Parent Teacher Conferences

Hi everyone.  Log into Edline to get directions on how to sign up for a conference.  I'll send a notice, with direction, home tomorrow on how to book a time if you can't log into Edline.

Fun Day

     Today was super fun.  I actually heard more than one student say it was the best day ever.  We started our day baking cornbread.  During recess we set up our desks into tables, put on our Native American headbands and invited Ms. Cotter's class over.  We shared what we were thankful for and feasted on grapes, apple juice and the best cornbread I've ever tasted.  It was delicious and super fun.  Hop over to Edline to check out some great photos.

     Mrs. Carabello visited our class and talked about respecting others.  We made this colorful contract to hang on our classroom door with "keys" to being a good friend.

     After lunch Mrs. Zwicker came to tell us all about her ancestor who was a Pilgrim and came to America on the Mayflower.  How cool is that?  She then brought enough supplies for each child to make an awesome Thanksgiving craft.  I don't want to ruin any surprises, so I'll just let you know that they had to dry therefore they didn't come home today.  We were so thankful to have a family member come and visit our class.  Haley thought it was pretty cool to.  Our door is always open it anyone is feeling inspired!!

     Remember that Wednesday is a half day with dismissal at 12:00.

    HAPPY THANKSGIVING EVERYONE

KINDNESS

     Kindness is OUR word!   It seemed like we needed a quick refresher of this.  I made it perfectly clear to everyone that KINDNESS is expected at all times.  We gave examples of how to handle situations where students are around someone not being kind and how being unkind can be really hurtful.  I've even asked Mrs. Carabello, our school councilor, to come chat with our class when she gets a chance.  It never hurts to follow-up with different sources.  I know the students 'got it' and I'm expecting nothing but kindness from here on out.

     We have continued with our Native American legends.  As a class, we are reading a book about Native Americans from different regions of the United States and writing notes on them.  So far we have finished the Northwestern and Southwestern tribes.  Ask you child if they can tell you a fact or two about them.

     We sponged painted leaves today for a beautiful keepsake that will be sent home next week and we made our Native American headdresses for our feast.  On Monday, we will bake cornbread, set a beautiful table and invite Ms. Cotter's class over for a 'feast'.  Apple juice, grapes and cornbread will be on our menu.  (Ms. Cotter's class is baking cornbread too)  It's always lots of fun.  Watch Edline next week for pictures.

     Ms. Cotter's class invited us to their Thanksgiving play yesterday.  WHOOO WHEEE did they do a fabulous job.  We wrote them letters afterward thanking them and shared what we enjoyed most about the production.

     In math, we will be starting money.  DREAD.  Yes I said it, teaching money is DREADFUL.  It seems students either have some experience with it and do fine or have none and struggle.   PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE give your child opportunities to practice with money at home.  Students will be super successful if they have some experience.  By second grade, they should already be able to identify coins and know their worth.  We are ready to count it.  Empty out pockets and let them add up your change,  have them count out their piggy banks.  Encourage them to show you different way to make a dollar.  I thank you in advance for your cooperation with this.  (I'll be writing almost the same thing with telling time so be warned)

     Next Wednesday is a half day.  Dismissal will be at 12:00 and no lunch will be served.

Veteran's Day

     Hi everyone!  I hope you are enjoying the beautiful weather we are having today.  It's a perfect day to have the day off and play OUTSIDE.  Last Friday, the third, fourth and fifth graders put on a Veteran's Day program.  Mr.  Larry Guiseppe was our Veteran speaker.  It was a great program and everyone did a wonderful job.  Mr. Guiseppe talked a bit about Veterans being our real heroes.  We headed back to class and talked more about real heroes, people who do outstanding things to protect us, not just athletes or music stars.  The children then wrote about who they thought were heroes and why.  They have already been sent home and boy did they do a good job.

     We have been reading some Native American legends this week and will continue to do so.  Some of the legends are from the Aberjonian Tribe that lived right here in Woburn.  So far, we've read about a spider who stole the sun and a how a muskrat helped form land on Earth.

