During our last 3 weeks this school year, we will be VERY busy! We are finishing moving in to what was supposed to be our classroom in January, studying life cycles in Science, learning songs and the Pledge of Allegiance (and what it means) for the United States of America as well as understanding different national symbols in our American history, studying media literacy in Reading, writing persuasive letters and studying all different aspects of measurement. All library books must be returned to the school library by this Friday. We will have our library lesson on Tuesday and I’m hoping all books will be returned on Tuesday. If your child does not have their books checked in by Tuesday, I will email you so they can be returned before Friday. Library books will not be checked out the remainder of the school year, but you can access the library and its books if you have a computer or iPad or Nook or Kindle at home; check out e-books through our Las Lomas library or even the Parman library. I sent home information about how to do this last week. Please check NEISD’s Parent Portal for your child’s lunch money account. The district has stated that no food can be charged as of last Monday, May 13th. If your child is eating breakfast or lunch at school and does not have money in his or her account, a peanut butter sandwich or a cheese sandwich will be offered until money is added to his or her cafeteria account.

Reading over the summer is very important! Research has shown that children who don’t read or read very little over the summer are significantly behind academically for the following school year as their friends who have continued to read. Use these programs to help encourage your children to find a new favorite author or even a favorite series this summer and ensure that they will be ready for 3rd grade and the STAAR next year!

Please take advantage of NEISD’s electronic library over the summer.  Explore and check out the e-books and audiobooks available for FREE.  All you need is your child’s ID number, then download the Overdrive Media App, and you are ready to go.  For more information go to:  http://neisd.lib.overdrive.com. Information was sent home with your child the week of May 13th!

Here are some reading programs that your child may like to participate in over the summer:

1. Half Price Books: Feed Your Brain Summer Reading Program: http://www.hpb.com/fyb/

Earn Bookworm Bucks to use at Half Price books by reading at least 15 minutes each day during the months of June and July. Track your minutes by using the reading log found on their website. Also attend their Biggest Story Time of the Summer on June 2^nd. More details on their website.

2. Barnes & Noble Summer Reading Imagination’s Destination:  Read 8 books and write them down in the reading journal (click on link to download). Take completed journal to a Barnes & Noble store between May 21^st and September 3^rd, 2013 to receive a FREE book!!  http://img1.imagesbn.com/pimages/kids/summerreading/2013/bnsummertearpad.pdf

3. H –E-Buddy Summer Reading Club: http://www.hebuddy.com/content/pdf/readingclub.pdf

Read 10 books and receive a prize! Download the reading log from their website.

4. Scholastic Summer Reading Challenge: Read, Log Minutes, Earn Rewards

Log your reading minutes and read around the world this summer. Register for a chance to win cool prizes just by reading!  Follow the link to register:

http://www.scholastic.com/ups/campaigns/src-2013.

5. Chuck E. Cheese Reading Reward Calendar:

http://www.chuckecheese.com/_content_assets/files/Calendar%20PDFs/READING_RC_2012.pdf

Download the reading reward calendar. Read everyday for 2 weeks and earn 10 FREE tokens. *Food purchase is required when redeemed.

6. Pizza Hut Book It Summer Reading Challenge: http://www.bookitprogram.com/summerbreak/challengesweeps.asp

Read 5 books between June 15th-August 15^th and be eligible to enter for a chance to win a Diary of a Wimpy Kid summer fun prize package. Keep track of your reading minutes online. Click on the link above for more details.

7. San Antonio Public Library (SAPL) Summer Reading Program: http://www.mysapl.org/srp/

Sign up at any branch library or online beginning June 1, 2013.

Did you see it? Your child’s animal research project came home on Friday! You’ll see his/her drawing, their typed research paper, and (what the kids really enjoyed doing!!!) a QR code to the HaikuDeck slideshow that THEY CREATED on the school iPads. They used the HaikuDeck app on the iPads to search for photos, select appropriate animal and habitat photos, and overlay 2 typed sentences (typed by them) onto each page of the slideshow. In class, each HaikuDeck presentation was put up on one of the SMART boards for everyone to view. Great job students! Need a free QR code reader to see it with your smartphone? Check out i-nigma in the App Store.

