November 28

Today students practiced possessive nouns by writing about what their family’s favorite food, games, and colors are. We also did Word Detective with –ay and –ai words that make the long a sound. Students found that words that end in the long a sound are spelt with –ay. Words that have a sound before and after the long a sound are spelt with –ai.

Ms. Paxton hung the students’ letters to someone they thought was a good leader.

In math, students did explorations. One center was making numbers using base-10 blocks, one was making a clock book, the third was making shapes with the geo boards, and the last was taking a unit pre-test with me.

Tomorrow students will write their own rain poem. Today, we created a list of words to create our poem.

The 2nd Grade music program is tomorrow evening at 6:00 pm. Please have your child to room 6 by 5:45 wearing a plain red, white, or blue t-shirt. The students have been working very hard are very excited to show off their talents singing, playing instruments, and dancing.

Sorry no pictures!

Good Afternoon!

Today was a fabulous day in our classroom!! We were so busy learning about possessive nouns and doing ALL FIVE of our Daily 5 jobs in reading. Math took us a while to do today practicing telling time…the longest part was making the clocks that are being used for homework tonight. We practiced telling time to the half hour and quarter hour. Students also practiced counting coin combinations while playing “Coin Top-it”. It was a long math time, but we got everything done J

Book bags need to be returned tomorrow in order to get new books! Students should have up to 2 library books, 1 paper book, and 1 book from our classroom “take-home” library. All books must be returned each week.

The 2^nd and 3^rd grade music program “Sing for the Red, White, and Blue” is on Thursday at 6:00 pm. Students are asked to wear blue jeans with a plain red, white, or blue shirt. Meet in our classroom (room 6) at 5:45.

Have a wonderful night!

New Websites Linked to Blog

Please notice on the bottom right of the blog, websites have been added. There are now a number of links to math, spelling, and reading sites. 

Also, there is a link to Scholastic Book Clubs. Books make great holiday gifts!! If you would like to order online, click on the link and enter the code HFDTF.

Happy Thanksgiving!!!

Happy Thanksgiving Break!

This week, students learned about Read to Someone. Students practiced reading together and asking questions while reading (checking for understanding). The students really shocked me with their questions to each other while reading—“What do you think will happen next?”, “What I heard you read is…” They did great!!!!

We also began Unit 3 in math. We worked on place value and using base-10 blocks to make numbers. Students also played the “digit game”.

Today students discussed wants and needs. We read The First Thanksgiving Story and added illustrations. We learned a lot about the first Thanksgiving. We ate lunch as a class in the room and watched “Charlotte’s Web” since we just finished the book.  The students then made comparisons between the book and the movie.

I hope you all have a very happy Thanksgiving!

Reading to Someone

 We can illustrate to show our understanding!

 Thanksgiving Lunch

New Morning Meeting Game: Mirror Image

Connection Song

Students have been learning about making connections to their lives, events, and other books while they read. Click the link below to listen to the song we learned to help us make connections while we read:

Connect

Connections

Happy Hat Day!

Today was Hat Day during our week long Spirit Week. I think Hat Day has been the most participated day so far. I’m sure tomorrow’s PJ day will be the best.

Students have been practicing making connections to reading. They learned a fun song of different ways to make connections to their own life, to other books they have read, or to events. I will try to get their video on the blog in a separate post.

Since Monday, students have been using Picturing Writing to make rain pictures as we begin to learn about weather. Students will be writing poems that go along with their rain picture.

Here are some pictures of our published poetry that students created with Margaret Hasse. They turned out great!!!!

Today, students found a new favorite Morning Meeting game, “Coconuts, Palm Trees, Volcanoes, and Kings/Queens”.  Ask your child how to play.

Tomorrow students will be making turkeys and will make a list of things that they are thankful for. Ms. Paxton will also teach an editing lesson about a leader they have chosen to write to.

Have a great Friday and a wonderful weekend!!!

First snow of the year!

 So sorry for not posting for what seems a VERY long time!

Last week we were so busy working on poetry-writing our own poems and publishing them. Here are some pictures from our artist in residency with Poet Margaret Hasse.

We were also busy finishing Ms. Paxton’s Social Studies lessons about leaders in our classroom. Congratulations to our Class Leader Linda! Students voted for a class leader after they campaigned and gave speeches. Nice work!

We are taking our Unit 2 math test tomorrow. They will be sent home with report cards on Friday.

Please make sure your child wears warm clothes each day!!

This week is spirit week!

Today was Twin Day. Tomorrow is Sports Day!!!

Busy Bees

The past two school days have flown by in a blur! We began our third artist in residency on Friday. Margaret Hasse, a poet has been working with the students on writing poems that will go along with their pond art. On Friday, students wrote a letter/poem to the pond and asked it questions. Today, students chose one creature and wrote a poem all about it. So far, the students have had a wonderful time. I can’t wait to see their final poems!

Today in Daily 5, we introduced Work on Writing. The students love their writing time so much that this part of Daily 5 is very motivating to them. In this part of Daily 5, students write stories to go with pictures they have already drawn or write new stories that they will add pictures to later.

In math, students learned the counting back method of subtraction. Tomorrow we will learn the counting up method. I have moved our Unit 2 test to next week. With our artist in residency, math time is cut short and I want to make sure that we have enough time to get to everything that will be assessed and teach it well. There is no point in hurrying through a lesson if the students will not understand it or be able to do it in the future.

Ms. Paxton has been teaching the 2^nd graders all about being a class leader. 3 students were chosen to be the candidates for a special role in the classroom. They have worked together in “Campaign Teams” to create posters that will promote their candidate. Soon, students will vote for one leader.

Today we did Word Detective for bossy r words. Finding a good pattern has been difficult for us. We will continue our search for words tomorrow and will come up with a pattern to help us remember when to us –ir, -er, and –ur.