Happy Holidays from 2nd Grade!

Last Friday the 2nd graders had a fun-filled morning of celebrating.  Before heading out for their morning specials, Mrs. Twait come into our room to teach the students how to play the game of dreidel,

After returning from specials, the students couldn't wait to do our gift exchange and begin our holiday party!  What a morning!

Happy Holidays 2nd grade families!  I hope everyone is having a wonderful holiday break!

Cookbook Sales

We are now a week into our cookbook sales, and the students are blown away by our sales!  We have currently sold 151 cookbooks, and we've made $186!  It is so exciting to have customers come to our door, and we're very grateful to every person who has supported this project.  As we learned in our studies of economics, people use money to buy what they need, what they want, and to help people.  We also learned that businesses have to pay for their supplies.  With the money we've earned we must first pay back the school for our printing supplies.  We then will pick out items that we need and want for our classroom.  We will also donate money to help a family, and the class has chosen the family in Rushford.  More information will be updated once our project is wrapped up next week!

You've got Mail!

The weeks leading up to our holiday break are full of excitement in 2nd grade!  One of our favorite writing units is the letter writing unit.  Once we review the parts of a letter and the expectations of what the students need to include in their letters, they begin writing and sending letters out in our classroom mailbox!  Who doesn't love to write a letter and receive a letter back!  During our writing block, we meet for a mini-lesson to either write a letter as a class or work on conventions in their writing.  Then we hand out the mail we've received in our mailbox and a few students deliver the mail we've written around the school.  During our writing time I meet with students for conferences. They must conference each letter with me before it leaves the classroom.  Needless to say, we've been writing up a storm and the students love it!

Holiday Reindeer

This week we made these adorable reindeer!  They will certainly spread the holiday cheer down the 2nd grade hallway!

Turkey Bingo!

We had a blast playing the annual game of all-school turkey bingo!  We even had 1 winner in 2nd grade!  Have a wonderful Thanksgiving everyone!

Fall Trees Art Project

We finished up these beautiful fall trees last week.  I love how the students make this project their own, each looking different and unique to the student.

Making Venn Diagrams

Last week the class learned more about Venn Diagrams by making their own, collecting the data, and answering questions.  Whenever the students have the opportunity to be going around the classroom and asking their classmates questions to collect data for math, they love it!

Thank You to our Veterans

On Monday the 2nd graders learned about Veteran's Day, and many students had stories to share of family members who have served in the past or who are currently serving.  One of our classmates has an aunt who is currently stationed in Afghanistan, and we made letters to send her to thank her for her service.  We attended a Veteran's Day ceremony at the end of the day where the elementary sang a beautiful song for all of the veterans.  You can hear a few short clips of the song below.

Awesome Adjectives

We've been learning about characters in our reading and using adjectives to describe them.  After reading "The Duckling Gets a Cookie?!" by Mo Willems, we brainstormed a list of adjectives to describe the crazy Pigeon!  We then called up a classmate and used adjectives to describe her. 

The students wrote out a list of adjectives to describe themselves along with a cute little self-portrait to go along with it.

Personal Narrative Writing

We completed our personal narratives this week in writing.  The students should be very proud of the hard work they put into each step of this writing process.  We began by learning that a personal narrative focuses on a small moment.  We compared it to thinking of a big topic as a whole watermelon and a personal narrative topic as a watermelon seed.  We brainstormed many topic ideas that would be big whole watermelon topics and other topics that would be watermelon seeds.

The next step was to complete a graphic organizer to help us brainstorm all of the details that would go with our small moment.  I asked the students to recall details that related to their 5 senses.  During their small moment, what did they see, hear, smell, taste (if applicable), feel?

The students then took their ideas and wrote them out in complete sentences.  They cut apart their sentences and put them in an order that made the most sense.  We also found that some details needed to be left out if they didn't make sense.  Then the sentences were glued down onto large pieces of construction paper.  The students learned about transition words like first, then, next, finally.  On a colored note card, the students wrote a few transition words to add to their story and cut and glued those in the spots that made sense.  We also added some sound or feeling words to give our writing even more voice.  Those were also written a colored note card and cut and glued on.

After all of these steps were completed, the class was certain that they had their finished writing project.  Then we talked about putting it into a format that can be easily read and understood by their readers.  The final step was to recopy their work onto writing paper, including an illustration, and putting it into a book with a dedication page.  They turned out great, and the students are enjoying reading each other's books on the rug.

On Friday a few students shared their completed writing, and others will share on Monday.

Nice work 2nd graders!

Our 2nd Grade Halloween

We had a great Halloween 2nd grade yesterday!  We began our afternoon with our parent performance of Spunky Punky.  The performance couldn't have gone better!  I'm so proud of the students for all of the hard work they put into practicing their lines.  The show was a hit!

Then the students changed into their Halloween costumes for the costume parade.  They couldn't have been more excited to show off their costumes!

After the costume parade the students enjoyed Halloween snacks, a short Halloween movie, and classroom game time.

