Spirit Week

Invitation

This is a reminder that THIS Friday, December 9th PTO is hosting it's second FREE Pancake Breakfast with Santa! I really hope you can make it! It will be a pancake breakfast for dinner from 5-7pm. Pictures with Santa will be from 5:30-6:15pm and from 6:45-7:30pm. PTO will be selling these pictures with a frame for $10.00. They will also have FREE crafts. Remember that the pancakes and crafts are while supplies last so come early!

I really hope to see you there!

Happy Thanksgiving

I hope you get a chance to have some fun family time and take a moment to say "Thank You" to each other. I want to say thank you for making sure your child is at school every day! I also want to thank you for working with your child at home with their reading and math skills.

Happy Thanksgiving!!!

Open House

Come join us for Open House tonight! It is from 5:30-7:30pm. Come see what your child has done and enjoy some pie and ice-cream for $1.50 to sponsor Student Council. Thanks so much for supporting your child!

McDonald's Spirit Night

Today is Spirit Night at McDonalds! I hope you are able to join us from 5-7pm. Drive thru will not be counted towards our sales so please stop in. :) Teachers will be serving you this evening so it should be fun! I will be there from 6-7pm serving food. Hope to see you there!

Fall Celebration

Happy Halloween! We had a very fun time in class today with caramel apples! They were YUMMY! Thank you to the parents who were able to make it and help make the plates and pass them out. Thank you to all the parents who donated items for our party. We ended up with SO MUCH goodies that we have a lot of left overs. I will be using the left overs for our gingerbread houses we will make in December. Thank you again! Below are some pictures.

Hedgehog Bakes a Cake - recipe

The class and I read the story, Hedgehog Bakes a Cake by: Maryann Macdonald. At the back of the story, there is a recipe for a yellow cake. If you would like to bake the cake with your child here is the recipe:

Ingrediants
3/4 c. sugar
1/2 c. butter
3 eggs
1 1/4 c. self-rising flour
1 tsp. vanilla extract (optional)

Steps to bake cake:
1. Ask an adult to set the oven to 350 degrees F.
2. Butter an 9 in. round pan.
3. Mix butter and sugar together in a bowl.
4. Add eggs one by one.
5. If desired, add vanilla.
6. Mix in flour.
7. Put batter into pan and bake for 30 minutes.
8. Eat warm with a glass of milk.

Enjoy! :)

Ranch PTO Fall Festival Info

Hi Parents & Students,

I wanted to remind you that our wonderful PTO is hosting a Fall Festival "Trunk-or-Treat" & Movie Night THIS Friday, October 28th. Free events will be from 6-7pm and then a movie will begin at 7pm.

They are asking for donations of pre-wrapped candy from our grade level. Please have donations in by Thursday, Oct. 27th. Sounds like a fun night! :) Hope you can make it!

Hello

Hi! How was everyone's weekend? I had a good weekend with my family. Saturday night I got to hang out with some other girls and play a game called BUNCO! It was a fun night!

Parents, grades have been updated in Jupiter. Enjoy the rest of your weekend!

Money Game

Another way to help your child learn money is here! Go to this specific link to go to an interactive math game on MONEY. This is a concept we have been working on. Fun games and great practice for your child. Click here for MONEY GAME

AR Home Connect

Hello Parents,
Over Parent/Teacher Conferences I showed you an AR letter for you to log in to view your child taking quizzes. I have updated the link on our blog. Under the heading Parent Links, click on Home Connect for AR and it will take you to the site for you to login with the username and password given to you. It's much easier then typing that long website! :) Make sure to click the email link at the upper right hand corner to get emails sent to you when your child takes an AR quiz. Remember that I will count AR as part of their reading grade from this quarter on. As always, if you have any questions please feel free to contact me. Thank you!

$$ Money $$

Today we started money! The kids did pretty good today for their first day. They will be receiving more math homework these next couple of weeks since this is a harder concept for them to grasp. Thank you for helping your child with this.

