EXCITEMENT 2

     This week just keeps getting better.  I received these beauties to kick off my birthday week.  You are never to old to celebrate your birthday and feel special.  These certainly made me feel special.  I told the children my age, I'll be thirty-two.  Which is apparently younger than most of you because they ALL announced your ages when they were comparing how much younger I am than their parents.  LOVED IT

     There was a rumor that Mrs. Zotolli could be persuaded to let the school go to see the movie Frozen.  We wrote her letters trying to convince her and it worked!!!  See the letter she sent us back below.

     This morning Jingle got into a little mischief.  He scattered our warm fuzzies around to make room in the jar for himself.  The kids thought that was hysterical but I was none to please with the mess he made.  I expect him to be on best behavior tomorrow.

     We have read a few Anansi tales.  Anansi is a trickster.  Ask about some of the pranks he plays.  One story had a some metaphors in it, so we decided to come up with a few of our own.  In the other story, Anansi gets a taste of his own medicine.

         To make tomorrow even better, it's PJ Day.  Be comfy and bring in $1 to donate to Woburn Council of Social Concern.  Have a wonderful weekend everyone!!!

Excitement

     Today was very exciting.  First thing this morning, we were invited to a special class on light presented by the Discovery Museum and sponsored by the PTO.  It was great fun.  We learned that color was a form on energy.  We used prisms, magnifying glasses, made tops, reflected colors (but not black), and had fun.  Did you know that chromatography is the study of color?

  
     We have a new student.  Meet Jingle, our elf.  I'm sure he'll only be reporting good news to anyone who will listen.

     We learned about three different shapes today: squares, rectangles and quadrilaterals.  All squares are rectangles but all rectangles are not squares.  Ask your child to explain why?

     Our second grade class knows this big word...expository writing.  This book was a great example of it.  It's writing that explains or informs.  We learned some interesting chameleon facts.  The boy in the story was trying to persuade us in believing that chameleons are cool.   It worked on me.  They seem super cool.

     Did you get to the Festival on the Common this weekend?  Brrrrr it was cold.  Here is a picture of the Wyman tree.  Second grade made the peppermint ornaments.  They came out great.

     Lastly, I visited my brother yesterday and his living room was FULL with items to be donated in Shane's name.  It was positively breathtaking and brought joy to my heart!!!

Storytime

     This week we are reading stories about my favorite storybook character, Scaredy Squirrel.  Today we read the first story titled Scaredy Squirrel.  He's afraid of just about everything.  We then wrote about thing that scare us in our journals.  There will be more Scaredy adventure this week.

Someone brought in a squirrel..YIPPEE

     We also started a story Mrs. Connolly shared with us titled The Day the Crayons Quit.  Sooo funny.  Each color writes a letter to a little boy.  Apparently, red and yellow are not speaking to each other because they both think that they should be the color of the sun.  It's a super funny book.

     Speaking of letters, we got a very surprising letter from turkeys today.  That's right......turkeys.  They want us to persuade other to eat something else for Thanksgiving.  I guess they are sick of being chased and having to hide.  We started writing letters today convincing others to eat something else this holiday.  We also learned a few turkey facts this week.  Which helped with our writing.

     Tomorrow is a VERY exciting day for our second grade friends next door.  Our class is super excited to attend their performance of a Thanksgiving play they've been working hard on.  I don't doubt for a minute that it will be FANTASTIC.

     So much going on and little time to write.  Keep on the lookout for another post this week.  Let's hope time allows!!!



   

Report Cards

     Report cards go home on Friday so be sure to check your child's backpack for them.  Please keep in mind that this term has been mostly REVIEW of first grade.

     We played a prefix matching game.  We had to match a word with a prefix to it's definition.  Each child was given one piece of the game.  The tricky part was we had to do it without talking.  It was the most quiet our room has ever been.  We used this chart to help us.

     Here are some other centers we "played" with.

fact families

number sorting

greater than/less than

antonyms

     We have lots of different books being read at the same time.  Ask your child which he/she is reading and have them tell you all about it.  Is it a Cam Jansen mystery?  Chickens and Salsa? or maybe a book about camping with Dad?

Three Day Weekends

     I think three days is just the right amount of time for a weekend.  It gives you time to have fun, be productive and rest up.  It makes it easy to start the week fresh.

     I have been slacking a little on my blog and I apologize for that.  As I say to the kids almost every morning "BUSY BUSY BUSY".  Term one ended on Friday.  I've spent wayyyyyy to much time working on report cards, which go home on Friday, and I THINK they are finally done.  I'll be able to review them in school tomorrow.

     We have been super productive in class.  We are studying pronouns and verbs.  We are working on the water cycle.  I told the class to notice what happens to the mirror in the bathroom after a hot shower.  CONDENSATION-water vapor turning back into water droplets-very exciting stuff.  Our math lessons are picking up, adding two digit numbers without regrouping-whoo hoo.  We are all using BOLD BEGINNINGS in our writing.    The students ROCK at this.  Best of all, we got postcards from our South Carolina pen pals.

     Here are some pictures to enjoy!

We wrote what we were thankful for (I threatened NO video games)

Created in art

Bold beginnings anchor chart.

More place value practice

Pronouns

     Reminder, Thursday is a half day. Dismissal will be at 12:30.  I will be having parent/teacher conferences then as well as on Thursday evening.  If you want a time slot and haven't signed up, you can do so here or contact me.
   

Spiders

     This week we read Spiders by Gail Gibbons and made our own spider web of facts.  Ask your child to share with you some new things they learned.

     We shared our creepy house stories.  They were awesome.  We've been reading and writing our own fables where the moral of the story is BE KIND.  Ask your child about The Lion and the Mouse an Aesop fable.

     I had other pictures to share but my camera/computer wasn't cooperating.  We're still ROCKIN the math word problem.  Much less whining this week, which makes for a happy teacher.

     Remember, this Friday is the Wyman School Halloween party 6-8.  If you've never been, you are missing out.  It's great fun.

     A special shout out to Mrs. M for sending in these fun craft projects for the class.  The students loved them.

     GO SOX!!!!

Busy Bee

     Today was my last workshop.  This one I was the presenter at, which I was super excited to be asked to do.  It went great but sucked quite a bit of my "home" time for prep.  Which is why it took so long for this post-Sorry.

     This was a nice short week.  We have spooked out some of our lessons.  Here we brainstormed adjectives to describe this house and then wrote a story about it.

      It's hard to see here, but the children wrote antonyms on the bat's wings to decorate our hallway.

      These ghosts are greeting people using quotation marks.

      We searched the room for some fact family cards.

 
    Math word problems have been driving the students MAD.  I'm telling you, I have heard more than my share of WHINING.  The problems are tricky, but I am encouraging the children to try, try, try.  It's OK to make mistakes but never give up.  Their little math minds are being pushed to the limit and I LOVE it.  "Remember, walking was tough when you first learned."

     Best of all we had a new student for Red Sox day!

     Enjoy the weekend!!

   

Frog and Toad

     It's been a bit of a fragmented week for me.  I attended a workshop on Fundations (our phonics program) on Wednesday and a math workshop today.  Both were great and I came away with strategies that will make me EVEN MORE dynamic than I already am....hard to believe I know.  But seriously, I got some great tips that I'm looking forward to implementing.  One thing that was STRESSED over and over was that the children NEED to be fluent in their addition and subtraction facts.  Xtramath will help with this.  Please be sure your child has some time to log on at home.  Remember, it is part of their homework.

     We have been meeting in small groups to read Frog and Toad chapters.  The students then discussed each chapter to find the beginning, middle and end.  We focused on looking for the main idea, not every little detail.

     In math, we worked with tens and ones and talked about place value as well as fact families.

     Our class is super excited because there will be no spelling test next week.  We reached our goal of 30 cans in only 4 days.  I'm sure many Woburn families are grateful for your generosity.

     We checked out SpellingCity in the computer room.  You can search for our class lists by my last name and the children can play games with their spelling words.  It helps if they have the list in front of them for some of the games.  You should check it out at home.

    Clemson/BC this weekend......can I get a Tiger Roar???  Also, look for me at the Sox game Sat. night if you watch the game.  I'll be the tiny fan waayyyyyyyyyy in the back cheering loudly.

     Here are a few pictures of our week in review.


MATH GAMES

    ANTONYM SORT

HAT DAY

COOL STUFF KIDS DID WITHOUT ME ASKING  <3

I'm in LOVE

     It's true!  I am in LOVE with this class.  They are wonderful.  I am one happy teacher.

   

     Thankfully today was nice in cool inside the building.  It would have been a GREAT beach day.

     We have been practicing our math facts in our math notebooks.  Practice some math fact drills while driving around town.........say  "double 4". 

one game we played

     The students brainstormed "what writers write" and we read this book by Cynthia Rylant.  It inspired us to write about a time we had a visit with our relatives.

     

     In the computer room we visted ABCYA.com and xtramath.  The children enjoyed ABCYA.  The link is listed to the right if your child wants to check it out at home.

     Our high school helper, Miss (Courtney) Davis, started this week.  She's fantastic.  We are so lucky to have her this year.

Before/After

I thought you would enjoy some pictures of YOUR second grade classroom. 

BEFORE

AFTER