The Caterpillars Arrived!

From Kyle:
We got our caterpillars!

From Mrs. Clough:
Another very busy and HOT day in 2nd grade, not to mention the exciting arrival of the caterpillars, as Kyle mentioned.  Silly me, I forgot to get pictures of the kids' initial reactions to seeing them and preparing their "homes".    Be sure to check back tomorrow to see some pictures!
Today the kids prepared their homes by packing mallow into the bottom of a cup.  They acted as scientists, observing as much as they could of the mallow-the smell, touch, and feel. As they were exploring their mallow, I called them back one by one to give them their caterpillar.  Their faces were full of curiosity and excitement!  They couldn't believe how small they were, but I assured them that they will definitely get bigger!  I will get you a much longer post about our caterpillar experiences tomorrow (with pictures!).

Today we also continued our new/regular math routine using counting cubes and pattern blocks.  We began a math workshop where two different activities are going on at once and the kids handled it quite well, management wise!  Pretty proud of them!

At the end of the day we read How Full is Your Bucket? and talked about our own buckets and the expectations for filling our friends' buckets.  We talked about what kinds of things we can say to our friends to fill their buckets and make them feel good, rather than things that would make them feel crummy.  Tomorrow we will take time to fill a friend's bucket!  :)

It is Friday tomorrow and we have a long weekend ahead!  I will be sure to have a longer post, with pictures soon!  As a reminder, book orders are due tomorrow!  Also, it is going to be HOT....again!  Please dress your child cooly and send a water bottle to stay hydrated!

Until tomorrow...
Mrs. Clough :)

Math, Science, and Writing!

From Holly:
We read a story called How Butterflies Grow,we got a 3 at recess and I played 4 square.

From Mrs. Clough:
Holly chose to share three events from today, and yet again it was a very busy eventful day (not to mention, HOT!).

We began to get into our normal math routine with our Investigations materials and the children worked on created objects using ten counting cubes and finding different ways to build and then count the cubes so that they would equal ten.  We also discussed the difference between an analog clock and a digital clock.  As one students said, the analog clock is a wall clock, and the digital clock is like an alarm clock! :)  Tomorrow we will be using our counting cubes again as well as pattern blocks to learn how to cover the area of different shapes and figures.

The kids are very excited for the arrival of our caterpillars tomorrow!  Today they worked in their Life Cycle packet and drew pictures of what they think a caterpillar looks like, and also what they think the different stages in a caterpillar's life look like.  They all did an EXCELLENT job!  I have some amazing artists in my classroom and it appeared as though they know quite a bit already about the life cycles of caterpillars!  Be sure to check back tomorrow to hear about our first day with the caterpillars!

In writing, we are working on creating autobiographies.  We have discussed how good writers have to organize their ideas before writing their final project or paper so we have been working on different word webs about our likes, dislikes, hobbies, and families.  Tomorrow we will work on organizing our writing before writing our final draft on Friday or Monday (depending on time).  We will then create a classroom autobiography book, pictures included!  They seem pretty excited about this project as well!

Tomorrow it is going to be another HOT day.  Please dress your child cooly and send a water bottle with them!  We try to take drink breaks, but I know they are still feeling tired from the heat! :(  Keep thinking positive thoughts about cool weather!  As a reminder, book orders are due on Friday, August 31st.  You do not have to order books, but if you do, please send the order with your child along with a check written to the book company, if at all possible.  Thank you!

I think I will end with reviewing the Marion Way and our classroom agreements!  Please encourage your child to follow both!  :)  It is always good to refresh their memories and to encourage them to make GOOD choices!

The Marion Way is my way.  I am respectful, responsible, and honest.  Follow me!

and

Mrs. Clough's Classroom Agreements

I will....

1. Listen while others are talking.

2. Always raise my hand!

3. Keep my hands and feet to myself.  Be safe!

4. Use nice words when talking to others.  Be kind to everyone.

5. Follow directions.

6. Follow the Marion Way!

Have a great night and stay cool!  Check back tomorrow to hear about our exciting day with the caterpillars!

