Happy Birthday!

We recently celebrated this sweet girl's 8th birthday in class! She sure did look cute with her crown all day and we really enjoyed the yummy cupcakes! Happy Birthday, sweet girly!

Tech Boot Camp

We had a great afternoon of "tech boot camp" to learn about three cool apps last week! The 2nd graders dove into "Explain Everything," "iMovie," and "Green Screen" with the help from some great teachers at our school/district. We are so excited to continue to use these apps in our classroom!

Read to Someone

Last week, we launched our "Read to Someone" daily. The 2nd graders practiced sitting "EEKK" and said a little rhyme...

Elbow to 

Elbow

Knee to 

Knee

I'll read to you, and you read to me

Elbow to 

Elbow

Knee to 

Knee

Book in the middle so we both can see! 

They did fantastic!

We also worked on stopping while we read to check for understanding. The 2nd graders know that they can tell their partners what they heard them read (summarizing practice) and/or can ask questions throughout.

Making Connections

The 2nd graders have been working on making connections while they read. They learned about 3 types of connections:

1. Text to Self

2. Text to World

3. Text to Text

We discussed the difference between a cool coincidence (the character's name is Peggy and my mom's name is Peggy) and a connection that helps us understand the story better (this book is about how to take care of a dog and I got a puppy last summer so I know about training and bathing, etc.). We always want to ask ourselves the essential question:

"How does this connection help me as a reader?"

The 2nd graders were then sent off to practice this new skill and took a try at finding connections in books from their book bins. We will continue to work on this skill at school and I encourage you to practice it with your child at home. 

National Talk Like a Pirate Day

On Tuesday, the 2nd graders got to celebrate "National Talk Like a Pirate Day!" It was a great day to be in the Howard Suamico Pirate Nation! :) Throughout the day, we focused our read alouds on pirate books. We also learned about the bossy r (or "controlled r") sound with a focus on AR. We learned from our friend "Pirate Mark." The kiddos had a blast listing all of the words they could think of with AR in them and then even got to make a craftivity to go with it. They did great!

Here are a few examples of their finished products! Be sure to check out the rest in our hallway. I love how they all turned out so different. 

The 2nd grade teachers had fun welcoming the students to school that morning as pirates! :) 

Friday Book Shares

Every Friday, we do "Friday Book Shares." During this time, the kiddos get to partner up and share one of their favorite books from their book bins with another student in class. During this time, they are encouraged to summarize what the story is about, tell what they loved about it and where in our classroom library they found it. They did great last week! I am so excited to see how they do this week, too!

Happy Birthday!

Today we celebrated this sweet girly's late August birthday! We loved getting to sing to you and enjoyed your yummy treats! Thank you! We hope you had a day that is as special as you are! :)

Curriculum Updates!

The 2nd graders have been working hard over the past 2 weeks! In math, we are focusing on building our number sense through math games. Some of our new games are on paper and others are on our ipads. Knowing these math games and the expectations for playing them will help us be prepared for when we start math stations. 

In Tech Time, Mr. J. taught us about digital citizenship and our digital footprint. We are ready for our ipads!

In writing, we have started working on narratives through "small moments." The 2nd graders have already started writing a 5 page short story!

In Social Studies, we have been learning about citizenship. The kiddos partnered up to read about different things that make us good citizens and then jigsawed to share their understandings with everyone else. 

As part of our community building within our classroom, the first graders shared their "Me Bags" from home. Afterwards, the 2nd graders took pictures of each of their items and have started putting them into a "book creator" book. We will later share these books on SeeSaw. Very exciting! 

We also celebrated Mrs. P.'s birthday this week! We are so lucky to have her in our room for a large portion of every day! Happy Birthday, Mrs. P.!