We Work Hard!

We have been working hard on practicing and modeling good quality and best effort in the things that we do!  This picture shows what sitting and listening and being ready to learn looks like.

Bottoms to the floor.
Legs are crossed.
Hands are still.
Eyes are on the speaker.
Mouth is quiet.

I have really been emphasizing active listening with them.  This means that you are not only looking at the speaker, but really listening and following along.

Other updates from this week:

We took the aMath test on the computer today.  Everyone worked hard!

We started taking notes in a special note taking notebook, just like being in college. :)

We are excited to go and see "Charlotte's Web" next Thursday!

Have a wonderful weekend!

Good Quality Work

We are working on doing good quality work in everything that we do!  This is an example of good quality work for our "draw 6" for spelling practice.

Good Quality Work Guidelines:

1.  The picture has good details.
2.  It is colored in.
3.  There is background/not a lot of white space.
4.  It is neat and done with best effort.

Mid-week

We are continuing to work hard in second grade!  

We are practicing skills that will help us be ready for when guided reading starts.

We started our second unit in math and a new health unit on Monday.

We started the series, "Mercy Watson" by Kate DiCamillo in anticipation and preparation for my favorite book that I will soon reveal and read aloud to the kids!

We are getting ready for seeing "Charlotte's Web" next week at the Children's Theater by watching the movie a little each day.  We will be doing some special writing projects around Charlotte's Web in the next couple of weeks.

This week we are finishing up on their monster writing project.  Check your child's monster out when you come to conferences in the next couple of weeks!

Brain Games

We ended the week with some well deserved "brain game" time. This is a picture of some kids playing "tenzie."  See if your child can explain how the game is played!

Have a great weekend!

Lots of Learning!

I hope that you are now able to access the blog without any problems!  Please continue to let me know if issues come up so I can work on fixing them!

We are continuing to work hard at school everyday!  While we are still practicing and reviewing important procedures and skills, we are also adding and learning new things.  Here are some of the things we have been working on:

We are continuing to build up "Read to Self" stamina.  We are up to 20 minutes!

We started our first curriculum literacy theme this week.  This week's theme is "Stories from Our Past."  We read the story, "My Great Aunt Arizon" by Gloria Houston.

Each week there are new vocabulary words that are introduced.  When we begin our guided reading groups, students will be working on a variety of things while I meet and read with small groups of students.  One of the things that they will work on is a vocabulary journal.  In the journal they will be writing down the word, the definition and drawing two different pictures.  One picture will be an example of the word, the other picture will be a "non-example" or opposite of the word.  This week's words that we talked about were cabin, visit and memory.

We worked on a monster writing project this week.  After reading some books to jump start their imaginations, students created and drew their own monster.  Now they are working on writing and describing their monster.  It's fun to see their creations!

In math we are finishing up unit 1 which was some good review of different concepts that they learned in first grade.

We finished up our social studies unit on "Wants and Needs." You should see their assessment on this unit coming home today or tomorrow.  We will move on to the first health unit next.

Here are some things that you can ask your child about:

We are reading Stuart Little.  We will be going to see the play "Charlotte's Web" in October.  The first grade classes read the book last year, so we are reading another book by E.B. White.  The second grade classes are going to show the movie of "Charlotte's Web" as a review/refresher before we go and see the play.  

I started a brand new picture book with them called, Mouseton Abbey.  The idea/concept is loosely based on the popular TV series, "Downton Abbey."  In this book their special "cheese diamond" is missing and it is a mystery to see if it can be found again!

In addition to the game, "Coconut," I introduced another movement based game.  We call it the "Number Game."  Ask your child how it is played!

I have also been introducing different "brain games" to them.  They are games that are fun, but require some good thinking/strategy skills, such as Rush Hour, Othello, etc.  Eventually we will take some time on Fridays to play these games.  It's a good time to build teamwork and strategy skills.

 

Re-cap

It's the end of week two!  Your children are working hard!  
Here are some of the things that we have been working on:
 
We are practicing and reviewing routines in our classroom.
We are working on building up our stamina in "Read to Self."  We are up to 15 minutes!
We have read and talked about some great "landmark" books.  See if your child can tell you about some of them.
We are practicing math concepts like - skip counting, time and money.
Today we had a special school assembly.  Ask your child about it!

Keep up the great work!  Have a great weekend!

 

Reading Stamina

 

Today we practiced our reading stamina!  We are up to reading 10 minutes quietly and staying focused.  We also talked about choosing a "good fit" book.  Ask your child what that means!

We learned the "5 Finger Rule" for choosing a "just right" or "good fit" book.

5 Finger Rule:

1. Choose a book that interests you.

2. Turn to any page.

3. Read the whole page.

4. Put one finger up for every word you don't know or understand.

5. At the end of the page, see how many fingers you have up.

   0-1 = too easy

   2-3 = just right

   4-5 or more = too hard

We also talked about "landmark" books.  See if your child can tell you what that means.  

We are working hard and learning lots of new things!

 

"Fair"

If your child is still wearing his/her Angry Bird band aid, see if he/she can tell you what fair looks like in our classroom.

Today I asked each student to think of an injury either current or past that they had somewhere on their body.  I told them that I was going to give them a band aid for it.  Each student came up to me and showed me his/her injury.  I put all of the band aids on each student on the same spot - on their arm.  After everyone had a band aid and much confusion on their part, we talked about what had just happened.

I asked them if everyone got a band aid?  Yes.  So was that fair?  Yes.  Did where I put the band aid on help everyone?  No.  Was that fair?  No.  We talked about how in our classroom different kids are going to need different things throughout the year.  Some kids might need more help in reading or in math.  Some kids might need a different area to work in, some kids might not. I told them that as their teacher I want to do what is "fair" so that all students can learn the best that they can.  That might look different sometimes.  Just because I do one thing for one student and not another does not mean that I like some students better than others.  It means that I am doing what is best for that student.  So it's ok if things look different in the classroom for different students.

"Fair is not everybody getting what they want.  Fair is everybody getting what they need."

We also created our class rules:

1.  Be safe with our bodies and our words.

2.  Be respectful of people and property.  

3.  Do our best effort in everything!

4.  Have fun!

This has been a good first week of school!  Your children have worked hard and learned a lot about the rules, routines and expectations.  

Have a wonderful weekend!

Wednesday

Today was another busy day in second grade!
We are continuing to work on the rules and routines that we are learning.  
We also learned some new things today!

Ask you child about:

"Quiet as a Mouse"

Hopes and Dreams - Today we read the story Amazing Grace.  After that students wrote about a hope they have in second grade.  Ask your child what he/she wrote about!

We learned sign language for:
listen
stop
teacher
sit down
See if your child can remember the signs!

We read a great book called Enemy Pie.  Ask your child what the "secret" to enemy pie is!

We also reviewed bus safety rules.  How many feet is the "danger zone?"

Tomorrow we will go to the library for the first time as second graders!
 

First Day Success

Today was a great first day in second grade!  Your children worked very hard and did a fantastic job!

Here are some things you can ask your child about:

Class/Yes
Hand and Eyes
Blow and Release
The game "Coconut"

We also read some good books!  One was about a boy named Jake who didn't want to go to school and leave his parents!  The other one was about "Mean Jean the Recess Queen."  Ask your child what helped Mean Jean to become a good friend and someone nice to play with!

Tomorrow is another exciting day!