Happy 2015

Enjoy a few pictures of how we wrapped up 2014 before reading about how we are ringing in 2015.

Lydia races to finish during our Winter Party!

Hard at work on those crossword puzzles!

Putting on their thinking caps while we party!

Keaton sharing a story with his friends!

Singing a few carols and waiting for Santa to come.

Singing for the residents.

Entertaining the residents and they love to see those cute faces.

What a whirlwind kick off to 2015 we have had.  The students are sure starting off the year on the right foot despite the crazy snow storms and cold temperatures we have had making our schedule a little whacky.  As we are nearing the end of our first full week they are starting to show a little of their fatigue.  We have been very busy over the last week and a half.

In math we are right in the middle of unit 5 over geometry.  The things these second graders are learning are quite challenging and they are rolling right along.  We are focusing on a lot of comparing and contrasting with different 2 dimensional shapes and line segments.  Next week we will be diving head first into 3-D shapes and we will have our shapes museum set up too.  The students have enjoyed math exploration centers during which they have: created different 2-D shapes on Geoboards, classified shapes using attribute blocks, and worked on multiplication by building arrays with cubes.

In reading we are continuing to wrap up our Nature walk by reading the story, "Around the Pond".  In this story we are working on classifying animals (a lot of classifying in both reading and math).  We are also working on our unit reading tests.  This week I have just begun testing individual students on their reading with our benchmark reading books.  I will share this information with you once I have finished testing all students.  I love to see how much growth they have made throughout the year.  I encourage you to help your student keep track of their reading minutes on their book it calendar (January's is yellow).  We are trying to set some school wide goals with our reading and the students can take pride in watching our graphs grow as a whole second grade.  

I know I recently sent out an email letting you know our numbers were down, but I was going to inform you we are back up to 17 as we just added a new student to our classroom.  He is joining us from Puerto Rico so we are all getting a chance to use/learn a little Spanish.  

I feel very blessed to work with such a wonderful group of students and after our extended winter break I was happy to see them all again!  I am looking forward to a wonderful second half of our school year!

Latest Learning

Writing: working on writing traits of fluent sentences

Science: exploring properties of solid objects

Social Studies: beginning their unit on continents and oceans

Leader in Me: focusing on habit #7 Sharpen our Saw-
Balance feels best

Comprehension Tool-kit: discussing how to answer lingering questions you have when reading in a variety of texts

Upcoming Dates

Jan 27th- Mid Year Fast Testing (district wide reading fluency assessments)
Feb 6th- January Book-It reading logs are due
Feb 11th- Student led assembly first thing in the morning (Mr. Johnson's Class)
Feb 12th: Happy Birthday Mrs. Sheahan
Feb 13th- Valentine Party
Feb. 25th: Happy Birthday Keaton