Mrs. Clough

Graphs, Caterpillars, Butterflies, and You Are Special!

From Rebeckah:
We decorated our composition notebooks.

From Mrs. Clough:

 Today was another fun filled day here in 2C (that's what we call ourselves-2 for second grade, and C for Clough).  As Rebeckah mentioned, we took time to decorate and personalize our composition notebooks that will be used throughout the year during our writing time and lessons.  The kids brought items from home (photographs, stickers, magazine cut-outs) and I provided a few extras as well.  They look great and I think they had fun doing it!

We also continued working on our "Get to Know You" Graphs and today we collected data, using post-it notes on the whiteboard with each student's name, to then create our graph.  As you can see the data we collected was about our favorite school subjects.  Reading was our favorite with Social Studies our least!

Today we talked about a very exciting science unit.  Parents ask your kids what is happening on this Thursday and they will tell you that our caterpillars (LIVE caterpillars) are arriving!  We began our caterpillars and butterflies science unit today by completing individual KWL's and a class KWL.  Students wrote things that they think they know, what they want to know, and obviously we left the "L" blank because we haven't learned anything yet!  Our science unit will focus on the life cycle of butterflies and each student will have their own caterpillar to monitor its growth and changes as it becomes a butterfly.  We will span the unit over the next couple of weeks, so please encourage your child to share with you what happens each day during science!  :)

We finished taking some math assessments and probes to gauge where the students are at, and we also read a book called You Are Special by Max Lucado (Another great read, check it out!).  The students then worked on a page about themselves telling why they are unique and special.

It was another great day, despite being very warm!  Again, please dress your child cooly and try to make sure they have a water bottle to stay hydrated!  It seems as though the heat is going to stay with us for the rest of the week!  One of our fellow 2nd graders asked Mrs. Tank if we were going to turn on the AC this afternoon!  Unfortunately, no air at Starry! :(  But hang in there....fall will be here soon!

Check back tomorrow to hear from another student blogger!

Mrs. Clough

First Day of Class Blogger!

From Emily:
I earned two pieces of my rainbow.

From Mrs. Clough:
Happy Monday!  Welcome back to Mrs. Clough's 2nd Grade Happenings!  We began our first full week of school today and we also began building our rainbows!

So far the kids are off to a great start.  Everyone earned at least one piece to their good behavior rainbow!  I have stated to the kids that they may earn 1-2 pieces a day.  They know the reward coupons they may earn and they also have been taught the expectations they are expected to follow (our classroom agreements from a couple of posts earlier).  In addition, we have discussed reasons why I would ask a child to take off a piece of their rainbow (poor choices, breaking an agreement) though they have the chance to earn it back later in the day.  They also know that if everyone can build their rainbow in a week, we will have some type of class celebration!  They all seemed very excited about building rainbows and I hope that this excitement and engagement continues!  Please be sure to ask your child how their rainbow is doing and if they earned any pieces today (and every day)!  It's truly up to the good choices and exceptional behaviors they exhibit.  As you can see, Emily was excited to earn two pieces of her rainbow today!

We worked on many things today including taking the 2nd grade math assessment (which was 40 minutes long and many of the kids felt discouraged, I'm afraid.  Please reassure your child that this was a way for me to gauge where they are at and what I need to do as their teacher to help them achieve the skills necessary to prepare them for 3rd grade.  Our saying today was "If you don't know, try your best, and give it a guess!" :)

One other activity I would like to share with you is about our friend George.

