Chilly Day on the Farm

Even though we were pretty chilly, we had a good trip to the farm today.  Students learned about various grains, machinery, and animals.  They're favorite parts were petting the animals and playing in a corn pit.  Each student is bringing home a bag of goodies from our day.  Have a great weekend!  P.S. We have our fluency tests on Monday at 8:30, so have you child pick up a book this weekend and practice reading out loud!

Field Trips/ MAP

We have two field trips left this year.  One on Friday which we will be going to Meriden to "The Day at the Farm".  Our final trip will be on May 5th to Prairie Park Nature Center; the permission form for this trip was sent home today.  The PTO has kindly paid our registration fee and a dollar of the bus fee.


Your child has probably mentioned that we have started taking the MAP tests.  After I printed the newsletters last week; our schedule got changed.  We took the reading MAP yesterday, math MAP today, and will take the language MAP tomorrow afternoon.  The class has done a nice job, but I have to admit I don't think all students have given 100%.  I'm not sure if it is the storms this week or just spring fever, but our behavior has been a bit off task.  Not the best week for crazy kiddos!  Monday morning we will take our Aimsweb assessment (reading fluency).


I will be gone tomorrow morning.  My daughter is getting tubes in her ears.  Ms. Henderson will be my sub.

Books for Sale

The new best way to spend any free time in 2nd grade is to write a book and try to sell it to your classmates (or teacher!).  At least, that has been the new fave in my classroom.  I'm not complaining, at least they are writing.  I just have to keep reminding them that the books can't just have pictures, words need to be included too.  The books have ranged from 3 cents to 700 dollars.  So far the total number of books sold is zero.  Who knows, one of these kiddos could end up the next Dr. Seuss!  I will be lucky enough to say, "I knew them when...."  Hmm, maybe I should be buying some of these early works!!

Earth Day!

We had a busy Earth Day.  We watched the prairie grass burn from the Nature Study Site, we picked up and sorted litter, and we ended the day with a Sizzling Recycler Assembly.

Our next trip

Permission slips went home for our next field trip.  We will be attending Jeff West's "Day at the Farm".  Parents are welcome to attend; however, we are only taking one bus so they will have to either follow the bus or meet us there.  The only charge for this trip is the $3.00 bus fee.  Directions are listed on the permission form. 
The class doesn't know, but tomorrow is going to be a very exciting one!  We are going to burn the prairie grass in the Nature Site.  This is done every other year.  It is quite a show!

Bowling

We had a great time bowling today!  I'm headed to a meeting at PES at 3:30 so I don't have time to post pictures, I'll try to get some up soon! 

Weekend Blues

My family had a hard weekend.  Our dog, Darla, was taken by what we believe was a coyote.  It was terrible; I won't share the story with you.  Sharing other Darla stories with the class is pretty common for me, so I also told the class this morning that she was gone; they got an abbreviated version.  The class was very sweet in their response to the news.  They offered words of comfort and even tried to hook me up with several new dogs.  I let the class know that I appreciated their offers, but my family was not quite ready for a new pet at this time. 

April Art

We did an art project today.  We made umbrellas/flowers; our theme was April showers bring May flowers.  I took pictures of the class working, but realize now I didn't take any pictures of the final products!  Some students are bringing their art home tonight, while others chose to have their pictures hung on the bulletin board for a week or two. 

Telling Time/ Out of Time

Tomorrow will be our last day focusing on telling time.  Next week we'll be working on data and graphs with time as extra practice.  We've also been working on double digits as extra practice and will continue to do so.  I would love to see 100% of the class meet our math goal and I think it is very obtainable if they keep working.
I did have a heart-to-heart talk with the class this morning.  Several students have been slacking off during the last few weeks.  I reminded them we only have a few weeks until the end-of-year tests.  We are out of time for slacking.  Now is the time to work harder than ever before.  They seemed really motivated, until independent work time came around (the work avoiders continued to avoid). 
I wish there was an easy way to teach  7/8 year olds that the only way to learn to their potential is to work and use their best effort.  We often say in the classroom "If it doesn't challenge you, it doesn't change you". The other day I had a student groan because of the assignment I gave him.  I smiled, hugged him and told him how excited I was that he was feeling frustrated.  He looked at me as if I had three eyes.  I reminded him, that if he was feeling challenged he was soon to be changed!  He still looked at me as if I were crazy, but he did get to work (and he won't admit it, but I think he smiled too).  So, prepare you kiddos, they are still going to be challenged these last few weeks of school (Shh, it's going to happen even after our end-of-year tests are through!).  Spring fever or not, we won't quite learning!

