Valentine's Day

I hope you had a wonderful Valentine's Day filled with love, family time, and chocolate!  We had a small celebration in our class.  We created mailboxes and exchanged cards, and Mrs. Tirey came in with a science experiment and an art project.

Exchanging and opening cards...

Our art project... silly faces!

 

 

Our science experiment... volcanoes!

 

 

We "mustache" you a question... will you be our valentines??!!

100th Day

On January 31, we celebrated our 100th day of second grade!  I am so proud of the students and how much they have learned in our first 100 days!  Take a look at the highlights of the day!

I'm looking forward to 76 more great days!

Squiggle Writing

This week, the students are doing a fun creative writing project called Squiggle Writing.  They take a squiggle and turn it into a picture and then write a story about their picture.  Check out some of the all stars!

 

There was a sea monster who lived under water.  He has no friends.  He has no family.  Anyone is not with him.  He is by himself.  -Tim

 

Once there was a village that was pour.  One night a little house owned by the mayer got sold.  So then the mayer couldn't find a house to live in.  Then one day he did.  The mayer could finaly make money and make the village rich agin.  The end.  -Peyton

 

Once there was a herakane that came threw a villedge and washed up tow homes.  The people were asleep when the herakane got there houses and dident even notice till the next day.  -Emily

 

One day there was a fish in the ocean.  The fish was swiming around and then he looked for some food.  When he was looking for food he saw a shark!  So the fish swimmed away and when the fish looked back the shark was swimming after the fish.  So the fish looked around and found a tiny hole.  So he swam into the hole and when the shark tried to get into the hole but the shark was to big.  So the shark got stuck and the fish escaped and went back to his home.  -Landon

 

One night a cat was walking in the woods.  And she heard something.  Then it got louder and louder.  The cat did not know what to do.  The sound was like this Boom Boom Boom.  It go so loud the cat ran away each time she moves the sound got louder and louder bang Boom.  It came to the cat.  It was a fuzzy wuzzy.  -Skyler

Metacognition

In reading, we are working on metacognition, which we say is thinking about what you're reading.  We have discussed what a good 2nd grade reader does.  We decided that just knowing how to read the words on the page is not good enough.  Good 2nd grade readers think about the words they are reading.  Check us out using the strategy!

 

Peyton and Brady model the strategy

Text + Thinking = Real Reading!

 

The students worked with their reading partners to read Rosa and Blanca and practice using our metacognition strategy.  They read a page and discussed their thoughts about it before moving to the next page.

 

December Awards

Despite the excitement of Christmas and 2 weeks off, we had a very successful December!  Many students earned awards for the month.

Homework Hall of Fame

These students turned in every homework assignment on time (even Rocket Math)!

 

Not pictured:  Landon

Rockin' Readers

These students completed their December reading calendar! 

 

Not pictured:  Landon

Behavior Rockstars

These students never moved their clips below green!

 

Not pictured:  Landon

Triple Crown

These students earned all 3 December awards!  What an accomplishment!

 

Not pictured:  Landon

  

  

 

Holiday Happenings

I hope you had a wonderful winter break!  We had an AWESOME first day back today!  The students told me they didn't do much reading and writing over break, but I'm having a hard time believing that!  They were excellent thinkers today!

Because of our snow day, we didn't get to have our Christmas party.  We had a smaller New Year party this afternoon so we could open gifts!  It was fun opening gifts nearly 2 weeks after Christmas; it was like a bonus Christmas!  We also celebrated with cupcakes (ask your child about my melted gummy bear incident!).

 

Before break, we spent the week leading up to break doing Christmas activities.  In addition to traveling the world and learning about other countries' Christmas traditions, we had Grinch day!  We played Grinchy games, made a Grinch mask, and watched the cartoon (the good version, as I like to call it!).

 

Check out Kaitlyn's Grinch shirt that she made!

During the week, we spent time recognizing acts of kindness in our classroom and school.  Every time a student witnessed a kind act, he or she wrote down who it was and what that person did and added it to our Grinch poster.  There were so many hearts in just a few days!

 

 

I am SO EXCITED for the second half of second grade!  The Rockstars have made so much progress this year and I cannot wait to see how much they will learn this semester!

Our $150 ornaments

Mrs. Tirey asked us to help decorate her office's Christmas tree.  The theme was "What does agriculture mean to you?"  Students created a corn ornament in which they filled a glass ball with corn and wrote what agriculture means to them.  They also put together a paper farm animal ornament. 

After the tree was on display, it was auctioned off to raise money for charity.  Our tree raised $150 for St. John's Breadline!  When I told the students, they cheered, especially knowing they had helped raise money for others!

 

Photo courtesy of Mrs. Tirey