I read the book Enemy Pie by Derek Munson.  It is about a boy who's summer was off to a great start until Jeremy Runson moves to the neighborhood.  Jeremy is not nice to the main character and calls him names.  With the help of his dad, the main character in the story learns a great recipe for turning an enemy into a friend. After reading story, I introduced the kids to my friend George (thank you Mrs. Tank for creating George!), and said that we were going to pretend to be enemies and say not so nice things about George.  I started off by saying I think his hair is silly looking and I began to crumple/wrinkle him.  Every child passed George around saying a negative comment.  Afterwards we discussed how George must feel and if it was okay to say those things about him.  We then gave George compliments and tried to flatten him out.  We noticed that he is still wrinkly and this opened the door to talk about how even if you apologize and say nice things, your friend (or enemy) still hurts inside so to be kind and use nice words to everyone, always.  We will continue to refer to George for the rest of the year and I even hung him up on our white board. :)

We began the early organization and idea compiling stages of creating our own autobiographies creating webs of our likes and dislikes.  This will be a project that continues over the next week or so.  Check back for more on that!

As a reminder-if your child plans on decorating and personalizing their composition notebook, please send the photographs, stickers, or cutouts from magazines with them tomorrow.  Also, book orders (if you choose to order books) are due this Friday, August 31!  Finally, it is still warm in our building!  Please make sure your child dresses cooly and has a water bottle to stay hydrated!  Hopefully some cooler weather will move in soon!

Check back tomorrow to hear from another student and myself!

Mrs. Clough

A Little More About the 3rd Day of School!

A lot of our day today was focused on being a good listener and what that looks like and we practiced this position many, many times!  :)

The brief post earlier today was when I introduced the kids to our classroom blog/website.  They were very excited and had a lot of questions about how it "works".  I explained that one of our classroom jobs will be for one student, every day, to share something on the blog (by taking time at the end of the day to type a short sentence or two) about something fun or exciting we did or learned about that particular day.  I think that they will find this to be a very fun job among our other classroom duties. :)  While showing them the blog, I shared my previous posts and they were fascinated with the first picture of our classroom I posted on here (when it was completely BARE).  They could not believe this was the same room, so I guess that is a positive thing! :)  Students will begin writing on the blog next week, with my own follow up comments, so stay tuned for that!

Today we read a number of books, the first How I Spent My Summer Vacation by Mark Teague.  We will be reading a number of Mark Teague books over the next couple of weeks.  They are great for teaching character lessons and they're pretty humorous too!  After reading the book, the kids wrote about their own summer vacations.

We read Chrysanthemum (the mouse named after a flower who is made fun of because of her name) and we also read The Name Jar (about a Korean girl who comes to America and is embarrassed of her Korean name and finds a jar full of name suggestions on her desk at school).  After reading the two books we completed a Venn Diagram together to compare and contrast the two stories.

We began a math activity where the students are completing "Get to Know You" graphs and we almost finished gathering our data of our classmates birthday months.  We will finish that graph tomorrow and continue creating many other graphs over the next few days.

Parents-it is going to be another very warm day tomorrow, so please dress your child in cool clothes and send a water bottle!  Many of the kids said they did not feel well today, and I think it was due to the heat!  I have both of our fans going and we took water breaks, but please encourage them to stick it out through the day tomorrow! :)  Also, I sent home our first book order tonight.  If you choose to order books for your child, the orders are due back to me by next Friday, August 31st.  If at all possible, please write a check for your order (to the book company).

Our self portraits from the first day are hung! :)  I think they look great and I have a number of artists in class!

Tomorrow is Friday!  Check back for the end of the week post!

Mrs. Clough

August 23, 2012

Today we read How I Spent My Summer Vacation.  We did a writing activity and told about our summer vacation.

Today we went to P.E. and Music.

Today we learned about our sign-out chart for when we go to the bathroom, nurse, office, or visit other teachers.

From Cole, Hailey, Philip, and Mrs. Clough

Please check back again later today for more about our third day of school. :)

Mrs. Clough

Routines, Agreements, and Books!

The second day felt much more natural, though it was still a bit chaotic as we are still really practicing all of our different expectations (for the hallway, restroom, recess, drinking fountain, and lunch room) and classroom routines.

Some of the highlights of our day included:

We finished sharing our brown bag biographies.  I went last and the kids seemed to be very curious as to what I chose to share in my brown bag.  I included a Harry Potter chapter book, the movie "Up", Twizzlers Cherry Nib Licorice, and a picture of my husband and family! :)

Today we also played a fun get to know you game where the students had to find friends who had done certain activities over the summer-made ice cream, went camping, read a good book, wrote a letter, played a sport, etc.  I do believe they really enjoyed the activity and almost everyone had a paper filled with signatures of those who had done the specific activity during summer!

