Happy Valentines Day!

Happy Valentines Day! We had fun celebrating Valentines Day today and getting to share treats with one another.  Here's a quick look at our week:

Reading: In Reading this week we continued talking about Author's Purpose. This week we learned about how authors write books to explain, give directions, or present information.  We looked at several social studies books, science books, and biographies to see what the author was trying to teach us.

For Spelling this week our focus was on contractions.  We learned how to make contractions and practiced by doing contraction surgery! Here are some pictures of our 2.1 "doctors":

 

   

 

  

Writing: This week we finished our Poetry Unit by writing a rhyming poem about an animal.  We first practiced finding rhyming words and then picked an animal to write about.

Math: In Math this week we finished Unit 7 and took our unit test.  Next week we will start our unit on fractions.

Bible: For Bible we continued studying the miracles of Jesus.  This week we learned about how Jesus knows our needs and takes care of us.  We studied the story of Jesus feeding 5000 men and their families and the story of Jesus walking on water.

 

Important Information:

1. There will be NO SCHOOL on Monday! Enjoy the long weekend! :)

2. Spelling Words: close, brave, through, place, crash, clothes, threw, glad, flash, ground, traffic, prize, strange, drive, seen, become

Due to next week being a short week, we will have these spelling words for two weeks.

3. Bible Memory Verse: "I am the light of the world. Anyone who follows me will never walk in darkness. They will have that light. They will have life."  John 8:12

The test for this verse will be on 2/26.

4. Our 2nd grade field trip to the Aquarium will be next FRIDAY! Students will need to bring a cold home lunch with them to school on that day.  We will leave right at 8:30 and be arriving back at school around 2:00.  If you are planning on coming with us, please be sure to send in the 490 yen to me with your student before Friday.

5. Bazaar is coming up on March 5th.  This year we will be collecting money to purchase the materials needed to set up our Nachos and Popcorn booth.  If you have any questions please let me know or email Mrs. Frazier.

Have a blessed weekend!

Spelling Bee!

Congratulations to our 3 Spelling Bee participants Ryo Sugioka, Keyra, Gonzalez, and Andy Qi! We are so proud of all the hard work and hours of practice that they put in to compete today.  They all did a great job. And congratulations to Andy Qi for coming in 2nd place and to Keyra Gonzalez for coming in 1st in the 1st and 2nd grade Spelling Bee!

Here's a peek at what the rest of our week looked like:

Reading: In Reading we started learning about Author's Purpose which is why the author wrote the story.  We spent this week focusing on books that are trying to persuade us.  We learned that authors write books to try to change how we think, feel, or act.

Writing: We continued our Poetry Unit this week by studying Shape Poems.  These are poems that are written inside a shape or to form a shape. Each student put their creativity to work by picking a shape and writing a poem inside of it.

Math: Our focus in Math this week was on addition, graphs, doubling, and halves.  We continued to practice adding three numbers together and made a graph of all our arm spans. 

Bible: In Bible we continued our unit on the Miracles of Jesus.  This week we learned about a woman who had been sick for 12 years and who had faith that Jesus could heal her.  We also learned about Jesus bringing a little girl back from the dead and healing a man that had been unable to walk for 38 years.

Important Information:

1. Spelling Words: he's, it's, I'm, I'll, she's, can't, let's, you'll, didn't, they'll, haven't, couldn't, doesn't, wouldn't, its, said

2. Bible Verse: "I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry. And whoever believes in me will never be thirsty." John 6:35

3. Permission Slips for our 2nd grade field trip to the Aquarium were sent home today! Please return the bottom half of both pieces of paper by next Friday.

4. The Bazaar is coming up very soon! Our booth for this year is Nachos and Popcorn.  We will have more information coming to you very soon.

5. Our Scholastic Book Order will close this next Friday, February 12.  If you would like to order please send in the money and order form with your student or order online.

6. There will be NO SCHOOL on MONDAY, FEBRUARY 15th.

Here are some pictures from the Spelling Bee today:

We had another full week in 2.1! There was a lot of learning going on this week and a lot of laughs. Here is some of what we did:

Reading: In reading this week we focused on Cause and Effect.  We learned that the cause is why something happened and the effect is what happened.  We practiced identifying the cause and effect in sentences and also in different stories.