Spunky Play Performance Time

Reminder on our parent performance time:

Thursday, October 31 at 12:45 in the library

Making Bar Graphs

After learning about bar graphs the students had the chance to come up with their own topic for a bar graph.  Each student chose a question for the graph and four possible answers.  Then the students went around and polled their classmates.  They collected the data on a tally sheet and then used this information to create their bar graphs. 

Classroom Visitor

We had a visitor pop is on Thursday to play us a quick song during our reading time.  My son loves to play guitar, and it's always fun for the kids to hear a few minutes of music while we read.

Banana Bingo

"Banana" is a word used quite often in 2nd grade!  I created this banana bingo system several years ago to help us transition quickly and quietly around our classroom.  Whenever the students hear the word "banana" they are to head right back to their seats without voices.  Each time this is accomplished we earn a "banana point."  Once 5 points are earned a number is drawn and a banana is added to that number on our board.  The students have to work hard to also keep their points.  If at any point the class hears "banana split," voices need to go off in order to keep the points we've accumulated.  The class is always very excited when another banana is added and we get closer and closer to a bingo!  Once we get a bingo, we brainstorm a fun way to celebrate as a class. 

We earned our first banana bingo last week.  We brainstormed a list of possible ways to celebrate and then the class voted.  Once a choice is used, it is never repeated.  The class ultimately voted on Electronic Day for our first celebration.  The students were able to bring in a device to use during our afternoon recess.  They enjoyed hanging out with each other while playing games or listening to music.

Red Ribbon Week

The students had a lot of fun this week dressing up for Red Ribbon Week.  Each Monday the students meet with Mrs. Johnson for social skills class.  This past Monday the focus of the class was on making healthy choices for our bodies.

Community Mural Painting

Last week we were invited downtown to help with a mural painting that will go up in the community.  The students helped to prep the canvas that the colorful mural will be painted on.  Once we arrived the students were introduced to the artist who is designing the mural.  They then were equipped with brushes and set to work! 

Red Ribbon Week

This week the Lanesboro Elementary students will be recognizing Red Ribbon Week.  The focus in grades K-2 will be on ways to keep our bodies healthy and safe.  I've listed the dress up days below as a reminder:

Monday: "Red Out Day"  Wear read to show support for Red Ribbon Week
Tuesday: "Be a Hero, Be Drug Free"  Patriotic Theme (camo, red/white/blue)
Wednesday: "Team Up Against Drugs, Alcohol, and Tobacco Use" Favorite team apparel theme
Thursday: "Surf the Drug Free Wave" Hawaiian theme
Friday: "Your Choices are the Key to Your Dreams" Pajamas theme

What Turns You into a Crankenstein?

This week we read the funny book "Crankenstein" by Samantha Berger.  This story takes you through many examples of  what makes the main character very cranky.  At the end, the reader is surprised to find out the main character is just a normal little boy!  We shared stories and examples of what makes us cranky.  The class shared examples of long car rides, taking out the garbage, or wanting a toy that is too expensive.  We used our ideas to put together a class book.  Each student came up with a main idea and three details to support that idea.  We're still finishing up our writing, but we finished making our Crankensteins yesterday.  They turned out great!

Odd and Even Math Monsters

On Friday we combined our art skills with our math skills to make odd and even math monsters.  In 2nd grade we've recently reviewed and learned about the difference between odd and even and what odd and even numbers end in.  Each student had to make a unique monster with at least 4 odd body parts and 4 even body parts.  They had so much fun with this while practicing their math skills!

Daily 5

We use the structure of Daily 5 for our reading block.  This structure teaches the children to make independent work choices that help them grow as readers and writers.  In 2nd grade we have 3 rounds of Daily 5 every day. I meet with a group of students or individuals during each round to work on reading skills and strategies, writing, phonics, vocabulary, and comprehension.  When not meeting with me, the students choose from read to self, read to someone, work on writing, word work, or listen to reading.

Each choice was introduced slowly at the beginning of the year with an emphasis on building habits to help make us as successful as possible.  We revisit these expectations often of staying focused, working quietly, and reading or writing the whole time.

Our Daily 5 block opens up each morning with a read aloud in which we focus on a skill or strategy for the students to be using and practicing in their own reading.  We are currently working on word attack strategies to help us work through tricky words in text.  A few examples are "Chunky Monkey" which means to look for chunks in the word you may know or "Pattern Parrot" which means to look at the unknown word carefully to see if there is a spelling pattern we've learned.

The students are doing a fantastic job in Daily 5.  They are excited about books and reading!  There is nothing that makes me happier than students rushing up to me with a book they just have to share, or to tell me about making it through a tricky word, or that they finished a story they've worked really hard on!

At the beginning of the year the class learned about shopping for books in our classroom library.

 The students love partner reading!

 Within a few weeks the rest of our choices were introduced.

We are Bananas for the Burros!

The students were so excited for Homecoming today!  Arriving in Burro colors and filled with school spirit, they couldn't wait to start the day!

We began the day with decorating cupcakes and a pep fest in the gym.

During gym they did face painting, and they were set for the parade!

They could hardly wait to get on that parade route!

Thanks for coming to support us as we were "Bananas for the Burros!"

Doubles Rap

We performed our Doubles Rap yesterday!  The class had so much fun with this, and it's a great way for us to practice our doubles facts.  Check out our video below.