New Link

I added a new site to Student Links. There are videos of well-known actors reading favorite picture books out loud. Check it out at http://www.storylineonline.net/ or click on Storyline Online in the Student Links section.

Enjoying your Fall Break?

Hello Students! I hope you have been enjoying your Fall Break! A reminder that you will go back to school on Tuesday and NOT Monday. Teachers have some classes they will be taking at the school that day. Ask your parents for permission to post a comment and tell about something you have done over Fall Break. I'm excited to hear about what you have enjoyed doing during the time off from school. I will post the first comment to tell your what I've done.

BrainPOP Jr.

Sorry, but your unlimited access to BrainPOP Jr. has expired.

It's time to order or renew your susbscription!

You probably have seen this if you have tried to log into BrainPOP Jr. I will let Mrs. Kruse know about our expired license and see if she is going to have it renewed. In the meantime you can do the free trial. There are so videos on there that are free. I hope everyone is having a great Fall Break!

Fall Break

It's Fall Break and the end of the 1st quarter! I hope everyone has a fun and relaxing Fall Break! You deserve it for all your hard work! Be safe and come back refreshed and ready to start Quarter 2!

Check out the Showcase Tab

I have added a slideshow to the Showcase tab. I've been trying to think of an easier way to add pictures and I think this might be it. Let me know of any other free programs that you use that works for showcasing photos/videos. I'm going to try some short video clips in the near future.

New Look

How do you like the new look of our class blog? I have added Student Links and Parent Links to the right side of the blog. The pages that were at the top of the blog are now on the right side.

Do you know of any fun websites that can be added? Leave a comment and share!

Have you logged in???

Thank you to those parents who have logged into Jupiter to set up their account. I have about 7 more parents that need to log in. I am really trying to reach my goal of 100% participation. I know I keep saying it but this really is a great tool to utilize! I don't have school age children yet so at our team leader meeting we asked one of our parents to log in. It was neat to be able to see what it looks like when you create an account.


Once you log in and create your own password, you can click on the tab on the left that says settings. On the setting tab you are able to check boxes for if you want to be notified via email or text messages for the following: missing assignments, if they drop below a certain grade, if they are tardy to school, or absent! You as the parent are kept updated as frequently as you like. You can set your notification to let you know on a specific day of the week. I'll say it again that I think this tool is wonderful and I would definitely use it! If you are unsure how to work it I will meet with you after or before school and sit down with you and set it up with you. Please let me know and I would LOVE to help you get started with using Jupiter.

College Day

This Wednesday Staff members will be wearing college t-shirts to work. We are showing students the importance of promotion to higher education. If your child has any college team clothing, send them to school with it this Wednesday! I will be wearing my Oklahoma Sooners t-shirt! :-) Who is your favorite college team? Post a comment!

ATTENDANCE

Today we celebrated with Root Beer Floats for spelling the word ATTENDANCE. Thank you for making sure your child is at school on time and at school daily. Every day we have everyone in class with get to put up a letter. We can't wait to see how long it takes us to spell ATTENDANCE again.

Progress Reports

Progress Report Cards went home this past Friday. Please make sure you discuss your child's grades with them. You can even log into www.jupitergrades.com to check specific information about your child's grades. If they received a low grade in a subject you can look at all the assignments that were entered for that subject and see how they did on each assignment. I talked with the kids as well letting them know they are responsible for their grades. If they want to receive an award at the awards assembly they need to see what they need to work on to achieve their goal.

If you have misplaced the letter explaining how to enter Jupiter Grades, please contact me and I will let you know what you need to do to log in. Please make sure that you sign your child's progress report card and have them bring it back to school so I can see that you have seen their report card. I will send it back with them so you can have it for your records.

Thanks,

Rootbeer Float Celebration

It's SEPTEMBER!!!