Writing: For writing we continued learning about poems.  This week our focus was on Diamante Poems which are poems that are shaped like a diamond.  They include nouns, verbs, and adjectives. We wrote a poem together as a class about Elephants and then each student picked a different animal to write about in their own poem.

Bible: In Bible we continued learning about the miracles of Jesus.  We learned that Jesus is more powerful than anything that we could be afraid of.  We learned that when the disciples were afraid because of a storm, Jesus was able to stop the storm.

Math: This week we finished up Unit 6.  We reviewed our addition, subtraction, and multiplication strategies and then took our Unit test on Thursday.  In Math we have also been focusing on our basic addition problems and trying to improve our fluency.  Because of this, we have been taking weekly tests to try to improve our knowledge of the math facts.  When we pass a level we get to write our name on a leaf and put it on the tree.  Here is our progress so far:

Important Information:

1. Spelling Words: This week we will be reviewing our words from Lessons 13-17.  I will send home a review sheet with the students on Monday.

2. Bible Memory Verse: Then He said to her, "Dear woman, your faith has healed you. Go in peace." Luke 8:48

3. The last day for Scholastic Book Orders will be Friday, February 12th.  You can order by sending in the money and order form with your student or by going online here: http://world-schools.scholastic.co.uk/okinawa-christian-school-intl.

4. The last day to order Valentine Grams is next Wednesday. These will be delivered the Thursday or Friday before Valentines Day.

5. Bazaar is coming up soon! Volunteer papers were sent home yesterday in student's folders. If you would like to help please send these back with your student.

6. Reminder that our 2nd grade field trip to the Aquarium will be on Friday, February 19th. More information will be coming next week.

Have a blessed weekend! :)

Here's a snapshot of our week in 2.1:

Reading: This week in Reading we focused on Asking Questions while reading to help us improve our comprehension.  We talked about different question words and how to think of good questions. We were able to read several stories and practice asking questions.

Writing: In Writing we learned about Adjectives.  We learned that adjectives are words that describe nouns.  On Thursday we had the chance to have some popcorn and come up with words to describe it using our five senses.  Then on Friday we continued to practice by identifying if different words were nouns or adjectives.

 

Math: For Math we focused on multiplication this week.  We learned how to count things that are in equal groups and how to draw and read arrays.  We will be finishing up our unit next week and taking our Unit 6 Test on Thursday.

Bible: This week in Bible we learned that Jesus has the power to forgive our sins.  We learned that when we ask Jesus to forgive our sins He removes them far away from us.  The two miracles we studied this week were Jesus healing a man who was paraylzed and Jesus healing a man with a withered hand.

Spelling Bee: This week we had our 2.1 Spelling Bee! All the students did a wonderful job of remembering their words and trying their best.  We had five students who knew all of the 2nd grade words and so we had to move on to the 3rd grade words.  Today we finally got our top 3. Congratulations to Keyra Gonzalez, Andy Qi, and Ryo Sugioka for making the top 3.  And congratulations to Terato Miyazato and Rino Komesu for making the top 5!

For Chapel this week we had a group from Korea come and perform for us.  They did different dances, skits, and songs.

 

Important Information:

1. Spelling Words: draw, saw, ought, pause, straw, paws, lawn, bought, August, caught, brought, taught, because, thought, sure, goes

2. Bible Memory Verse: They asked one another, "Who is this? He commands even the winds and the waves, and they obey him."  Luke 8:25b

3. On Friday we had a Bazaar meeting and received our booth for this year! This year we will be serving Nachos, Popcorn, and drinks.  More information will be coming soon!

4. Scholastic Book Orders went home today.  If you would like to order, you may do so online here: http://world-schools.scholastic.co.uk/okinawa-christian-school-intl  or send in the order form and money with your student. The last day to order will be February 12th. Please be sure to send US Dollars with your order.  Thank you!

5. Valentine Grams were also sent home today.  If your student would like to order Valentines for people in our class or in other classes, they can fill out the order form and return it with the money to me.  The last day to order grams will be Wednesday, February 3rd. Grams will be distributed the Thursday or Friday before Valentines Day.

6. Our class field trip to the Aquarium will be Friday, February 19th.  More information will be coming soon, but we would love to have you join us if you are available.

