Christmas Excitement

I hope you are having a wonderful Christmas break with your family and friends!  Enjoy the time at home, relax with your loved ones, and rev up for our second semester in second grade!

The weeks leading up to break were very busy!  We had a lot of excitement in our classroom and school.

The 2nd/3rd grade musical, led by Mr. Gibb Clark, was phenomenal!

We toured the world!  Second and third graders traveled around the "world"… er, hallway, and learned about a different country's Christmas traditions in each classroom.  They learned about France, Italy, Mexico, England, Germany, and China.  We made poinsettias, which originated in Mexico.

We had Grinch Day!  We read the story, talked about the lessons the Grinch taught us, and played Grinch-themed center games.

Last, but definitely not least, we had a big Christmas party on the last day before break!  We played games and made crafts.

Thank you so much, Mrs. Hulett and Mrs. Duewer!

And after that, we decorated sugar cookies (and ate a snack of sprinkles with a side of sugar cookie)!

Although we had a lot of fun, we tried really hard to stay focused on academics and do our best in reading, writing, and math.  To celebrate our reading successes, we put on a readers' theater play!  

Have you ever heard of Bob the Reindeer?

He's goofy, but he saved Christmas!

Thanksgiving & Bullying Assembly

I hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving!  Before break, we took some time out to celebrate the holiday and have some FUN!

First, we "bought" groceries for a Thanksgiving feast.  We quickly learned that $50.00 doesn't go far!

After all of that hard work, we deserved a treat!  We made pumpkin-pie-in-a-bag!  

With full bellies, we settled down, relaxed, and watched A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving.

We were welcomed back to school after our 5 day weekend with a special school-wide assembly.  We learned about bullying and what it means to be a bystander.  Bystanders are people who see someone being bullied.  The bystander has a choice:  do nothing, encourage the bully, or do something to stop the bully.  The speaker had some great ideas to help us internalize the message and stand up for ourselves and others!

Geometry

We started a new unit in math this week, and this one is always a huge hit:  geometry!  For the next couple of weeks (before and after Thanksgiving break), we'll learn about shapes and their attributes, lines, endpoints, and symmetry.

Today we explored 3D shapes.  We counted their faces, edges, and vertices.

Veteran's Day

In honor of Veteran's Day and the many veterans who protect our country, we have been learning about the United States branches of the military.  We learned how the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, and Coast Guard work together to keep our country safe by reading nonfiction and fiction books and researching on the internet.  We even learned about veterans in our own families and graphed the results.  To top it all off, we wrote letters to a real Marine!

Our letters of thanks to a Marine

Between the 20 of us, we know 85 Veterans in all branches of the military!

Red Ribbon Week

We had a great Red Ribbon Week the week of October 28-November 1!  We learned how drugs hurt our bodies and talked about healthier choices we could make instead.  The best part of the week was dressing up to show our drug-free spirit!

The girls' crazy socks

The boys' crazy socks

Our baseball fans on sports day

Sports day Pretzel fans!

Chicago Bulls fans on sports day

Football fans for sports day

The girls on red day

The boys on red day

An impromptu dance party on pajama day

Happy Halloween!

It was rainy and dreary outside, but inside it was a PART-AY!  A HUMONGOUS thanks goes to Mrs. Heironimus, Mrs. Duewer, Mrs. Long, and Mrs. Hulett for planning, organizing, and running a great party!  Everyone had a blast and went home with goody bags the size of Santa's bag!

Paper plate masks

The giant snack table

The craft table

Pasta pumpkins

Toilet paper mummies

...and a personal thank you to the kids who shared their trick-or-treating loot with me!  Chocolate is my favorite!