Patterns, George Washington, and Tikki Tikki Tembo!

From Hailey:
Today we wrote about George Washington. We still need to do our final writing about George Washington. We had a great day.

From Mrs. Clough:
Things have been very busy here in 2nd grade!  Sorry for no post yesterday or last Thursday (Friday was a no school day).  Here is what has been going on, and as Hailey mentioned, George Washington is like our best friend right now-with all of the time we are spending learning and writing about him!

Last week, we had a guest reader!  My husband Ben came to read to the kids at the end of the day Thursday.  The kids have always treated him as a mythological creature and as though I can't possibly have a life outside of school (sometimes I wonder! haha), so they were VERY exciting to meet him. 

As we have been spending so much time learning about George Washington, I decided we would write short reports about him!  So we reviewed the important parts of writing a paragraph!

We worked together to organize our information about President Washington!

Some reminders for our rough draft writing.  Tomorrow we will hopefully begin our final draft of writing that will be saved to share with you at conferences in March, which will be here sooner than I can believe!

In math today we worked with creating two and three unit repeating patterns, as well a review of even and odd numbers.  We also had a guest during math today-Mrs. Asa! :)

A few reminders:

-Parent Group Movie Night is this Thursday at 6:30PM

-NO SCHOOL Monday January 21st (it is also Avery's birthday!)

-2nd grade field trip to UNI for Rosa Parks play on Thursday January 24th

Have a great night!

Mrs. Clough

Happy New Year 2013!!!

From Cole:
We made buildings in math.

From Jakob:
We had art and we had fun.

From Mrs. Clough:

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!  I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday season!  It certainly flew by, much faster than I anticipated, but it has been nice to get back in the groove of school! :)  I apologize for slacking on the blog posts leading up to break.  Things became very busy with all of our Christmas Around the World activities.

BUT-we are back up and running with the blog. I've decided that in this new year, I will use mostly pictures to keep you up to date on what is happening in our room on a daily basis, so I hope you enjoy them!  Pictures generally are more fun than reading a jumble of words, anyway! :)

Here is what we have been working on and learning about in 2C in 2013, so far!

We have learned about a table of information and have had to fill in the blanks, while making our "buildings" using counting cubes.  This unit (which we began this week), focuses on ratios and patterns.

Working in pairs to make the buildings with a different number of floors and rooms per building, using counting cubes.

Last week (in our 2 day week!), we wrapped up our unit on data collection and line plot making.  The kids worked in two groups to create a big line plot using the given data.

We learned about celebratory traditions for the Chinese New Year and made our own dragon lion masks!

In Social Studies we have begun our unit on Famous Americans, beginning with George Washington.  We will continue to learn about him and do activities until the middle of next week!

Today we focussed a lot on being respectful.  We have also been reviewing a lot of our expectations and school wide PBIS expectations.  Before compiling tis list, we talked about ways to be disrespectful and then we discussed what being respectful means in general.  From there we broke it down further into ways you can show respect USING WORDS and ways to show respect, WITHOUT WORDS.  I think we came up with a pretty good list! :)

To ring in the new year, we discussed what resolutions are (similar to goals) and we worked on these posters that are hanging up in our hallway that address our resolutions, goals, favorite memory of 2012, and more! 

Finally, the note went home last week about our Winter (Football themed) Reading program/contest.  The kids were divided into two teams and worked together to create a team name, mascot, and team colors.  I have gotten some footballs back for those 20 minute chunks of reading and will get some scores up SOON!  The 2 teams in 2C are: 

The Crazy Cupcakes

and

Team Legos

A few reminders:

-Books orders are due TOMORROW, Thursday, January 10

-NO SCHOOL Friday, January 11

-Parent Group Movie Night (note went home today with more details) Jan. 17 at 6:30pm

-NO SCHOOL Monday January 21

**A yellow note went home tonight discussing our upcoming field trip.  Please sign and send back TOMORROW!!!!!!  Thank you!

Until tomorrow,

Mrs. Clough :)

A Good Day, But With Some Tough Questions

From Mrs. Clough (no class blogger today):

First of all, Happy Birthday to Xander!  We had no class blogger today due to our birthday celebration at the end of the day which included card making, eating treats, singing, and a little dancing! :)

I think I will start today's post to briefly discuss the events that occurred in Newtown on Friday, what it means for us, and the questions I had today...I do not believe that any words can entirely describe how tragic and horrific the event that took place last Friday afternoon.