Have a blessed weekend!

Spirit Week!

We had such a fun time this week celebrating our school spirit! On Monday we dressed up as characters from Noah's Ark and had Kite Day outside.  Here are some pictures from our day:

On Tuesday we had Career Day and Wednesday was our Character Parade! We had a lot of fun sharing our favorite books and characters with each other.  Here are some pictures of our awesome costumes!

Here's what our classroom time looked like:

Reading: In reading we focused on Characters.  We learned about how authors describe characters in both their outward appearance and their personality.  We were able to read several books and identify what we learned about the characters.

Writing: This week we started our poetry unit which will last for the next few weeks.  Our focus this week was on acrostic poems.  We learned to make a list about a topic and then choose which words we wanted to go into our acrostic.  On Wednesday we made an acrostic about 2nd grade all together. Then on Thursday and Friday we each wrote an acrostic about ourselves using our names.

Math: Our focus this week in Math was on subtraction. We practiced subtracting without borrowing and then learned how to borrow from the tens place.  On Thursday and Friday we continued to practice our subtraction with a subtraction sort where we had to identify which problems needed borrowing and which did not.

Bible: In Bible we continued to learn about the miracles of Jesus.  Our theme this week was that Jesus has power over sickness and disease.  We learned how Jesus healed a young boy with a fever who was 15 miles away and how Jesus healed a man with a skin disease.

Science: This week we switched to Science with Mr. Fox and started learning about coral reefs and ocean animals.

Important Information:

1. Spelling Words: This week we will not have any new spelling words as we will be having our class Spelling Bee. The Bee will take place on Wednesday.  The top three students from our class will be given the 1st-8th grade list to study for the 1st and 2nd grade Spelling Bee in February.

2. Bible Memory Verse: "He has removed our sins from us. He has removed them as far as the east is from the west." Psalm 103:12

3. There will be NO SCHOOL on MONDAY, JANUARY 18th.

4. The Bazaar is coming up in March! An information sheet was sent home with each student today in their Friday Folder.  On Friday, January 22 there will be an informational meeting after school where we will be given our booth for this year. If you have any questions please let me know.

5. Our 2nd grade Field Trip to the Aquarium is coming up on Friday, February 19th.  More information will be coming soon!

Have a wonderful weekend!

Welcome Back!

It was great to be together again this week! We jumped right back into all our normal activities and the students did a great job of remembering the routines and procedures!

Reading: In reading this week we reviewed our main strategy of Checking for Comprehension.  We read several books and practiced identifying the characters and the main events of the story.  We also introduced some new and fun materials to help us in our Word Work time.

Writing: In writing we wrote about our Christmas Breaks and the fun things that we were able to do. We also each picked an area that we want to improve  and wrote a goal with steps to take to reach our goal.

Math: This week we started Unit 6 which will include some addition, subtraction, and multiplication practice.  We focused on adding 3 numbers together, solving subtraction problems, and solving word problems.  We identified some key words that help us know if we need to add or subtract.

Bible: In Bible we started learning about the miracles of Jesus.  We learned about how he changed water into wine at a wedding and how he saved a man who had an evil spirit.  We learned that Jesus has power over water and over evil spirits.

Important Information:

1. Spelling words: next week we will be practicing our Spelling Bee words.

2. Bible Memory Verse: "Lord my God, I called out to you for help. And you healed me." Psalm 30:2

3. Next week is Spirit Week! Each day we will dress up as something different:

Monday - Noah's Ark Day: Dress like Noah or an animal

Tuesday - Career Day: Dress up as what you want to be when you grow up. OR Decades Day: dress from a long time ago

Wednesday - Character Parade: Dress up as a book character - please bring a book to go with your character and share with the class

Thursday - Red/White Day: Wear OCSI colors

Friday - Class Matching Day: Wear Friendship Friday shirt

4. Monday is also Kite Day! Our time will be from 10:00-10:45. Please have students bring their kite with them on Monday. Parents are welcome to join us and help us fly our kites!

5. Report Cards were sent home today. Please sign the blue envelope and return it to school with your student. The papers inside are your to keep.  If you have any questions or concerns, please let me know.

Have a great weekend!