Saint Luke School

 

 

 

It was wonderful meeting all of you on Thursday night. I am SO excited to begin this school year and having this wonderful opportunity to get to know your son/daughter. I am glad to have had a chance to talk with a few of you that night and over the next few weeks, I hope to touch base with all of you.

It is going to be a very busy week for both you and your son/daughter. They are excited, scared, anxious, happy, tired, hot and hungry (just to mention a a few of their feelings). Please make sure that they have had a good night sleep and something to eat before coming to school. This helps with those beginning of year jitters. There may be some tears and some laughter, but it will all work out. I will keep you posted on how things are going and if there is any concerns, I will let you know.

 

I would also like to remind you that I am available to talk and meet with you to discuss any concerns or questions that you may have. I would appreciate an email, note or phone call prior to our meeting so that I can be sure to give us enough time to talk. It is difficult for me to give you 100% if you just “drop by”. If I am available, I will talk with you, but I would appreciate some notice. 

 

 Upcoming events:

Monday, August 30th: OUR FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL!!!!! This is a uniform day. Lunch tokens can be purchased on Monday. I will be out in the parking lot both in the morning and the afternoon for dismissal. Please remember not to crowd the center doors when picking up your child and please be careful in the parking lot. See you Monday!!!

Friday, September 3rd: This is our first school-wide liturgy for the school year. It is also the first spelling and reading test for the year.

Monday, September 6th: Labor Day…No School

Wednesday, September 8th: Early dismissal at 1:30. Jeans Day for $1.00

Some reminders: 

****PLEASE remeber to get all of those forms to school by Friday, September 3rd. It will help both the office and myself get the year off to an organized start. Thank you for your attention to this detail.

****It is a good idea to purchase a number of extra school supplies while they are on sale during the summer. Keeping a set at home and a set at school (especially their art supplies). We do not like the children to take home their art cases during the week because they tend to get forgotten and they need them in school for their daily work. 

 

 

 

We will have a small snack each day for the first few weeks of school.  If you would like to make a donation for a snack, please make it healthy and enough for all the children in the class.  

Please check the handbook for reminders on birthday snacks, lunches with your child, and how to handle birthday invitations.

 

I hope that your summer reading is done (or almost done). I will keep this list here for both you and your parents in case that it is not done. We will be doing a project for your summer reading and the details will be coming home in a few weeks. 

Below are some suggestions of books that were popular with our previous second grade:

Arthur

Magic Tree House

Junie B. Jones

Bailey School Kids

Rainbow Magic

Ricky Ricotta

Black Lagoon

Puppy Place

Captain Underpants

Good Luck and Read, Read, Read!!!!

 

As we begin our first week , we will doing some “getting to know eachother” activities and art projects. I am hoping that this will make things easier this week. I am aware that they may know eachother, but I do not know them and they do not know me. This is always fun!

 

Here is what we will be doing this week:

In Language arts we will beginning unit 1: Exploration. We will be focusing on what we can learn from exploring new places and things. There are some wonderful stories that we will be reading in this unit. The books cover such topics as exploring with a new friend, exploring space, exploring the outdoors and the desert and a great story about an ant that needs to explore to find an answer to an important question he has.

We will begin with our first story “Iris and Walter”. It is a story about Iris who goes exploring and finds a new friend. The skills we will be focusing on are the main idea and details of a story and also the skill of prediction.

In grammar we are working with sentences. A sentence is a group of words that tells a complete idea. The words are in an order that makes sense. A sentence begins with a capital letter and many sentences end with a period.

We will be focusing on short vowel sounds for our spelling words this week. I will be giving your child a copy of these words as well as the vocabulary words and high frequency words. Their spelling words will also be written in their planner. I am also posting the list of spelling words for this week below. Please review them each night. 

 

drum       rock       list       desk       job       sad       chop       sack       tag       rib

mess       dust 

The challenge words are: pocket       lettuce       engine

***I will give one of these words as a “bonus” word for this week.

 

 

In math we will be beginning the year with addition facts and strategies. I hope that you had a chance to review your math facts over the summer. As we begin eaach math unit, you will see a “Home School Connection” paper come home. It is a good idea to read that over with your child so that you can share in the activities and stories that are suggested. I am  hoping that the first few chapters will be a review for your child and not a “new” concept for them. We will be working with word problems and looking for secret clue words to help us tell whether a math problem is an addition or subtraction problem. It will take us about a week to a week in a half to get through the first chapter.

In Religion we are going to be starting Unit 1: We Believe. We will be working on some activities to get us started this week. I anticipate that by the end of the week we will be ready to begin chapter 1.  I will keep you updated on our progress by next week. I am excited about out first school Liturgy and our first Liturgy as a new class together. It will be a great experience.

 Weekly Schedule for 2B:

Monday: Music

Tuesday: Gym ( you will need a gym uniform; please check the handbook for the required uniform)

Wednesday: Art

Thursday: Library

Friday: Spanish

I hope that you find this information helpful for you. If you have any questions or concerns that you would like to discuss with me, feel free to email me at dkeppel@slserie.org.   

God Bless,

Mrs. Keppel

 PS. The picture at the top of the page is a picture of Mt. Rainer in Washington state that my daughter took from the airplane on our vacation  to the West coast in July.