Reading...and..Pizza!!!!!

The beginning of October does NOT mean that Halloween is almost here. It doesn't mean we're in the middle of fall. It doesn't mean winter is getting closer..yikes! WHAT????

October means Book-It is starting!!!!!! This is a reading incentive program sponsored by Pizza Hut. Who doesn't like pizza right? A calendar will be sent home with your child on October 1st stating the monthly reading goal. Your child should record the amount of time he/she reads at home each night and return the calendar to me at the end of each month for their Pizza Hut coupon.

I do not require your child to participate in this program; however, what better reason to read than to earn pizza??? This is a totally optional activity that runs from October to March. The past few years I have had only a few kids choose to participate in this which makes me really sad. I'm hoping for really good results from this year's class :)

So...now here is the extra special incentive for participating in this program!!!! Those students who do participate all six months will celebrate by having a pizza party with me!!!!! I will be supplying the pizza in April for all the students who reach or surpass their reading goal for ALL six months. Those that do not participate, will eat lunch in the cafeteria as usual with a different teacher.

I hope you encourage your child to participate and HAPPY READING!!!

Germ Free!!

Thank you to everyone who has bought hand sanitizer and clorox wipes. We are going to have the cleanest classroom at Crestwood Elementary :)

Ahhh-chooooo!!

I may have passed my cold on to the students...sorry :(

I think the kids are started to feel the first effects of the fall season: sickness!! Please make sure your child is trying to stay healthy and please DO NOT send them to school if they are not feeling well in the morning or if they have a temperature or have thrown up!!! This will hopefully keep everyone a little healthier.

Also, if you're shopping we could use some hand sanitizer and/or Clorox wipes in the classroom. This way we can prevent the germs from spreading.

Thanks!!!!!!!!!!

Ideas

Writing...singing...picture books

What do these things have in common?? Well, the past couple of weeks I have been introducing the Ideas writing trait to my students. We started with figuring out what ideas meant and then we sang a song about. You may have even heard the song at home:

The Ideas Song
(sung to the tune, "Row, Row, Row Your Boat")

Write, write, write your thoughts
Make your ideas clear
Tell the reader what you know
And what you hold most dear.

Finally, I've been reading the kids LOTS of books. What does this have to do with writing?? Well, when I'm finished we discuss the author's purpose and decide how that could be a writing idea for them as well. We have come up with a really big list of writing ideas that they could write about it in here. They don't have to be fancy ideas as long as they are important to the writer. They must be an "expect" about their writing idea.

So, in order to get started with our writer's workshop in here, I have sent home homework with your child tonight. Please help him/her think of 9 different ideas they could write about in the classroom. Once again, they don't have to be fancy ideas as long as it's important to your child.

I think they are finally getting excited about writing and realizing it won't be so bad after all :)

Busy...Busy...Busy

Happy Tuesday everyone!! I hope you are all enjoying this amazing weather. It sure makes it hard to sit in school all day long :)

My second graders continue to work VERY hard in here. I continue to introduce new things to them and add to know they're already doing.

Last week we continued to work really hard on our Read to Someone and Read to Self stamina. We are up to 25 minutes for Read to Self and 18 minutes for Read to Someone. AMAZING!!!! Last week I also taught them 2 more ways to Read to Someone: Choral Reading and Read 1 book. When you are reading with your child at night chat with them about the ways to Read to Someone. Maybe they can even teach you how to do it :) I also let go of some of my power and turned it over to the kids. It was a little scary for me but they did fabulous job! They learned a quick way to decide whose book tub to choose and they also learned how to choose a partner. Ask them about this...

Within literacy, I just wanted to let you know that I am completing some individual assessments this week and will hopefully be starting guided reading next week sometime. Each day I will also do group mini-lessons to help your child learn various reading strategies. As you can tell, we're very busy each morning during literacy!

On Friday we took a little break from Daily 5 and we discussed September 11th. I showed them a short video clip explaining what happened and then read a book written by students. It was called September 12: We Knew Everyone Would Be All Right. My kiddos has super questions about this day and were very eager to learn about it. I was excited to hear they went home and talked with you about this.

Science...ahhhh...my CRAZY part of the day!!!! As you know, we found seeds in fruits and vegetables and saved those seeds. We have since planted those seeds and some have already started to sprout. We will keep a close eye on those. Yesterday we discussed whether plants need soil to grow. Almost everyone said yes!! We planted 3 different types of seeds 3 different ways...only using water. We will look to see if they sprout.

We continue to review a lot in math and we will be taking a test at the end of the week. The big change was that Homelinks have started coming home. Your child will have one most nights. your child should be able to do them independently but please help out if needed. Try and get it done and return it the next day. I will understand if there wasn't any time and it needs to be done the following night. Have your child return it when it's done. I do keep track of these and will give out prizes if ALL of them are returned!!

I introduced a third part of Daily 5 this week as well: Word Work. Your child may call this word study as well. Basically I introduce a new/review sound to them on Friday and then they self-select words that have that sound. They will work on 6 words each week and we will buddy test on Friday. Your child will bring home his/her words each Tuesday. They will be in a sheet that says Look, Say, Cover, Write, Check at the top. We do work with the words a lot during the week but please feel free to practice with your child at home as well.

As you can tell we've been really busy in here lately. I continue to be impressed with 2A's Cadet Pride!!! Thanks for our support and for working with your child at home.

Continue have your child read each night.

Morning Meeting

Last year I started each day off with a Morning Meeting. It was a HUGE success, so I'm doing it again this year. So far, the students and I are loving it!! Morning meeting is great way for us to build a community in our classroom and to set a positive tone for the day. There are 3 parts to the Morning Meeting that we do: greeting, group activity, and sharing. The morning meeting will last about 15-20 minutes.

