Monday, September 28, 2009

Monday, Monday...

• We completed a Marcy Cook number chart. This chart helps us think about numbers in new ways. We follow the clues to color in certain numbers that eventually reveal a pattern.
• We practiced reading carefully and underlining important information we may need for later as we answer questions from the story.
• Our Changes books are getting the final run-through! They will coming home soon!
• We listened to Dinosaur Fossils.
• We discussed manners and how we are helpful when we go over to someone's house. If we are helpful by putting our dishes in the sink or putting away toys that we've gotten out, we are usually invited back. Hmm. I think the 2D Rocks are on to something!
• E Days are our 3 Specials Days-P.E., Computer, and Science.
  
• We graphed the height of some dinosaurs.
• We played SPARKLE!
• We found some incredible synonyms for some usual words which may be put to use in our writing soon.
  

REMEMBER TOMORROW IS PICTURE DAY!

Friday, September 25, 2009

It's Friday! The 2D Rocks used the day to catch up on some ongoing and unfinished projects. It was a quadruple marble morning! Wonderful! We took our spelling tests in the morning and worked in small groups on the reading strategy of using "context clues" to help us determine meaning of a word.

We also worked in Maps and Globes, on handwriting, and on the Commutative and Associative properties in math. We continued to work on estimating or rounding to the greatest digit as well. We enjoyed reading an article on Light and Sight as well as an article on animal defenses in our new National Geographic Explorer Magazines.

And although in most cases inappropriate for school, we talked "dung" today after lunch. Jurassic Poop was our afternoon read aloud story today. It gave us lots of interesting information about TRACE FOSSILS and what they help us learn about animals living during that time period. Who knew you could learn so much from what you leave behind?

Remember: Next Thursday is our field trip to Caesar Creek!

Have a great weekend!

Thursday, September 24

Today we listened to The Dinosaur in My Backyard. We were inspired by this story to write our own dino stories, "If I had a dinosaur in my...." The 2D Rocks are INCREDIBLE writers. We are funny and rhythmical, descriptive and imaginative. Ask your Rock about his/her story! We shared them in class today and enjoyed them immensely! We will send home a copy soon to share with you!

Our fantastic marble-filled day continued as we worked on our dino research, as well as a short reading passage and fact-finding activity. We wrote facts and practiced drawing a variety of dinosaurs independently. Just before lunch we read, Dinosaurumpus! This book was lots of fun-we chanted the repetitious chorus and created our own version of the Dinosaur Romp.

In the afternoon, we read independently, then went to P.E. We completed some beautiful handwriting, took a math test and watched Dinosaurs: Those Big Boneheads with Bill Nye, The Science Guy.

It just keeps getting better in Second Grade!

Wednesday, September 23, 2009

We may have been late, but Wow! We were productive!

• Our Changes Books are almost finished! We will bring them home to share with you and then bring them back to school to put in our portfolios.
• We are mathematicians! We started a book called Great Estimations which is full of great tips for estimating large numbers.
• Our Daily 5 is off to an amazing start. Depending on our Specials Schedule, we read independently for 15-2o minutes each afternoon. Due to our great attentiveness, I have been able to meet with every 2D rock to discuss their book choices and complete some fluency and other reading assessments. Way to go, Readers Extraordinaire!
  
• This week we started the Scholastic Classroom Cares Program. When we read 100 books in our classroom, Scholastic will donate books to a classroom in need. The 2D Rocks voted to be on Eli Manning's reading team this year. We voted for Eli because he is the underdog in this reading contest. His brother, Peyton, is slightly more famous with the elementary set, and therefore has a lot more classes on his team. Mrs. Reckner and I were very impressed with the decision to support Eli since we could have easily joined the team that is already well ahead in the "game." Instead, the 2D rocks were empathetic and motivated to help someone in need. No wonder we love these kids!
  

Monday

Today we...

• had Assembly. Mr. V. reminded us to use the Welcome Rule at recess and invite everyone to play in a friendly way. We can say a lot without speaking, i.e. body language, so we should use empathy and self-control when we are inviting someone into our games.
  
• received our new spelling lists...Sorts: Nouns and Adjectives, Long vowels
  
• finished our Open Court story, Fossils Tell of Long Ago.
• went to Spanish.
  
• continued work on our Changes books.
• continued work on our Happy Sentences.
• went to Swimming.
• went to Drama with Mrs. Bateman.

What a busy day! Whew!

Field Trip Reminder

Our field trip to Caesar Creek in Waynesville, Ohio will be THURSDAY, OCTOBER 1. We will leave by 8:15 to allow for the long drive (about an hour and 45 minutes). An update with details will follow shortly.

Buddies

Our Pre-K Buddies!

Wednesday

Our day in a nutshell:

• Fossils Tell of Long Ago by Aliki
• Dates and Figs - Mark brought in a special treat for the class. Last week we read a story called Ant and the Three Figs. We were discussing what figs were which related to prunes and other dried fruits such as dates. Well, lucky for us, Mark's family was generous enough to share some special fruits with all of us! You may have some kids asking for new foods at home soon!

• Word Study Notebook-We are recording our spelling words according to spelling rule in our purple W. S. notebooks.
  
• Changes Book-We met some men testing our smoke alarms today. We will add them to our "Contributions" page in our Changes books. We will also continue to add the many people we have met this week such as parent volunteers, Nurse Hoagland, and Mrs. Jackson, our Middle School administrative assistant. We visited the School Clothing Exchange this week as well as our Pop Can Tab collection house which raises money for Ronald McDonald House.
  
