The ABC's of Second Grade A Attendance: Learning and fun take place everyday! Please make sure your child comes to school on time except in cases of illness or emergency. B Birthdays: If you wish to send a treat for your child’s birthday please bring something that is easy to pass out. Box Tops: Our school is collecting “Box Tops for Education.” Each label is worth 10 cents...it adds up fast! C Communication: Communication between school and home is very important for your second grader. Feel free to come by, call, send an email, or send a note in your child’s homework folder as I check it everyday. D Dismissal: School ends at 2:45 pm on full school days and 1:20 pm on Tuesdays. E Emergencies: The school may need to contact you in case of an emergency. If your phone number or address changes, please notify me. This is very important. F Family: The students and I spend a lot of time together and consider one another part of our “school family.” Please encourage your child to tell you something about their day at school. Field Trips: Occasionally we will go on a field trip. The permission slip must be signed and returned and the fee paid for your child to go. G Growing character: At MATES all students work hard to demonstrate the HEART of an Eagle. We will be reinforcing these core values daily in class. H Homework: Your child will have homework Monday-Thursday. Usually it will be math, reading and/or spelling. Homework is reinforcement of skills learned in class. Please check your child’s homework and help only if they ask for it. As a part of their homework, they should be reading at least 25min. every night! I Important Papers: Important notices will be sent home periodically. Please check your child’s homework folder for important papers everyday. J Journey: In second grade we have three umbrella themes: Journeys (geography), Geology, and Oceanography. K Kindness: In our classroom kindness is expected from everyone. L Lunch: Lunch is from 11:40-12:25 everyday. Students must bring their own lunch everyday. M Money: If you are sending money to school please put it in your child’s homework folder in an envelope with their name on it. This will help them not to lose it. N Newsletters: I will be sending home a newsletter each month. It will have a note from me with any special events. A great place to keep it is on the refrigerator. O Organization: Good organizational habits begin to form in second grade. To help keep your child organized through the year, they will use their homework folder. This folder MUST be brought to school everyday. No excuses! P Practice: Just like any other thing you expect to be good at, the skills learned in school need to be practiced. Please provide time at home for your child to practice their math facts and reading. PTA: The PTA is the school’s Parent Teacher Association. It is a way to promote and support communication between home, school, and the community. The cost is $6.00 to join. Q Questions or concerns: Please don’t hesitate to contact me if you have any questions or concerns. R Reading: We will be doing lots of reading in 2nd grade. Please allow time for your child to read books to you. Read books to them that are more advanced than their reading level. Share with them your love for reading. S Scholastic Book Clubs: Your child will be bringing home book order forms this year. This is a great way to purchase book inexpensively, while helping our class earn points toward other items! T Talking: Talking to friends about feelings and ideas is an important part of learning. There are, however, appropriate and inappropriate times to talk. I understand that breaking rules about talking may seem less important than others, but I encourage you to support me in the enforcement of this rule, because it does affect your child's learning as well as other children. U Unique: I believe that each child has unique learning differences; therefore I will be providing instruction to your child that may be different then his or her peers. V Volunteers: If you would like to volunteer in the school, let me know. We love our volunteers! W Writing: Reading and writing are closely linked. We will be writing both expository and narrative essays. We will be trying hard to learn the correct uses of punctuation and grammar too. XYZ I am eXcited to work with you and your child this year! Make sure he/she gets plenty of zzzzz’s each night as we have exciting days planned for this year.☺