Gurnee Firemen Visit

Hello! This week the Gurnee Firemen visited us! They played a game with us about fire safety.

The class worked together to remember fire safety facts from last year.

It was amazing how much the students knew about being safe if there's a fire.

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This week we also finished our unit on Communities. Next up is our science unit about Light and Sound!

We filled our Classroom Bucket! We counted 575 pom poms in the bucket. That means that the students have given 575 written bucket fillers to each other so far this year:) We celebrated by doing a Halloween craft.

In math we have been working to measure items with inches and centimeters. We will continue to measure next week!

We are busy with our Daily Five. Everyday the students are reading and writing. Many students are working on nonfiction reading responses. We will all be doing this soon.

Reminder! Our Story Character Project is due on Wednesday!

Harvest Garden

Did you know that Elementary West has a Harvest Garden? It is back behind the school. Our Harvest Garden is planted by second graders in the spring and the produce is taken to local food banks. We visited the garden to see what it looks like at the end of the season. In the spring we will grow plants in our classroom and then plant them in the garden. Families volunteer to help over the summer to weed, water and harvest the produce.The first plant that we saw when we went to the garden was this giant sunflower!

The flower head was enormous!

We saw cauliflower, broccoli, and tomatoes.We saw pumpkins, peppers and herbs.
We picked a few pumpkins, peppers and squash.
We shared our harvest with the principals.
and kept two pumpkins that are now at home in our classroom!

Be a Bucket Filler!

Hello! At the beginning of the school year, each classroom received a copy of the book, Have You Filled a Bucket Today? by Carol McCloud. In the book we read that everyone carries an invisible bucket that represents how we feel about ourselves. When we are happy and content, our bucket is full. When we are sad, our bucket is empty. We can help other people to fill their buckets by giving compliments and treating them kindly. When we help others to fill their buckets, it fills our buckets too! If we say unkind things or we are mean to others, then we are being bucket dippers. We are taking happiness out of someone's life. When we dip into other people's buckets, we dip out of our own bucket too.

We have a chart board in our classroom that helps us to remember to fill other people's buckets. Each child has their own pocket. There are slips of paper in the classroom that the kids fill out with a compliment for someone. They put the slips in a basket on my desk. Then I put them into each child's pocket. We are working on giving "inside" compliments. Those are compliments that are not about how we look or what backpack we have. Inside compliments talk about who the child is. For example: You did a great job in soccer at recess! or Thank you for reading with me today!
After a bucket filler compliment is written, the bucket filler child may put a pom pom into our green class bucket. Once we have the bucket filled, we will celebrate!
If you would like to check out this book to read with your family at home, please let me know! I would be happy to share it with all of you!!

Important Information:
*Your child received his/her spelling packet on Friday. I will be sending them home on Fridays from now on. This will give kids extra time to study if they need it.

*Starting in October, students will be working to earn a free personal pizza from Pizza Hut. This is called the Book It program. All your child needs to do is successfully complete her/his reading log for each week in the month. The program will run from October - December.

*I will be sending home a new book order on Monday. Feel free to order if you wish. You may order online or send in a check. I do get bonus points for every book ordered and I use them to buy books for our classroom library!

Have a great week!!

News of the Week

We had a great week in second grade!

We are busy learning about communities in social studies. We learned about our place in the world. From smallest to largest, we live in a home, neighborhood, community, town, state, country, continent and the planet Earth.

In math we are learning about the 200 chart that we will be using in math this year. We also learned about numberlines and how they are the same and different from our 200 chart. We are learning to use our 200 chart to solve problems with bigger numbers than first grade. Of course we know that there are lots of ways to solve problems without a 200 chart. Ask your child about some of the ways we solved problems in class.

In language arts we read the book, How I Became a Pirate. Afterwards we made periscopes out of paper and searched the room for objects to describe. We played an I Spy game that involved the students giving good descriptions to their friends about an object. Next we made an I Spy book of classroom items. Each child wrote one page. You will be able to see the book at conferences!

In language arts we also read the first story in our Treasures book and wrote an extended response to answer a question about the story. We did this together. The students will be working on these all year.

Our Daily Five is up and running! Starting on Monday, students will be able to make a choice about which Daily Five they want to do at each Daily Five time. The Daily Five choices are "Read to Self," "Read to Someone," "Listen to Reading," and "Word Work."

There are a few supplies that we could use in the classroom if you are able to provide them. These were up at Curriculum Night and were not chosen by other parents. Thank you!
2 hole punches
sticky velcro dots
red copy paper
red cardstock
3 yards denim fabric
8 pack vis-a-vis markers

Read to Someone

Hello! One of our Daily Five is Read to Someone. We have been learning this week exactly how to do that! The first thing that we learned is that we need to sit EEKK - Elbow, Elbow, Knee, Knee. That way both people can read along with the story.

We learned that we need to get started reading right away, keep our eyes on the book, and stay in one spot. Each pair picks the spot that they want to read and away they go!

Each person gets a chance to read. Another very important thing that we learned is that we need to stop every once in a while to Check for Understanding.

Read to Someone is lots of fun! Don't you wish you were in second grade again?!?

It was so wonderful to see so many parents at Curriculum Night! Second grade is certainly different than first grade! If you were not able to be at Curriculum Night, the information went home with your child. Please be sure to read it all carefully and let me know if you have any questions!

Reminders:
*Our first spelling list will be going home on Monday. The test will be on Friday.
*Reading logs were sent home in the Curriculum Night folders. Reading logs started last Friday and are due back on Friday.
*Your child's first Oral Language Speech is Friday! All the information is in the Curriculum Night folders.

Math time!

Today we worked on math word problems.
We worked in pairs to solve the problems.

It was important that we knew how we got the answers and didn't just have the answer.

We worked wherever we felt comfortable....on the floor

...or at desks.
When we were finished with our partner work, we came back together as a class. We discussed all the different ways to solve the problems.
The students did an AWESOME job!
It's amazing what great thinkers they are!


Don't forget!!!
This Wednesday is Curriculum Night from 6:30-8:00!!
I look forward to seeing all of you there!!

It was a hot one!

Wow! We were hot in Room 36 on Thursday and Friday! With no air conditioning and 26 bodies in one room it was stifling! We kept our water bottles on our desks and cooled off by working in the library and cafeteria on Thursday. I'm happy to see that the forecast for next week is much cooler!

This week we learned how to pick good books to read. We learned that although we might be really interested in a book, it may not be a good fit for us. Even though our best friend might love the book, it may not be a good fit for us. We learned to check if we understood what we were reading and if we knew most of the words in the book. If those two things were true and we were interested in the book and had a reason to read it, then it was a good fit for us! We will revisit this lesson often throughout the year. It is a lesson that we started to learn in first grade!

We also had the chance to share our summer memory object with the class. The class asked each student questions about the memory. Then we wrote about our summer memory. This writing will be put in our portfolio as a sample of the first writing for second grade.

We started greeting each other every day. We form a circle and do different greetings to acknowledge everyone in the class. This is a great way for the class to feel a togetherness as a group. We talk a lot about being a classroom family. Our daily greeting is one way that we show that we care about each other. Ask your child about our greeting time!

Picture Day is Friday! For the first time in years, I was able to get a slot for pictures before recess! I'm sure that has something to do with the fact that we have the last recess/lunch!!

Enjoy a fabulous Labor Day weekend with your child! I'm looking forward to next week!