The children were asked to bring their favorite book to school and I began by sharing my favorite picture book (and reading it aloud), A Bad Case of the Stripes.  The kids were extremely engaged and I think loved the story!  From there they each shared their book they brought by telling us the title, what it was about, and why it's their favorite.  A number of kids had books about horses and Diary of  a Wimpy Kid!  It was fun to see what kind of books they enjoy!

To begin our class discussion on classroom rules and agreements, I read the book What if Everybody Did That?  If you have not read this book, it is SUPER cute and really leads to great discussions about why rules are important!  From there we worked as a class to decide on our common classroom agreements.  This is our final list that is now posted in our classroom (plus I had every child sign their name at the bottom-like a contract!).

I Will...

1. Listen while others are talking.

2. Always raise my hand.

3. Keep my hands and feet to myself.

4. Use nice words when talking to others.  Be kind to everyone.

5. Follow directions.

6. Follow the Marion Way (Be respectful, responsible, and honest)

We did mini skits to model and teach our rules and the kids enjoyed being actors.  We will continue to review and emphasize our class agreements throughout the next several weeks!

In addition to our agreements, I went over the "Build Your Rainbow" system and we discussed the behavior reward coupons.  This will also be revisited over the next couple of days as we will not begin building rainbows until Monday, the 27th.

With a few other learning activities beforehand, we ended our day by completing this activity page which let the students draw, but I also asked for them to write...something that happened at the beginning of our day, in the middle, and at the end.  I do believe it was a nice way to wrap up our time together on this warm Wednesday!

Tomorrow is supposed to be even warmer, so parents, please dress your children cooly and remind them to bring their water bottle!  

Thank you for stopping by!  We are off to a great start!

Mrs. Clough

The First Day of School!

After all of the preparation and planning,the day arrived and left very quickly!  I do have to say it was a pretty good day!  The kids came swarming in ready to go and were pretty quiet, which honestly surprised me!  :)
We went through many different expectations and behaviors for different locations in the building stressing the Marion Way:

The Marion Way is my way.

I am respectful, responsible, and honest.

Follow me.

Aside from learning rules and expectations (which will continue the rest of the week!), we had some fun too!  We read First Day Jitters, and shared our own feelings of nervousness, mine included!  The kids brought their Brown Bag Biographies.  Last night at open house I sent home a brown lunch sack and the children were to fill it with 2-3 items that would help us as a class, learn more about one another. So we took time to share those today and will continue tomorrow.  I saw many fun "things" in their bags and learned quite a bit about the students...everything from loving horses and going horseback riding to a pair of goggles to show they loved swimming, to a picture of the student with the President!  It was so fun to hear them share with their classmates!  

After specials, more rules/expectations, and recess and lunch, we read a book called Picture Perfect? written by a 2nd grade class in California about school picture day.  Every page in the book was of each student who created a self portrait.  So, after reading the book we discussed individuality and how no one's picture looked the same and then my class created their own self portraits!  Hopefully I will get them hung up for tomorrow!  I do believe I have some artists in my class.  

The rest of the afternoon was spent reviewing classroom procedures and rules, we read a poem called "The First Day".  We went back and forth from just me reading to echo reading to choral reading.  The poem focused on this idea of being scared about starting school, but at the end we reflected on our day and if their jitters from this morning (text to text connection to our first story we read today!) had changed and if they were nervous to come back tomorrow.  I am happy to report that everyone said they were excited to come back and not nervous at all so that is a definite plus and I am very anxious for them to return!  

As a reminder for parents who are following our blog, I have asked that your child bring in their favorite book tomorrow to share with the class.  They do not need to be able to read the book in its entirety, but they should be familiar enough with it to tell the class about the story and why it is their favorite! :)

Check back again tomorrow night!