     Yesterday, we practiced a little revising.  We took a few boring sentence and "revised" them to make them better.  We did some together and revised this one on our own.  I told the students that I would post some of them for all to enjoy.

The book was good. (original sentence)

The Minecraft book was awesome, interesting and good.

The apple book was so good that I took it home to read every night.

The book about animals was very cute.

I'm reading a book about (Native Americans) and it's great!

I read a book and it was a blast.  

I read a book and it was amazing.

The book is very interesting and amazing!

The red book was wonderful to read!

I read an amazing (Native American) book.

This book was magical and creative. 

I read a book about a super-duper funny ghost!

The car book was the best book in the world!

The dinosaur book was the most interesting thing I've ever read!

     This is the last week to send in can donations for the food pantry castle being created by high school students.

     The student council has started a new "bead" initiative.  We kicked it off with an all school assembly.  Mrs. Carabello read How Full is Your Bucket? and student council members explained about the beads.  Each teacher will be given a bag of beads and if they catch a student doing something amazing, they will give one to him/her.  Once a second grader has earned 8 beads, they can turn them into a bracelet.  It works very much like the Gold Book but now we'll have beautiful bracelets to wear.  

     Every Thanksgiving, the two second grade classes come together for a feast.  We bake corn bread and have some juice and grapes.  VERY FUN.  In the past we've asked for parents to send in supplies needed for our gathering.  This year we thought it would be easier to shop ourselves and ask families to send a bit in to off set the costs.  Be watching for that note to come home.  We haven't done any calculating yet but I'm not expecting it to be much at all.  More on this will follow.  

     

Exciting Week

     We've had the funnest week in school.  Students are CRAZY excited for Halloween every year.  This COULD make for a very long week with lots of frustration but this isn't my first rodeo and I've mastered how to channel that energy into learning FUN.

     To start off the week, our class was BOO'd.  Halloween pencils and erasers were left on our desks.  It was quite a mystery as to who left them and we had lots of suspects (stay tuned this story continues later in post).

     We've finished our unit on spiders.  The children had fun, learned a lot and most importantly, were MOTIVATED.  What's better than that?  Here is our spider bulletin board.

      Miss Kaitlyn, who is Mr. Peter's substitute, was very impressed and left us this note.

     Many children then thought that Miss Kaitlyn was our prime BOO suspect because she's in the school when we are gone and may have seen something.  I told her she was under suspicion and she left us this note the next day. 

     Then guess what?  We got BOO'd again, spider rings, and the class was counting on Miss Kaitlyn to help us solve the mystery.  Let me tell you, she didn't disappoint.  She created a list of hidden clues scattered around the classroom, each with one letter of the culprits name.  Each clue led to a new clue.  What FUN we had searching for clues to solve the mystery.

   These post-its were the clues and look who the BOOer was!  We thank Miss Kaitlyn for making each morning SOOOOOO FUN.

     We also finished reading the Haunted Library.  I picked up a set of these books from Scholastic because they were a dollar.  WHOOO WHEEEE, what a find.  The story was great.  The kids loved it and I did too.  When we finished, I asked the kids to write in their journals about the story.  They could write anything they wanted; favorite part, their opinion, whatever.  Some wanted to continue the story and write more chapters.  Great idea I thought.  It got even better when they were begging me to bring their journals home to write more and asking to write in their free time.  YIPPEE!!!!

     We "played" quite a few Halloween themed learning centers.  We created graphs, sorted spooky nouns, and created ghostly fact families.  

     Creepy Carrots was our book of the week.  I was lucky enough to even have "creepy carrots" for show and tell from Mrs. McEleiney's garden.  We did lots of great activities with this story.  We played with vocabulary, sequenced events and found important story elements.  

     In math, we are still working on those PESKY word problems!!!!  We made it fun this week by scooting around the room to find word problems scattered about on cards to solve.  

     November has started, where does the time go?  REMINDER- NO SCHOOL ON TUESDAY (Election Day).  NO SCHOOL ON NOV. 11 (Veteran's Day).  There will be Veteran's Day Program on Nov. 7th but only 3rd, 4th, and 5th graders are performing.   Thanksgiving will be here before you know it.