A note went home this evening from the MISD Superintendent, Sarah Pinion.  In that letter she briefly addressed the procedures in place across the district and the law enforcement and safety agencies in Marion that also share in our procedures and plans.  Please be assured that all procedures have been discussed with your children and that everyone in the MISD will, and would do, everything possible to keep your child(ren) safe in an emergency situation.

I had a couple of children during our morning discussion today, ask some tough questions.  Over the weekend I (probably along with many other educators and/or parents across the U.S.) thought about what I would say, should any questions arise.  I knew not to go into much detail and yet I did not want to leave a lot of unanswered questions or give ambiguous  answers.  I have to admit that answering a 7 or 8 year old's questions regarding something like this, is no easy task!  Once I realized that a couple of kids had questions, I quickly asked who had heard about what had happened and almost everyone raised their hand.  I just said that there was a man who made a horrible choice and hurt some children and teachers at a school far away from here.  We talked about how while it may be sad, most of the children were kept safe because of the plans and protection their teachers had and gave. From there we finished our quick discussion by reviewing our own procedures, and I assured them how much I cared for them and will always do my best to protect them in any emergency situation (tornado, fire, lockdown).

I think I can speak for everyone at Starry, if not every person across our country, when I say our hearts and support go out to the families, friends, first responders, and everyone who has been touched by this tragedy.  While I am not a parent yet, I am a teacher and I want all of you to know how very much I care for each of your kids during the 7-8 hours they are with me everyday (and that's not even counting the amount of time I spend thinking about them outside of school!).  I would do, and will continue to do, everything I can for your them.  They are my #1 priority, care, and concern at all times.

In OTHER news...we began work on a secret project today...I will only share 2 pictures and leave you guessing! :)

In math, we are continuing to work on collecting data, organizing data, and graphing data.  We will continue working on this until break time!  This week we will also be focussing on addition and subtraction fact practice!

For Text Talk/Vocabulary we read the Caldecott winning book Strega Nona and will introduce the first three vocabulary words from that story tomorrow!

That is all for tonight.  Once again, I want to reiterate how much I care for each of your children and I also want to thank you for entrusting them under my care, supervision, and guidance.  It is a privilege, one that I sincerely love.

Have a wonderful evening!

Mrs. Clough

Feliz Navidad!

From Connor:
At recess we got a one.  It was a really good day and we watched a movie as a class reward.

From Mrs. Clough:

As Connor mentioned we did have a really good day!  We had earned a class reward for following the Marion Way and we spent half of our reward time in the PE for life room getting some exercise and the other half of our reward time watching the cartoon version of "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" (as we had read the book and done a writing activity last week).

In addition, in math we are continuing with ways to collect and organize data.  Today we looked at how many teeth each of us had lost and ways to graph that information.  We learned about a line plot and graphed our information in that way.

Today we visited Mexico and read the Tommy DePaula story The Legend of the Poinsettia.  The kids made their own mini version of the story and created their own poinsettia as well.  It was a fun project and another successful trip, learning about Christmas around the world!

We also had a PBIS assembly today and there were four students in our classroom recognized for being honest!  Congratulation and well done to Avery, Gracin, Libby, and Landen! :)

A few reminders:

-Winter Party is next Friday (December 21st)...I will send a note home next week for those who are signed up to bring something! :)

-NO SCHOOL Dec. 24th-Jan. 2nd

-January 3rd: Classes resume!

Have a great weekend!!!  

Mrs. Clough

Christmas in Sweden!

From Gracin:
We talked about Christmas in Sweden and how on the morning of the 13th, they eat rolls and drink hot chocolate and coffee.

From Mrs. Clough:
Aside from our time spent learning about and enjoying some of Sweden's Christmas traditions,  we continued our work with collecting/organizing/categorizing data in math and even made a class bar graph.  In shared reading we continued with another Chris Van Allsburg book, which the kids are LOVING!  He truly is a great author and illustrator, not to mention his books are GREAT for inferring.  So far we have read:
Jumangi
Zethura
The Widow's Broom
The Garden of Abdul Gasazi
We will continue reading his books until next Thursday, so you can count on hearing more about them!

