Happy Halloween

A big thank you to the parents who planned a super party!  It was great.  Have a happy and safe Halloween.

Halloween Heads Up

The class is super excited for our Halloween party tomorrow.  We will begin our parade of costumes at 1:50.  Visitors may arrive 15 minutes early to help students prepare and set up for the party.  Remember. gory costumes or weapons of any kind are not allowed.

Shake Them Bones!

We often use the website Go Noodle for our brain breaks.  The website has lots of short activities to dance, stretch, and breath along with.  It also gives random facts that we enjoy giggling about!  Today we shook with Them Bones! 

Peer editing

We did a little peer editing today.  The class knows what is needed in a sentence, but is working on slowing down to be sure each of their sentences have the correct structure.  I really like that our homework packets this year regularly include sentence writing.  Talk to your child about what makes a complete sentence when you write together at home.

Happy Friday

I hope to see some of you at Garden Day tomorrow.  The PTO is hosting the work day from 9:00-12:00 at PES's garden.  They will be serving hot dogs at the end of the clean-up.  Happy Friday!

Social Studies

We have started our new chapter in social studies.  Our lesson today talked about the difference between continents, countries, states, and cities.  I mentioned in an earlier post that it was important for the students to know their address.  My hope is by the end of this unit, each child will know!  Find out if your child knows his/hers.  If not, start practicing!

Writing Rubric

The 2nd grade teachers were discussing how we graded writing and we decided we didn't like it!  Mrs. Gantz found a new rubric online that we tweaked a little to make our own.  Later this week, your child will be bringing home his/her writing over pumpkins.  Along with it will be the writing rubric.  I found as I was using it, I still need to make a few changes, which I will do before our next project.  It is a better way for you (and your child) to see how their scores was given.  Please let me know if you have any questions or suggestions about it.  I'm always open to ideas!

Tight Transitions

We started a challenge today... to have tight transitions.  Tight transitions mean when we change from one activity to another, we do it quickly and correctly the first time.  Once the class has 10 tight transitions they earn extra recess time.  We transition A LOT during the day so we can lose many learning minutes if we don't transition correctly.  So far, they've earned three points.  It's not much, but it's a start.  I'm hoping each day we do better.  And by the end of the week we'll be at 100%!  A teacher can dream, can't she?!

Computer Lab

Ms. Angie sent a message saying the 2nd graders were the best behaved group of the day!  We usually have three specials on Friday, but due to Mrs. Hamm being sick, we only had two today.  I split my class in half with part joining Mrs. Scrimsher's class and part joining Mrs. Gantz's.  Here is a video Angie sent of one of the groups behaving wonderfully....

Place Value

Our chapter on place value has been more challenging that I was expecting.  To help this, we have been doing more guided practice than usual.  I have also started breaking the class up into group.  They love it!  After I introduce the topic to the whole class, we break into three groups.  We then have three rotations, one with the teacher, one for independent work, and this week one with technology.  Our technology rotation has been math games on the ipads, as  you can probably guess this has been their favorite.  They did like though a game we played today called Odd Todd and Even Steven.  Ask your child how to play!  It did involve a game board (which could easily be recreated at home!).

Plurals

We've been working hard on writing and identifying plural nouns.  Here are the rules the class has learned:
#1 For most words add s.  (Bug= Bugs)
#2 For words that end in ch, sh, s, ss, x, or z add es.  (Dishes = Dishes)
#3 For words that end in y, drop the y and add an ies. (Baby = Babies)
#4 Unless... y is right afer a vowel, then just add s. (Monkey = Monkeys)
#5 For words that end in f, drop the f and add ves. (Box = Boxes)

And... Go!

We, as teachers, are encouraged to let students guide their own learning.  It is sometimes hard at a young age for students to understand how to find answers to questions they have.  At the beginning of the year, Mrs. Thornton asks each teacher to set at least two goals.  One of my goals was to have at least one student led project every quarter.  Now that we are in the last week of the quarter, I decided I better get to that project!  We're starting out simple.  The only direction I gave the students was that they were teach correct hallway behavior.  They have decided how to divide up and what way they will present the information.  I have a few students work independently and a few small groups.  They are doing everything from writing a story, drawing posters, and creating skits.  We will work on this project then present to each other on Friday.  It should be interesting!  (And hopefully improve our hallway behavior too!)

Thank you!

Thank you for your attendance at conferences.  I appreciate the time you took to come in to visit about your child.  Please remember that I am always happy to answer questions and share ideas.

Fire Safety Month

     October is Fire Safety Month.  This morning, we had a visit from Douglas County Emergency Communications along with the Lecompton Fire Department.  Both groups talked about what to do in case of an emergency.  The students heard how important it was to know their address.  I was surprised how many students could not say where they lived or tell their phone number.  This is an important thing to work on learning.  Have a long address?  Try singing your address to the tune of a familiar song.  It is also important to know how to call 911 and to identify a gathering place outside of your home in case of a fire.  Fire alarms are another important safety feature.
     Fire safety is very close to my heart.  My cousin, Josh, was killed in a house fire during his senior year of high school.  He was spending the night at a friend's house; the friend's house caught on fire during the night.  Josh and his friend were upstairs and were both killed.  The mother and younger sibling were sleeping on the main floor and were able to escape.  Fire safety is something we practice over and over at school, but because fires, fortunately, don't happen that often it is often easy to not take seriously.  I know, it only takes one time.  There may only be one chance.  Make sure you are prepared and as protected as possible.

Safe Place

This morning the second grade classes took a walk to our "safe place".  This is where we would go if we had to evacuate our building due to a dangerous situation.  We discussed situations that would require is to leave our building and situations that would not.  I hope that we will never have to use this procedure, but it is important to be prepared.  After we were finished, the 2nd graders had a chance to have recess at Rowena Park (Lecompton's city park).  They had a great time on the new equipment and asked if we could go back for second recess!  I know I did not list the name of our "safe place" ask your child where it is!  If he/she can't tell, then ask me!

Short Week

Due to our short week we will not be having spelling words or homework.  The class was not disappointed!  I did remind them though that the should still be reading each night and maybe even could get in a few extra minutes!

Welcome, Carmel

We were excited to meet Carmel today.  She is a one year old llama.  Devin, who is a 4-H member, shows Carmel during the fair.  Devin demonstrated how to lead Carmel through an obstacle course and let all the 2nd grade students say hello.  This afternoon, we also had a chance to meet Blane's new puppies.  It was an exciting way to end our week!

"Man Down!"

Several of the 2nd graders had a new game today at recess.  I never quite got it figured out, but it involved several students laying on the ground "down".  It isn't my favorite game.  I kept thinking someone was injured! I let them play though because they were playing so great together.  I could tell their imaginations were spinning.  There was no arguing, no tattling, just several shouts of "man down".  Surprisingly enough, I never saw any violence either.  I don't know what caused the "men" to drop.  They probably didn't even have a reason; the best part of the game seemed to be running to save one another!