Thank you to Mr. Carrillo and Mr. Dehle for helping out in the classroom as well as patroling the halls and the outside of the buildings this past week as Las Lomas Watch D.O.G.S! Your kids loved seeing you on campus and you were a great help!

Congratulations to Team Captain Jaclyn, Raegan, Nicholas and Mariano! You all practiced well and you performed wonderfully! I am so proud!

All 2nd grade students took a qualifying test this past Friday about several fairy tales. They answered lots of difficult, off-the-wall questions and 4 of them are part of our Hansen Fairy Tale Team. Three of the students are our leaders and we have 1 alternate, just in case one of our leaders gets sick on Thursday. Our team will compete with the Carnazzo Fairy Tale Team, the Walker Fairy Tale Team and the Comalander Fairy Tale Team this Thursday in our cafeteria. All 2nd graders are permitted to wear fairy tale costumes, but leave the swords, bows and arrows at home! No weapons please. Also, please have your student bring a change of clothes. We still have lots of geometry, writing, recess and LINKS to participate in afterwards!

Your kids can name our local San Antonio Mayor (Julian Castro), our great state of Texas Governor (Rick Perry) and the President of the United States (Barack Obama). We’re continuing to work on understanding the 3 branches of the national government (Congress, Supreme Court and the Office of the President), but we will also get a chance to listen again to some of our Leader in Me stories, focus on 3 main characters and vote on who would be a better mayor of our online Leader in Me website, Seven Oaks. After all, a responsible voter is an informed voter!

Watch out parents! 2nd graders now are learning multiplication and division! Don’t misunderstand though; we aren’t memorizing facts yet. We’re learning how multiplication is like skip-counting and what the equation means; for example 2 x 3 means “2 groups of 3″ or skip-counting by 3s twice. We are also learning that division means taking a large number and breaking it into groups that have the same amount/number in each group; for example, 24 ÷ 3 means “24 divided into 3 equal groups.” We even talked a bit on remainders… the leftovers! 2nd graders will be ready to work on memorizing multiplication and division facts over the summer, but don’t start them yet!

Using iPads to hear directions at each station, using goggles and other science safety equipment and studying all kinds of properties of various rocks… the way SCIENCE should be!

Last week, we started our 4th Quarter in Social Studies by starting to discuss government. We are discussing who the heads of the three different levels of governments are and what the responsibilities of the government are.

Local City/Town: Mayor (Our San Antonio Mayor is Julian Castro.)

State: Governor (Our Texas Governor is Rick Perry.)

National: President (Our USA President is Barack Obama.)

We also started our Science Unit on Rocks and their characteristics. Our 2nd graders had a chance to use iPads to scan QR codes to listen to directions and make lots of observations on the rocks they brought into the school and several minerals. I have a few pictures of the students in their colorful safety goggles that I hope to upload soon! We even used one of the new completed 2nd grade classrooms as our Science Lab room!

Finally, we also started the quarter with an introduction into multiplication. We are not memorizing math facts yet, though; we are explaining the how and why as multiple equal groups and skip-counting, as well as knowing how to write the mathematical equation for a multiplication problem (the number of groups x the number of items in each group = the product).

Finally, the students are working on reading information on their animals, recording data in their own words, and writing paragraphs about the information they found online and in books. They will also illustrate their own animal and create a technology presentation using the Tellagami app on our classroom iPads. The entire project will be done at school!!! The kids have been excited about this and have been thrilled with the new information they read about! It’s great to see the excitement in their eyes! They’ll bring the complete written project home next week!

Thank you to Mr. Gaona who spent a day at Las Lomas Elementary watching our halls and even helping our class track the sun and the earth’s rotation on Thursday! We know you were kept busy, but we appreciate your time and extra eyes!

Congratulations to our 8 classmates who not only read the required 20 minutes every night for their school reading log, but they also read enough extra hours (6 additional hours or more) to earn a free Six Flags Fiesta ticket for this summer! Great job Lizzie, Raegan, Nicholas, Mason, Karla, Mariano and Samuel! Keep up the voracious reading!