Scaredy Squirrel

     This week was Scaredy Squirrel week. Scaredy is one of my favorite storybook characters.  He's afraid of everything.  He creates emergency plans that never work, plays dead, then realizes there is nothing to be afraid of.

     Students have started studying habitats.  We sorted living things from both a pond and rain forest habitat.  Next week we will explore desert and arctic habitats.

     We have been measuring and estimating measurements all week.   This week's focus was on inches, and feet.  We will be measuring in centimeters and meters soon.

     Today, I played the music for our holiday program for the first time in class.  The children have been practicing for weeks in music class, but I hadn't watched.   SUCH FUN.   The kids were having the best time singing and dancing.  It's going to be a spectacular program.

     Next Friday we will have a test on locating continents and oceans on a map.  A study guide will be sent home on Monday, so be sure to watch for it.

Halloween

     Halloween seems like so long ago.  Students had lots of fun Trick or Trek-ing around the school.  My understanding is over $15,000 was raised by the PTO.  That's just amazing.

     We have been reading one of my favorite stories ever this week, The Rough-Faced Girl.  I cry every time I read the happy ending.   Today, we focused on the main idea of the beginning, middle and end.  Earlier this week, we compared and contrasted the story to another very famous fairytale.  Ask your child which one?  Let your student compare and contrast the two stories for you.

Describing with adjectives.

    Students have worked hard turning their heritage homework into a narrative.  I'm looking forward to having the students share them next week.  Thank you for all your help at home with this assignment.  If you'd like to come into class to share even more about your family's heritage or traditions, we'd love to have you.

     In math, we've been solving word problems, one of the trickiest things for second graders.  I encourage students to underline the question to ensure they know what is being asked of them.  Students should then circle the numbers in the problem that they will use to solve it.  When they have an answer, students should go back to the question to be sure their answer makes sense.  VERY TRICKY STUFF and we will practice all year long.

     We have finished growing our plants and learning about what plants need and have moved on to animal/plant dependence.  Today we used craft materials to try to spread pollen and seeds like insects and other animals do.  It was fun.  

     Lucky us had TWO mystery readers today.  I encourage all families to participate, so let me know if you are ready to set up a time.  It takes ten minutes and students are thrilled to share both their worlds, home and school, with each other.   You can bring in your favorite story, or I can have one ready for you.

   

Crankenstein

     Crankenstein is such a fun story which led us to lots of fun activities.  We read Crankenstein and Crankenstein Valentines by Samantha Berger.  Crankenstein is a boy who is very cranky until he meets a cranky friend.  We used this mentor text to brainstorm adjective describing Crankenstein and illustrated him.  Students did their best writing of the year, describing what makes both themselves and Crankenstein cranky.  We used macaroni to appropriately add quotation marks to sentences that related to the text.

     Thank you to the Woburn Fire Department for bringing their smoke house and teaching us about fire safety.  Hopefully, you have all checked the batteries on your smoke detectors and mapped out two different exits in case of an emergency.  Don't forget to pick a meeting place for the family to gather outside your home.

     We've been tracking the effect of both water and sunlight on our lima bean plants.   There are some changes happening.  Be sure to ask your child about it.

     It was wonderful to see how enthusiastic students were to make a heart for David, a little boy that they have never met, who is awaiting a new heart.  Our fingers are crossed for David and I heard he LOVED the hearts he received.

     Of course, I could not let this week pass without a little baseball in class.  Here are some stories the children read.  

GO SOX!!!!

Monsters and Bats

     These past few weeks have been fun.  We read lots of great stories.  The children loved I Need My Monster, a story about a boy whose monster went fishing and left him with substitutes that just weren't good enough.  Students then created their own monsters and wrote about them.  We also started a little unit on bats.  We've read both fiction and nonfiction books on this fun creature.  We haven't finished yet and will be going "batty" next week as well.  

     Our class completed another chapter book, Ready Freddy, and have moved on to The Haunted Library, which is one of my absolute favorites.

     We had TWO mystery readers, Miss Ginger and Mrs. Crampton.  We'd love to have parents come read to.  Let me know if you are interested and we will set up a time.  SHHHH!  Have the fun is the anticipation and guessing of who our mystery reader could be.

     Our lima beans have grown enough for us to start our experiments.  We will be collecting data on plants with varied amounts of light and water.  Student made predictions on what they THOUGHT might happen.  Stay tuned!!

A Bad Case of Stripes

     This week FLEW by.  Our mentor text was A Bad Case of Stripes.   It's a story about Camilla Cream, who LOVES lima beans.  She learns to be herself the hard way.  We also read about Poppleton who hated grapefruit but ate it because the man on TV said it would help him live longer.  I love when Poppleton's lips turn outside-in.  Some children have never tried lima beans or grapefruit.  Consider adding both items to your shopping list this week for a taste test.

     A Bad Case of Stripes was the perfect book to segway into our first science lesson on what plants need to grow.   We planted lima beans on Friday afternoon and predicted if we thought they would sprout by Monday morning.  The class was pretty evenly split.   Once they sprout, we will alter the amount of sunlight and water they each receive and keep record of our results.

     We have been practicing our math facts like crazy.  Xtramath is an easy way to drill and practice those facts.  Students have already logged on in class.   If you didn't get the information on how to log in at home let me know.

    I was SUPER proud of how well the children did during our ALICE drill on Friday.  I reminded them that they are the role models for the first graders and boy did they live up to the task.

   

Math Fun

     This week we practiced our addition strategies.  I encourage you to practice math facts at home with your child.  Memorizing them will make math so much easier for many years to come.  Here are some of pictures of our math lessons.

Adding Nine

Even / Odd

      Our mentor text this week was the Invisible Boy.  Brian feels invisible in school, even to his teacher.  This changes when Justin moves in.  The illustrations in this book change as Brian's feelings change.  It's a great story and lead to wonderful discussions and role playing about being aware of others feelings and how our actions can effect others.

     We also read Frog and Toad stories and David books this week.  It's hard not to enjoy the characters in these stories.

 

     It's hard to believe that today is the first day of fall  We have so many fun units coming up.  In my opinion, October is one of the most fun school months.

     

Great Start

     We are off to a great start.  Our new school is AMAZING and the students are even MORE amazing.  I lucked out with a wonderful class and it's been fun getting to know the children.  I predict a wonderful year ahead.

     Speaking of predicting, we practiced that skill all week.  Our mentor text, which just means story that we use as a base for lessons, was Edward the Emu.  I love this rhyming story.  Edward lives at the zoo and decides being an Emu is a bore so tries being other animals.  By the end of the story, he realizes he should just be himself.   We followed that book up with Edwina the Emu.  She went out looking for a job.  Be sure to ask you child how her job search went.   In addition, we read a non-fiction text and watched videos of real Emus.  We took the new information and wrote a paragraph, then drew an emu.  Super fun.

     We played a noun sort game and "around the room" deciding whether or not each sentence was written correctly.  Pete the Cat is one of my favorite storybook characters.  We enjoyed lots of his adventures.  Who doesn't love singing and grooving along with Pete?  It's also fun to look for his little  bird friend in the illustrations.  

     Math was a hit this week.  We played two math games in small groups, shark attack and a popcorn math doubles game.  Great addition practice. 

     Important, this Thursday is a half day.  Dismissal will be at 12:30.  Tune in next week, I promise to post some pictures of our class in action.