SWEDEN! (Some fun facts)
In Sweden, Santa is referred to as Kris Kringle and on the morning of December 13th the girls/women wear crowns made of wreaths with candles, and the boys wear "Star Caps". December 13th is referred to as "Santa Lucia Day".  Also, it is a tradition that the women serve coffee and rolls.  SO...today in 2nd grade we enjoyed some hot chocolate (in place of coffee, because goodness knows that caffeine like that would not be good for a bunch of already enthusiastic 7 and 8 year olds!) and donut holes.  YUM!  While enjoying our treats, the kids worked on their own wreath crown and star cap.

Working on our crowns and caps, while enjoying some treats!

Star caps!

Wreath crown!

Class picture in our Star Caps and Wreath Crowns!

That is about all for tonight!  Have a great night and check back tomorrow to hear about our trip to MEXICO! :)

Mrs. Clough

Gingerbread Germany!

From Holly:
We got a 1 at recess.

From Mrs. Clough:
Today was another fun filled day, not to mention busy!  As Holly mentioned, our class earned a 1 at recess which means they did an excellent job of getting to our line when the bell rang and were facing the front and quiet!  I have to say I am very proud of 2C, because we almost always get a 1! :)

In math we worked on collecting pocket data.  How many pockets was each person wearing, not how many pockets were there total in our class (like the previous times we discussed pockets).  We then came up with ways to sort and organize that data.

Today for our Christmas Around the World, we visited Germany!  We learned that in Germany, Santa is called Saint Nicholas and he also arrives by a ship and rides a horse through town (very similar to Holland, which we visited last week!).  We also learned that the people of Germany were the first to use Christmas trees AND are well known for their baking and use of gingerbread men and houses!  SO....the kids each got a gingerbread man and were told take only one bite.  They were then to color the part of their gingerbread that they ate (on a separate activity page) red.  They then were told to eat a second bite, and on the activity page, color that part of their gingerbread man green.  Finally, they were told to take a third bite and to color that part of their gingerbread man, yellow, on the activity page.  After they had the coloring done, they were to do some writing about "How I Eat a Gingerbread Cookie", following a First, Second, Third writing prompt.  It went pretty well.  We talked about beginning sentences with capital letters, ending sentences with punctuation, and adding details so that our writing is not boring!  Once they finished all of their writing they were able to finish their gingerbread man!

Tomorrow we will be visiting Sweden, so stay tuned for that!!!

A few reminders:

-You may pick up your cookie dough from the fundraiser TONIGHT between 5 and 7 in the lunchroom.  This is the only night you may pick it up!

-Keep sending your child to school in a winter coat, gloves, and hat! :)

-Holiday Party next Friday, December 21st!  A reminder note will go home early next week for those who are signed up to bring items!

-NO SCHOOL Dec. 24th-January 2nd!

Have a great night!

Mrs. Clough

La Befana!

From Cole:
We read a book about Old Befana.

From Mrs. Clough:
Again, it seems like it has been forever since I last posted!  Friday afternoon we got really busy with some activities, and yesterday I was unfortunately, home sick!  BUT-we are back, and you can count on daily posts this week!

In math we are continuing to work on ways to collect, categorize, and sort data as well as ways to represent that data.  Overall, the kids are doing a pretty good job, but it is a challenging skill for 7 and 8 year olds to grasp so we will continue to work on it!

In Shared Reading, we have begun reading books by Chris Van Allsburg.  LOVE his books!  We read Jumangi yesterday and today we read Zethura.  We continue to work on making inferences by, "taking your background knowledge and your clues from the text, you put 'em together and you JUST INFER!".

We are rolling right along with our Christmas Around the World social studies unit.  Today we visited Italy after getting our passports stamped, and learned about Old Befana, the witch who comes down the chimney and puts ashes in shoes (instead of stockings) if the children have not been good, and gifts/treats in shoes if the child has been good.  Children in Italy open the majority of their gifts on January 6th. Tomorrow we move on to Germany, so stay tuned for more about that trip!  :)

Working on creating our own "La Befana". I will get a picture of everyone's for tomorrow's post!

A Venn Diagram of things that are the same and things that are different in Italy and the USA for Christmas (plus some key words for the writing the kids worked on later!).

A few reminders:

-Cold weather is HERE!  Please make sure your child is coming to school with hats, gloves, and winter coat!

-THANK YOU to those who offered to bring items for our Christmas Around the World festivities.  It is much appreciated!

-Next Friday (December 21st) will be our holiday party.  I will send a reminder note home for those families who are signed up to bring treats/plates/napkins/water soon.

-December 24-January 2nd are NO SCHOOL days!

Have a great night!

Mrs. Clough