is October 7th! Entry forms and Reflections rules are available here or you can download the general rules here. 

Specific Category rules can be downloaded at the following link:  http://ptareflections.org/cs/rules_and_documents

Make sure you complete the Student Entry Form & include it with your entry!  Download 2011_Student Entry Form

For questions or more information, please contact the
Sope Creek PTA Reflections Committee: 
Deb Papenhagen (papenhagendeb@yahoo.com) or
Wendy Walden,(wendywalden@hotmail.com).

Books for Ringgold - Thank You, Second Grade!

Second Grade students collected new and gently used books for Ringgold Primary School.  Ringgold's roof was lost during the tornado last spring and many books were lost.  HUNDREDS of books were donated in a variety of genres and reading levels.  Thank you, second grade, for making a difference!

OCTOBERFEST – 3 weeks to go!

You don’t want to miss this year’s awesome inflatables and rides at Octoberfest!! New this year is the Blazing Mechanical Bull! Come try your hand at hanging on! Back again is the Terrific Titanic Slide, Mutiny on the Bouncer, the Ultimate Obstacle Challenge, Pirate 5-in-1 and the Justice League Double Challenge! Enjoy the train ride, lots of games and an all-time favorite, the Spider Jump!

Parents! We are ready to schedule volunteers to help make Octoberfest a great day! We need your help! Please see the link below to view all activities and times where volunteers are needed. We hope to sign up all volunteers via this website without having the Room Reps recruit you from each class. Please find your favorite activity and preferred time to sign up and help us fill these positions ASAP. Octoberfest is a great success because of you! Thank you for your support!

http://www.signupgenius.com/go/octoberfest8
 
Questions? Contact Sandy Sweeney at sandyhsweeney@comcast.net.
 
Don’t miss this great family fun event! 
Saturday, October 1st from 2pm – 6pm

Octoberfest 2011

2 Weeks Until Octoberfest!

Want to help by providing something delicious for our bake sale?  Please download the following form to find out how to help with the bake sale!  Download Octoberfest Bake Sale

Watch for armband order forms to come home with students on September 23rd!  Prices: 

• Students:  $10
• Preschoolers/Alumni/High Schoolers:  $5
• Adults and Children under 2:  FREE!
• Family Maximum:  $25

Questions?

• Bake Sale:  Stacy Baca {stacycarl@comcast.net}
• Armbands:  TongSuk Vignone {tvignone@gmail.com}
• General Questions:  Sandy Sweeney {sandyhsweeney@comcast.net}

Week #3

BOOSTERTHON UPDATE

ACADEMIC UPDATE
Academically we have been putting our best foot forward, as well.

• READING: The focus for reading thus far has been on basic comprehension skills.  One that we focused on this week is how to make predictions about a text that we are reading.  This helps us to anticipate the events of the story and gain an understanding for why characters do certain things.  We have also used the "5 W's" (Who, What, Where, When, & Why) to understand what we're reading.
• WRITING: We have been learning about verbs, words that show an action.  We're learning that we have to have the action and a naming part to create a complete sentence.  We want to make sure to have the basic blocks, like complete sentences and basic paragrahph format for writing before we begin our writing genre studies: descriptive, narrative, informational, and persuasive writing.  
• MATH:  We are continuing to look at how numbers go together to create new numbers in different ways and how numbers relate to one another through place value and adding.  We will soon begin to use regrouping, formerly know as "borrowing and carrying".
• SCIENCE:  We will usually follow one track for a unit of study on science, social studies, or health.  We will not generally be doing all three of these at one time.  This week, we were learning how to use the scientific process through a popcorn experiment.  Children made a hypothesis, carried out an experiment, and collected data about what the best types of popcorn were.  They also did observation of a tree that we adopted for the year.  We will be taking data on this tree at various points throughout the to witness the differences in seasons and how it affects the tree.  We will do descriptive writing in relation to this project, as well.

Week #2

THANKS
Thank you all so much for coming in to see your children present their bag of "me goodies".  I know that each of them was so excited to see you here at school.  The kids did a wonderful job, and I look forward to them being comfortable speaking in front of others.  We will have many opportunites to do so in our everyday classroom experiences this year.

ACADEMIC UPDATE

• READING: We began doing some comprehension practice this week, where kids learned the importance of reading a text again and again.  They quickly learned that they would need to refer back to a text on many occasions to answer detailed quetions about what they had read.
• WRITING: Heroes worked together to create our first bi-weekly parent letter.  We hope that you all have had a chance to read and respond to your child's letter in his/her parent journal.  It is always so meaningful for them to be able to receive a special note from Mom or Dad.
• MATH: We focused on place value up to the 100s place and will soon be concentrating on adding 2-digit numbers.
• SCIENCE: Our class adopted a tree on the Sope Creek playground.  We made bark rubbings, collected leaves, and drew pictures of our adopted tree.  We made scientific observations about the state of our tree during the summer season.  We will make comparisions throughout the year to see how our tree changes during the different seasons.

BOOSTERTHON
The Heroes have done an amazing job of collecting pledges for the upcoming Boosterthon Fun Run.  We can't wait to count the laps and have fun with our friends, all while benefiting our wonderful school.  Thanks so much to all of the parents that have helped out with this endeavor and to those who have made personal donations to benefit the school.  Your time and money are certainly appreciated!!!

Week #1

 

WELCOME HEROES!!
The Heroes had a wonderful first week in second grade.  We talked a lot about communities and did a lot of getting-to-know-you activities.  The kids are already making friends and feeling comfortable in class.  We are looking forward to an awesome year of learning.  Please know that you can feel free to contact me at anytime with questions or concerns.  All of my contact information can be found at the bottom of the homework sheet.



A BIG THANK YOU!!!
Thank you so much to the parents who have already bought items from our Wish List that was up on the board during Meet & Greet and Open House.  We are very thankful to have Band-Aids, extra tissues, journal paper, and soap for our classroom sink.  We truly appreciate your contributions.



SPELLING CITY HOMEWORK STARTS WEEK #2
Follow this link to Spelling City Heroes' Spelling City Click on our class to find the Word Sort 01 List.  Choose any game to play. 

WHERE IN THE WORLD HOMEWORK STARTS WEEK #3
We will soon begin our "Where in the World" homework.  This is part of the HET (Highly Effective Learning) learning experience.  I will assign 3-4 kids each week to bring in current events articles that are second grade appropriate and show how citizenship, leadership, or stewardship are being displayed in various parts of the world.  We will put the articles up for display in our room and will find where the stories happened on our world map.


GETTING TO KNOW YOU PRESENTATIONS
I have sent home a letter to you regarding our "grab bag" presentation that the kids will be doing on Friday, August  26th from 8:30-9:30 a.m.  We hope to see everyone there.  It is a truly fun time for the kids to introduce themselves to the parents and their new classmates.



PARENT VOLUNTEER SUBSTITUTES
We are in need of parents to volunteer to be substitutes for the classroom.  Each month, the second grade team will have grade level meetings to discuss teaching strategies and complete collaborative work.  In order to make this happen, we rely on parents to train as volunteers to substitute in our classrooms for a few hours each month, while we are in the meeting.  You will have detailed lesson plans and materials that will make this as easy as possible for you.  Anyone who can offer the time will be GREATLY appreciated!!  The first training will be on Friday, August 26th at 10:00 a.m. (directly following our class "Getting to Know You Presentation".  Please call the front office, if you are interested in being a parent sub for the Heroes.