Spooky Web Sites

     Stuck in today with electricity (hopefully).  Check out this blog Technology Rocks. Seriously for some fun Halloween web sites.

Halloween Party

     What fun.  Mrs. Fishlin and the rest of the PTO did a FANTASTIC job with the school Halloween party last night.  The children looked great in their costumes and had a blast dancing with DJ extraordinaire Fred Flintstone, AKA Mr. Stevens.  We even had one of our students win a dance off.......nice moves.

Oopsies

     Well I did it.  I told you I would.  I messed up the gym day.  We had gym on Wednesday even though I wrote Friday on our homework packet.  I explained to the substitute gym teacher that if anyone was not wearing the right shoes it was my fault and everyone got to participate.  Sorry.   I do ALWAYS double check, it was just a matter of time.

     Exciting news, our winning classroom will be featured in the district newsletter for winning the Walking Wednesday trophy.  Keep your eye open for that.  It should be coming out shortly.

     Our Halloween party will be on Halloween.  Each child will bring home a decorated lunch bag to bring back on party day with their special snack and drink for the party.  This can be whatever you choose, but it is something just for your child, not for sharing.  This is in addition to their morning snack.  We will begin our party after lunch.  Don't forget to pack your child's costume for the parade at 1:45.  Please label your child costume and leave your axes, guns, swords etc. at home.  Also, have your child practice putting his/her costume on by themselves (an hopefully over their cloths).

     We are reading up a storm, lots of Halloween books.  After reading about Spookley, the square pumpkin that discovered it's good to be different, we made these different pumpkins (without scissors) and labeled them with adjectives to describe them.

     Don't forget to practice rhyming at home.  We did some this week and it wasn't pretty.

Busy Busy

  The Woburn school community raised over $5,000.00 for the Fisher family.  Our class alone raised $69.  I think that's pretty remarkable and thank you all.

      We're in full swing and ready for Halloween.  Wicked witches were made last week in art and we've been reading some Halloween books.  Today we made a chart of facts we know about bats and read Stellaluna.  Ask your student to tell you all about it.  We then created a venn diagram comparing bats and birds.  We watched a short video with a little (tricky) quiz at the end on the phases of the moon.  Click here to check it out.  We watched a school house rock video on nouns.  I remember them all so well which is surprising because they were on TV wayyyyyy before my time.  Check it out here and a fun Halloween song that you can see here.  The children really liked the song.

     Did you notice our spelling list is up to 14 words?  They are getting tricky.  I went easy on the homework this week to give your child more time to practice them.  Please don't forget to do your xtramath and check out spelling city if you haven't.  We visited that site today in the computer lab and the children were really enjoying it.

PUMPKIN PATCH & GREEN DAY

     A special thank you to Mrs. Miller, who came to school on Wed. with pumpkins and decorating supplies for the WHOLE class to celebrate her daughter's birthday.  SUPER FUN.  Here a picture of our pumpkin patch.  

   Here is the picture of our planet paragraphs that I promised.

     I felt super special when a former student invited me to the Boys and Girls club for "Feature a Teacher" Day.  I got the grand tour from her (and a few others) a delicious cupcake, and a goodie bag that she made.  I was thrilled that she wanted to share all that with me.  The club seems like a VERY FUN place to be.

     Friday is Green Day.  Wear green to school on Friday and donate a dollar (or more) to support the family of Allen Fisher, whose life was tragically cut short when hit by a car after his son's football practice.  Such a heartbreaking story.

     On a lighter note, the children were asked to complete a sentence that started like this:    Things I like about our school ....... There was maybe one or two that liked the nice teachers.  Most kids wrote recess, lunch, gym, snack or something like that.  One boy went as far as listing it all.......health, art, gym, library and music.  EVERY SUBJECT THAT I DON'T TEACH.  My feelings were hurt for a second but I'm POSITIVE  it was just an oversight.

Loving Compliments

     WOW.  I heard a few things that got me super excited this past week.  First, not one, but TWO parents commented to me on how much their child is enjoying READING.  WHOOP WHOOP.  That is music to a teacher's ears.  The second thing was that someone told me they LIKED MY BLOG~~YIPPEE.  I was tickled pink to hear that.  I'm just glad someone is reading it.
   We started reading Vampires Don't Wear Polka Dots.  As I predicted, the children love it. The students at the Baily City Elementary School have reason to believe that their teacher is a vampire although she's been very nice. We are still hopping along with Frog and Toad.  Our planet homework has been turned into paragraphs and posted on the bulletin board (I'll post a picture of it later this week)
     Here is one of the websites we visited in the computer lab this week http://www.harcourtschool.com/activity/clubhouse/index_pre.html .  It's about identifying different sentence types.  Not everyone got a chance to check it out so if you can, let your child give it a go.
   

Unity Day

     This Wednesday is Unity Day.  A day to take a stand and unite against bullying.  We have been asked to wear orange to show our support to this worthy cause.
     This week we will be starting to read Frog and Toad stories.  There are many different stories in this series and they are fun.   Perhaps we'll even have time for a frog/toad craft.  We finished reading Amber Brown is Not a Crayon and will now move on to Vampires Don't Wear Polka Dots, a Bailey School Kids book.  I'll do all the reading in this chapter book because I only have one copy.  It's a fun story about a class that thinks their new teacher is a vampire.  I have many different titles in the Bailey School Kids series and I'm hoping that they will be inspired to read more of them after this one.  It's always a class favorite.
   
   

WE WON!!!!!

WHOOP WHOOP    I told you......it's FANTASTIC!  We can proudly display this in our class for the ENTIRE month.   We won by a landslide.  We had an astounding 92% of our class walk to school today. (I rode my bike)  We were ecstatic and wrote about it in our journals.  We also had art for the first time this week.  It was an exciting day.

Walking Wednesday

     One Wednesday a month will be "walking Wednesday".  Children are encouraged to walk to school that day.  If walking is just not an option then carpooling is encouraged.  The class with the highest percentage of walkers will get a SUPER COOL trophy to keep in their class for the month.  I'm not going to lie........I WANT THAT TROPHY.  I'll post a picture of it soon.  It's a beauty.  We have a whole year to win it and my fingers are crossed.  Lets hope the weather cooperates for walking tomorrow.
     Tomorrow is spelling challenge test day and the last day to return pledges.  We had another lucky raffle winner today.  She'll be enjoying a movie at Showcase Cinema with her free pass.  Mrs. Reybitz  visited and played memory today with both classes.  We practiced our words and everyone won 2 prizes.  Be sure to introduce yourself to Mrs. Reybitz if you get a chance.  She is fantastic and new to Woburn.
     We have started our science unit on space today.  I sent home a calendar to fill in the phases of the moon for the month of October.  This isn't for a grade.  I'm hoping the students check out the moon enough this month to see the pattern in the changes.  Certainly, if they bring it in at the end of the month, they will get a sticker and big smiley face but if it gets lost in the shuffle, no worries.
       In 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue.  You know what that means?  Monday is a DAY OFF.  A special shout out to Christopher for believing the world was not flat.  I hope everyone enjoys their long weekend.

Spelling Challenge

     We have a winner!  One lucky student in our class won a gift certificate to McDonalds for bringing in his spelling challenge pledges.   The forms are due on Wednesday but tomorrow they will be having another raffle for anyone who has already passed them in.  Mrs. Concannon was our special guest this morning.  She played hangman with the combined second grade classes to help us practice our words.  It's was super fun and we were thrilled to have her.  Our spelling challenge test will be on Wednesday and I'm CONFIDENT we will all get perfect scores.