• Estimating and comparing numbers
  
• Writing Journal #1-We did some very happy writing about, what else? Things that make us supremely happy.
  
• Adjectives!
• President Obama's Speech and a discussion of what interesting things he had to say: We thought President Obama was funny when he shared this story of his mother: "...she decided to teach me extra lessons herself, Monday through Friday – at 4:30 in the morning.
  Now I wasn’t too happy about getting up that early. A lot of times, I’d fall asleep right there at the kitchen table. But whenever I’d complain, my mother would just give me one of those looks and say, 'This is no picnic for me either, buster.'" We really liked how Mr. Obama said, "If you get in trouble, that doesn’t mean you’re a troublemaker, it means you need to try harder to behave. If you get a bad grade, that doesn’t mean you’re stupid, it just means you need to spend more time studying." That made many of us feel good. "It's like he understands what we feel 'cause sometimes we think we are not good at some things." And we also empathized with President Obama when he said, "My father left my family when I was two years old, and I was raised by a single mother who struggled at times to pay the bills and wasn’t always able to give us things the other kids had. There were times when I missed having a father in my life. There were times when I was lonely and felt like I didn’t fit in." We miss people too. We'd like more time with family. And we sometimes feel like we don't fit in, "but mostly we do." (Thank goodness for second grade optimism.)
  

Dinos Galore!

Today we chose a dinosaur for our research project. Since we went to library at the very end of the day, tomorrow we will write down the names of our dinosaurs for those students who would like to do some research at home.

We received our first spelling lists today. Please read the note about our spelling program that went home this evening. We also sent home a yellow sheet with explanations of our spelling homework assignments. Tonight's homework is re-sorting words by category. If your child forgot his/her sorting category, we will send it home tomorrow. Some children are sorting by long and short first vowel sounds and a double middle consonant and others by -ir, -ar, -ra, ri.

Have a great night! See you in the morning for more dino-riffic fun!

Monday

Today was a great day in 2D! The 2D Rocks are filling up our marble jar! We started our day off right-getting to work immediately on our DLR (Daily Language Review). These quick grammar and mechanics activities help us become familiar with the rules of writing. We continued our focus with an introduction to our Maps and Globes book, a portfolio writing piece, and work on our Open Court reading questions. In the afternoon, we had another excellent Silent Reading time and started Chapter 1 in Math. Keep up the good work, 2D Rocks! You Rock!

Community Day

What a community we are becoming! Check out the team work and friendship demonstrated below with Streets and Alleys, Blob Tag, Duck, Duck, Goose, and free play with popsicles!

Daily 5 - Community Day Tomorrow!

Our Daily 5 time-Check out the 2D Rocks rockin' the books! Wow! What a great bunch!


REMEMBER TOMORROW IS DRESS DOWN FOR COMMUNITY DAY!

A Day of Immense Possibilities

Today we used our Word of the Week, IMMENSE, in our Morning Message. It was a day of immense possibilities that became wonderful realities very early on! The day began with our Daily Language Review which helps us with grammar and writing mechanics. The class did very well and enjoyed correcting their own papers as well as graphing their results. We listened to our first Open Court Story, Ant and the Three Little Figs. Our FIRST-PERSON narrarator is the older brother to Ant. He creates an imaginative version of the Three Little Pigs for his brother. The 2D Rocks are creating their own books for our Pre-K buddies using photographs they took this afternoon. We are making a book of opposites, a book of colors, one of shapes and a book of numbers. We also enjoyed math games, Dicey Choice and Seven to Win. The 2D Rocks will choose one of these games for homework tonight.


Some notes for 2D Families:

• We will be playing many games with playing/number cards this year. Please make sure your child has a set for home. We will continue to send home a set of cards with those who may not have a set available.
• For those families with extra cards, we would appreciate sets for use in the classroom.
• Please let me know if you need a die/dice for home as well. We have very few spare sets.
  
• Finally, I will send home addition flashcards tomorrow with the students that do not have them currently.
  

C Day

Today we:

• Talked about marbles! Ask your 2D Rock how many marbles the class needs to have a celebration day. We will be brainstorming ideas for celebrations tomorrow!
  
• We read Chapter 3 of Gooney Bird Greene. Are Gooney's stories "absolutely true?"
• We are working through our CHANGES book for our Community unit. The class came up with many roles that female adults play in our school community. They also noticed a lack of females in higher leadership roles except for Vice President Saling. Hmm. Food for thought, isn't it?
  
• We played "Memory Tens" which is the math assignment for homework tonight. We also played "Mystery Dice." We have some math wizards posing as Rocks this year!
  

Wednesday, September 2, 2009

Today we had Assembly, Spanish and Swimming. Everyone enjoyed the swimming video Mr. Yakscoe and Ms. Moore showed about pool safety. In class we wrote our first friendly letter of the year. To whom you ask? You'll find out tomorrow evening! We also made time capsules, came up with 17 class jobs with some really cool names, read the fist chapter of Gooney Bird Greene, and drew our pictures for our Hopes and Dreams paragraphs. It was another busy day!

We hope to see many parents tomorrow evening for Parent's Night. The evening begins in the theatre at 7:00 where Mr. MacKenzie and Mr. Vorenberg will speak and then introduce Specialists. After the theatre, Second Grade Parents will meet in the Second Grade Hallway just outside our classrooms to discuss Second Grade curriculum.

The video is here! Watch our Me in a Bag project: