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Mrs. Okafor's
Second Grade
Room 8 · 1999-2000


Class News ★ Spelling Lists ★ 100 Book Challenge ★ Reading Log How-To ★ Pumpkin Farm Trip ★ Our Hamster ★ Wish List

Hello, Room 8 families! Welcome to our class home page. I made this page over the summer so that you can always find the spelling list, check what is due, and see what we are up to, even when the newsletter gets left at the bottom of a backpack (it happens to the best of us!). I will try to update it every weekend. A few notes about this page: I do not put children's names or photographs here, and I do not name our school, because this page is out on the whole wide Internet. If you want to know how your own child is doing, please write me or send a note in the folder and we will talk. And if something on this page disagrees with the paper newsletter, the newsletter is the one to believe, since I might have made a typing mistake here. Mrs. Grace Okafor, Room 8

Class News: September 1999

Week of September 27: We are finishing our unit on communities in social studies and starting life cycles in science on Wednesday. We will be watching mealworms turn into beetles over the next several weeks (they are in a tub by the window; they do not escape, I promise). In math we are working on adding two-digit numbers without regrouping. Please keep practicing addition facts to 18 at home; the flash cards from the first week are still the best tool there is. Week of September 20: Thank you to everyone who came to Back-to-School Night on the 16th! We had almost every family there, which is wonderful. If you missed it, the handouts are in your child's folder. Also this week we started our Author Study on a favorite picture-book author; ask your child about the three books we read and which one they liked best. Picture Day was September 14. Proofs should be home by the second week of October. A reminder about mornings: The bell rings at 8:25 and we start reading right away. Children who arrive after 8:30 miss the beginning of the day's story, and it is hard to catch up. Thank you for helping them be on time! Reading buddies: Beginning in October, a fifth-grade class will come to Room 8 on Friday afternoons to read with us. The second graders are very excited about this. The fifth graders are pretending not to be. A Y2K note for the curious: no, the classroom computer is not going to stop working on New Year's, and yes, several children have asked. We have talked about it. Whatever happens with the computers, the hamster will be fine.

This Month's Spelling Lists

Spelling words come home on Monday and the test is on Friday. Each list has ten words plus two "challenge words" that are for extra credit only. The best way to practice is a little bit every night: write them, say them, spell them out loud in the car. Five minutes a night beats thirty minutes on Thursday! Week of September 20 Pattern: short a and short i 1. cat 2. map 3. bag 4. hand 5. last 6. sit 7. pig 8. milk 9. wish 10. with Challenge: basket, picnic Week of September 27 Pattern: sh and ch 1. ship 2. shop 3. fish 4. shut 5. chin 6. chop 7. much 8. such 9. lunch 10. chick Challenge: shadow, children Sight words for September (these are not on the test, but we practice them every day): the, and, said, they, was, of, have, what, were, there. Second graders should be able to read these on sight and spell them by the end of the year.

The 100 Book Challenge

Every child in Room 8 has a goal this year: read 100 books at home between now and the last day of school. That sounds like a lot, but it is only about three books a week, and for a second grader a "book" is a picture book or one chapter of a chapter book. It adds up fast. What counts? A book your child reads to you. (Best!) A book you read to your child. (Also wonderful! Being read to counts, all year.) A book your child reads to a little brother, a grandparent, the dog, or the hamster. A chapter of a chapter book counts as one book. Library books, books from home, books from the classroom library that go home in the folder. Reading the same book again counts if it has been at least a week. Second graders love to re-read, and it is good for them. What doesn't count? Books read at school, and television, even if it is about a book. How do we keep track? With the Family Reading Log (see below). Each time your child finishes a book, write it on the log. When the log fills up, send it in and I will send home a fresh one. There is a big paper chain in our classroom with one link for every ten books the whole class has read. It is already around one wall and heading for the door. What happens at 100? A certificate, a paperback book to keep, and their name on the Hundred Book Wall (first name and last initial only, and it stays in our room). Every child who reaches 100 gets these, and there is no prize for getting there first, so please don't race.

How to Do the Family Reading Log

The yellow reading log lives in the front pocket of your child's take-home folder. Here is how it works: Read together every night, at least 15 minutes. It can be more than one book or part of a longer one. The 15 minutes matters more than the number. Write the date and the title on the next line of the log. Your child can do the writing if he or she wants to; spelling on the log does not count! If the title is very long, a few words of it are fine. Circle who read it: Me (child read it), Grown-up (you read it), or Both (took turns). Sign your initials. This is the important part; the log is a promise between the two of us that the reading really happened. Send the log to school every Monday in the folder. I check it, add a sticker, and send it back the same day. Please don't fret if a night gets missed. Life happens. Just pick it up again the next night. Questions to ask while you read (these help a lot more than you'd think): What do you think will happen next? Why did he do that? Does this remind you of anything? What was your favorite part? Why? And when your child gets stuck on a word: wait a second before you jump in. Then say, "Look at the first letter. What would make sense here?" If it is still a mystery after that, just tell them the word and keep going. Reading at home should be cozy, not a test.

Fall Field Trip: The Pumpkin Farm, Friday, October 15

Our first field trip of the year! Both second-grade classes will ride the bus to a pumpkin farm about half an hour away. We will take a hayride, walk through the corn maze, see the farm animals, and every child will pick out a pumpkin to bring home. We leave school at 9:15 and are back by 1:30. What you need to know: Permission slips went home September 24 and are due back by Friday, October 8. No slip, no trip, and I cannot take a phone call instead. Sorry! Cost is $4.00 per child, which covers the hayride and the pumpkin. Please send it in an envelope with your child's name on it. If the cost is a problem, send me a note; nobody stays behind. Sack lunch from home, in a bag we can throw away, with a drink. We eat at picnic tables at the farm. No glass bottles. Dress for mud. Old shoes or boots, and a jacket. It is a farm in October. Chaperones: I need four parent helpers. If you can come, check the box on the permission slip. Chaperones ride the bus with us and each take a group of five children. If more than four sign up I will draw names, and the ones not chosen get first dibs on the spring trip. Please do not send money for the farm store. We will not have time, and it is easier for everyone if nobody has a pocketful of quarters.

About Our Class Hamster

Room 8 has a golden hamster named Nutmeg. The class voted on the name the first week of school (the other finalists were "Pikachu" and "Mr. Fluffy"; it was close). Nutmeg lives in a cage on the science table and is a girl, as far as the pet store and I can tell. Some things the children have learned, and want you to know: Hamsters are nocturnal, which means she sleeps most of the day and runs on her wheel at night. This is why she is usually a lump of bedding when you come to visit. She eats hamster food from the bag, and small pieces of carrot, apple and broccoli. No candy, no lettuce, no citrus, and please don't send food from home for her; the "Hamster Helper" of the week feeds her from the classroom supply. She stuffs food in her cheeks and carries it to a corner. The children think this is the best thing that has ever happened. Children only hold Nutmeg with me standing right there, sitting on the floor, with clean hands. Everybody gets a turn eventually. Over long weekends and vacations Nutmeg goes home with a family who has signed up and been through my (very short) hamster training. The sign-up sheet for Thanksgiving and winter break is on the bulletin board by the door.

Classroom Wish List

Every class runs low on a few things by October. If you are at the store anyway and can spare one of these, Room 8 would be very grateful. Absolutely no obligation, and please don't feel you have to buy anything at all. Boxes of tissues (we go through about one a week from now till spring) Glue sticks (the small purple kind that dries clear) Dry-erase markers, black or blue Gallon and quart zipper bags Pump hand soap Stickers, any kind (they go on the reading logs) Paper towels Old magazines with pictures we can cut up (no news magazines, please; nature and cooking ones are perfect) Gently used picture books and easy chapter books for the classroom library A parent who can come read aloud on a Friday afternoon. This is my biggest wish!

You are visitor number to Room 8's page since August 1999. (I think some of you are checking the spelling list a lot!) [email protected] I check e-mail in the evenings. For anything urgent, please call the school office. Last updated Sunday, September 26, 1999. © 1999 Mrs. Grace Okafor. Other teachers' pages I like: Mrs. Bell's Kindergarten Class · Mr. Delgado's 7th Grade Science · The Study Skills Page Back to the Athens neighborhood