Tomorrow

I am going to be gone tomorrow; my daughter has had several ear infections the past year so we get to visit with a ENT doctor.  Tori Henderson will once again be my sub.  It is going to also be a mixed up day for our schedule.  We are going to p.e. early so that we can watch the 3rd graders practice for their program during our regular specials time.  I've warned the class of the changes and reminded them to be on their best behavior.  I hope they come home tomorrow with stories of a fun, productive day while carrying a spelling pre-test with a score of 100%!

Full Folders

Your child is coming home with a folder full of papers today!  There is information about Earth Week, School Kidz (supply kits for next year), and spring pictures.  Please be sure to return unwanted pictures or pay for them.  (Keeping pictures without paying for them is a personal pet peeve of mine!)  Also in the folder is our final homework packet.  I still expect students to study spelling words and read orally, but will not be sending home packets of work.  There were many happy students in the room today when I made the announcement!

Paper Mileage

The last week of March, our class finished their "Unlucky Charm" stories.  I apologize.  I have not graded them yet.  Grading writing is fairly time consuming, and I admit not my favorite thing to do.  Even with this said though, I value getting pages returned in a timely fashion, therefore, I am sorry I have not got these papers graded. 
I arrive to work at 7:30 and leave try to leave by 4:30.  I usually stop in over the weekend once or twice a month.  I try to limit how much I work at home during the week.  My own children need my attention which they are sure to let me know.  Don't ask my husband either about time I spend working on or worrying about students!  I may just need to work on my time management! I'm not having a pity party for myself.  All jobs consume time.  What I am doing is taking the stack home with me to grade this weekend once more.  (You would be surprised if you knew how many times these papers have been back and forth to my home.  They have a lot of mileage!)  This time will be different though, because this time they really are going to be graded!

Ocean Reports

I have been very pleased with the work students are doing on their ocean reports.  I can't say 100% of the class is enjoying it, but the majority of students have been.  Some students have found and wrote many more facts than required.  A few even asked if we could do a second animal when we are finished with these.  I hope they keep the same enthusiasm throughout the project until the final copy is complete.  Ask your child how his/her report is going.  I hope they can give you many details.

Lady/Man Hands

I should explain.... I showed the class a YouTube video by Teacher Tipster over telling time.  The man in the video explains how they should think of the hour hand as the "lady hand" because it is smaller and the minute hand, which is bigger, as the man hand.  When they read the time, they should remember the rule... ladies first.  After we calmed down from the boys exclaiming it wasn't fair, the class did begin to remind themselves, ladies first.  I didn't think much of this, until we were making clocks yesterday and male student frantically began searching and yelling, "I can't find my lady hand!" I most often refer to the hands as hour and minute, but have said, "Remember, ladies first".  I hope this helps explain things if your child has mentioned lady and man hands when practicing time at home!

Mrs. Berendsen

We had a special presentation from Mrs. Lynda Berendsen today.  She visited with the 2nd graders about the Netherlands.  Lynda's husband is from there and they often go back and visit.  She did a great job and the kids listened nicely.  I learned a lot from her!  Tomorrow, Lynda is dropping by again to share some Dutch cookies with the class!
Be warned, another bug has hit our room!  We had two kiddos go home sick today.  One poor guy got sick in the room; the other had a high temperature.

Caution: Hard Work Ahead

This is going to be a hard working week for 2nd grade.  Our spelling words cover the prefix 're'.  This doesn't sound too challenging, but the base words do not follow a vowel pattern and many of them are 'cheater' words.  I reminded the class several times that they need to be sure to practice during our Daily 5 (aka LA small group rotations) time. 
During writing, we drew sea animals to research and began the researching process.  Some kiddos flew through their notes page and are nearly done, while other struggled to understand how to find information.  I've sent a copy of our research page home.  You are welcome to help your child find facts.  We won't begin our rough drafts until Thursday. 
Our third challenge for the week is during math.  We began working on telling time.  Again, some students have it down, while others  are working to understand the difference between hour and minute hands.  To help better meet the needs of students, I'll divide the class into small groups.  The groups will rotate to different activities, adjusted to fit their current knowledge.

Coat or No Coat

This time of year it is hard to know how to dress.  I spend way to much time in my closet trying to decide what to wear.  This week several students were a bit chilly during recess time.  Please take a quick peak at the weather each morning before your child dresses for the day.  Our school rule is that if the temperature is below 50 degrees, students need to have a jacket.

Have a great weekend!