Wow! It's September and we have made it through one month of school! We have been working hard this past month and will be continuing to do so this month. I have noticed that only a few of you have logged into Jupiter to check your child's grades. PLEASE log in and utilize this program. It's a great tool for you to be informed of your child's progress. I do input grades often so it's not only at the end of the quarter.

As you know, Spirit Night at Chick-fil-a is next week! I'd love for our class to earn a chicken nugget party! Please come on Wednesday, September 7th from 5:30-7:30pm. You can even go through the drive thru! Don't forget to mention Mrs. Ashbaugh when you order.

Another BIG thanks to all parents who are helping me out with grading and making copies for me. I really do appreciate your help!!!

Accelerated Reader (AR)

Today your child should have brought home information regarding Accelerated Reader, also known as AR. The white sheet is their test results from the STAR test they took. Please review that paper closely as it will give you a lot of information. The pink paper is information on the Parent Home Connect. You can log in and see what books your child is taking quizzes on and how they do on them. It is a really neat program so check it out! I will give them a STAR test each quarter. You can also check the Accelerated Reader link at the top of the page to get more information on this program.

Showcase Tab

Hi Parents! A new tab has been added. Come check out the Showcase tab where you will find pictures and/or classwork. Added are some pictures from today when they were buddy reading their story of the week.

JupiterGrades

A letter will be sent home today with information about JupiterGrades. I think it's a great program and am excited for you to be able to utilize it as well.

Sorry about the spelling tests not being sent home yesterday. They will be going home today along with the JupiterGrades letter and other graded work.

Your child will have spelling homework tonight along with their reading log homework. Make sure to sign your child's log and agenda.

Thanks,

Spelling

I am sending home your child's spelling test paper tomorrow (Tuesday).

Most of the class had a hard time with this past spelling test. We did have a couple of students that received a 100% and even spelled some of the challenge words correctly. Yay! I wanted to let you know that I will not be counting this test as part of their grade.

Starting this week, I will be counting every spelling test as part of their Language Arts grade weekly. Please make sure that your child is studying their spelling words daily. If your child writes a letter backwards, it will be counted wrong. The challenge words on the newsletter will only be for students in the LEAP program. They will complete the 15 plus the 5 challenge words.

As always, if you have any questions regarding spelling please don't hesitate to contact me.

Thanks so much,

Routines

Today we started following our regular schedule. It was nice to start our routines and what we will be doing each day with our curriculum. We also started writing in our agendas today. Some students were able to copy all of their spelling words into their agenda while others had a harder time copying from the board. This will take time and practice. At the end of the day we also wrote what we did for Reading, Math, and Language Arts. Please look at their agendas daily and sign at the bottom. Some students did not get to write in their agendas because they were out for DIBELS testing. Hope you all had a great Monday! Everyone stayed on green today so we had a great day!

BEE Binders

BEE Binders were sent home today with a letter explaining them. B.E.E. stands for Bring Everything Everyday. Please make sure that your child is bringing their BEE Binder to school daily. We are still putting them together so they aren't completed yet. It would be very beneficial for your child to have Divider tabs w/pockets (5 tab). It will help them stay organized. I have used them in the past and my parents LOVED them! Please don't remove papers that are in the protected sheets. Anything that needs to be removed from those sheets will be done at school. Thanks for working with me on getting your child's binder together.

First Day of School

The kids did a really good job today! They made great character choices and earned skittles towards their classroom reward. We played a few games to learn about each other and went over classroom rules and procedures. We went on a tour around the school and they did a great job walking in their ABC order quietly. I am looking foward to learning more about each student and working with them this year.

Welcome!

I would like to welcome you to 2nd grade! It was great meeting everyone that came to Meet the Teacher Night! I'm very excited about this school year and getting to know each and every one of you.

Just a reminder to have all the paperwork that was in the red folder turned in by Friday, August 12th. Make sure to read through everything with your child so they know what to expect this year as well. There is also a page in handbook that you will need to sign and tear out.

Again I am excited to work with you and your child this year and making it a wonderful year!

Thank you,