These past few weeks we have been working on the greeting and group activity. Greeting allows each child to hear his/her name and to be formally welcomed into the classroom. We’ve done a lot of fun greetings so far! Since we have several new students in our room it's been a great way to learn everyone's names :) We've been working really hard on good eye contact and a good handshake. Thankfully everyone understands these things now!!!

Group activity allows the students to interact with each other and to even laugh a little. They REALLY like this part of the meeting. It's our one opportunity during the day to play a quick game with everyone present. I think it builds excellent classroom relationships!

But now…it’s time to start sharing!! Let me tell you, the students are very excited about this! I have assigned each student a sharing day. On their assigned day, your child will need to bring something in or tell us something. When the sharer is finished the audience will have a chance to ask good questions or to comment on what they heard. I would like everyone to participate on their sharing day. Some students have already asked to bring in a pet. If your child would like to do this, and it’s OK with you, please send a note to school so we can set up a time that will work.

Teamwork

On Thursday we got 100 tickets! Andy
We built our stamina. Carter
I liked it when we got to 100 tickets. Lilly
We did math. Gunnar
We did clay projects. Jasmine
School is really fun so far. Hunter
I like that we do fun stuff in science. Haylee
I like school. Trystin
We built our stamina for Read to Someone. Makayla
We are working with telling time. Rylan
Read to Self is fun. Connor
We build our stamina to 18 minutes for Read to Self. Andy
We work hard on word work. Leah
We did our Daily 5. Christian
I like science because it's fun. Dameon
We like playing games with other friends. Gunnar

REWARD!!!

WE DID IT!!! WE DID IT!!!

2A has earned 100 tickets!!!!!!! My kiddos have worked soooooo hard at their Cadet Pride and I couldn't be prouder of them :) As their reward they will have an ice cream party AND a reward recess on Tuesday....yippee!!!

Then, we have to set a new class goal for September and hopefully we will get that amount of tickets. If we meet that goal we will get a new reward. I don't know what it is so it's a surprise for all.

Keep up the good work 2A!!!

Sorting Seeds

We started out first unit in science last week: plants. However, it's been a little slow getting it started since we keep having early outs on Mondays...that's one of our few science days :( The first day we discussed the 3 main differences between plants and animals. Then we also labeled the 3 main plant parts. Yesterday we learned all about seeds. We cut into 8 foods and examined their seeds: cucumber, tomato, squash, lemon, orange, grapefruit, melon, and green pepper. The students pretended they were detectives and they investigated the various seeds. They learned that tomatoes have VERY small seeds. Melons have a LOT of seeds. Oranges, lemons, and grapefruits don't many seeds. In fact, I had several students dig FOREVER and never find an orange or grapefruit seed. How is that possible????? We saved all the seeds for a later project. More to come on seeds and other plant parts...

Laffy Taffy

As some of you may know, I have a bit of a weakness for Laffy Taffy. :( If I treat myself and buy a bag of them...well let's just say they won't last very long!!!! I'm eating them right now as I blog :) I can eat one after another! NOT the banana ones though.

So, since I'm not sharing my bag of candy with you, I thought I would at least share the jokes! I have added a section to the side of the blog and I will post various jokes that I have found funny, or not so funny!! Enjoy!!!!!!!

The Daily 5

As some of you may have heard, we don't do centers in second grade. I think the kids were a little shocked and upset to hear this...but they've gotten over it!!!!

So far your child has been learning about and practicing 2 parts of the Daily 5: Read to Self and Read to Someone. Hopefully your child has told you about them :) We have made 2 I-charts (I for independence) and listed what the students need to do and what the teacher needs to do also. I had students show us the right way and wrong way to Read to Self. They thought it was really funny to see kids reading the wrong way!

We have been practicing Read to Self for 8 days and have built our stamina up to 21 minutes, hurray!! That is amazing!!!!!!! That means that everyone is able to read quietly and in one place for 21 minutes without any disruptions. What an accomplishment! We plan to continue to work on our stamina and our goal is to make it eventually about 30 minutes.

We just started Read to Someone two days ago. There are MANY ways to Read to Someone that I will be teaching them. The first one is to Check for Understanding. For this, a partner reads a page and the other person has to say what happened on the page and who it was about. Then they switch jobs. This is to make sure that the child is understanding the story. Since we just started we have only built up our stamina to 4 minutes. We'll keep practicing and hopefully we'll get this up to 30 minutes as well.

Here are some pictures of just a few kids that were doing Read to Self this morning.
Keep up the great work 2A!

Writing...with Clay

Today students had a rare opportunity to work with clay in our classroom. They each had 3 different colors to work with. I gave them very vague instructions; they had to create something using the clay. They sure had a lot of comments and questions!! I gave them about 10 minutes to create their piece. After that they had to add something, take something away, and make a change to their piece. Next they had give their creation a title. Finally we discussed compliments and how to give a GOOD and meaningful compliment. Students had the opportunity to go around the room and compliment each other's creations.

Some of you might be asking why we did this. Well...I tied it to writing in 2nd grade. Yesterday we read a book about what the steps that authors have to go through when they create a books. We will go through similar steps here in 2A. We discussed that good authors are not happy with their first copy. They need to change, add, and take away things from their writing pieces. So, hopefully as my second graders are grumbling at me and saying they don't want to make changes to their writing pieces they will think about their clay project. Hopefully they will remember that all good authors make changes before they publish their final writing piece.

Here are some pictures of the students creating their pieces and of the final product.

Happy writing 2nd graders!!