Mrs. Clough

Open House-Ready to Go!

Ready or not (mostly ready!), Open House day has arrived!  In a few hours I will get to meet my students and their families for the first time and I am very excited!  I am looking forward to putting names to faces and getting to know my kids and where they come from.  My classroom is finally all put together and informational packets in place on the childrens' desks.  Lesson plans are ready for the first week and tomorrow morning we will get going!

This will be a place for daily happenings, upcoming events, formal information, and also daily communication from students and myself.  Once we have established our classroom rules, expectations, and procedures a student will communicate one fun or important event or skill we learned each day.  My goal is for this to become an interactive blog with links and videos, but for now what you see is what you get!  We are a work in progress! :)

I'll end today's post with a picture of a chair my mom made for her classroom....every year they begin with a "Very Hungry Caterpillar" theme and this is what she created.  I'd love for her to make me one!

Check back tomorrow to hear about Open House and the FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL!

Mrs. Clough

Busy, Busy!

A week from tonight I will be able to write to all of you about the very first day of school!  Time sure is flying, but I do believe that my room is about done to start the year (though with room for constant improvement, as I believe a teacher's work is NEVER finished!).

The district was back to work today and we began our morning at the high school with a welcome back presentation from Superintendent Pinion followed by time to work in our room.  The welcome back presentation was encouraging and it was neat to see the entire district staff all together in one place.  After working in my room for a while, I went for lunch with some of the Starry Staff.  I am going to be working with some truly great people!

Here are some photos of what I worked on yesterday and today...

In my classroom library, I added animal "fix-up" strategies for when students come across a word they don't know including "Chunky Monkey", "Lips the Fish", "Stretchy Snake", etc.  Hopefully these will be good visual reminders!

Once the clutter is off the table and I get a little more organized with the leveled books and materials I have, then this will be my guided reading instruction area.  On the wall I got our "Text Talk" book covers printed and posted to then add our vocabulary words as we introduce them.  They definitely add some color to the wall!

I taped together this project this afternoon....I think it is good to have options for students when they finish a task early, so I created this visual.  The first priority for any student that finishes a task early will be the task outlined in red-work on incomplete work.  Once they are all caught up then they can choose any of the tasks outlined in blue including pick an extension activity (I will have a bin with supplemental learning activities/games/worksheets), read a favorite book, and write a story.  I hope that this will help with my management plan in the room to keep all of my students engaged!

Tomorrow is a full day of meetings but hopefully in the afternoon I will get into my room to do some more organizing in the library and work on some other details!  Thanks for stopping by!  Check back again soon!

Mrs. Clough

Progress! We're getting Closer!

Lots going on lately! Progress is being made in the classroom though we are getting down to the wire!  I still feel as though I'm learning the curriculum and what I'm actually going to be teaching, but the room is at least coming together and getting finalized! I have been working on some do-it yourself projects and also had new teacher workshop this past Thursday and Friday.  I met my mentor who teaches 1st grade at Starry and she is great!  I have been able to learn more about the Marion Independent School District which is great and am getting acquainted with other teachers in the building.  I think I am going to be working with wonderful people!  The district is back to work on the 14th for the week until kids begin on the 21st!  It is getting so close!  I will leave you with some pictures of my do-it yourself projects and also the updates in my room! (Disclaimer: Some of them uploaded with weird coloring....sorry!!!)

Earlier this week I worked on my "Call On Me" sticks.  I painted them the Marion School Colors-half red and half yellow (Also Cyclone colors!!!).  I will number them and keep them in a little bucket with all of the same color sticking up, and after I call on a student I will turn it the other way down so it is a different color.  The next project you see is my way of signing out of the room.  I took one of the many cookie sheets we had at our house (we received MANY as bridal shower/wedding gifts!) and then bought Duck Tape sheets and cut strips of the tape to border the cookie sheet.  I also bought circle magnets and colored label stickers to put on each magnet.  Finally I created four different sections: In the Room, Office/Nurse, Bathroom, and Other.  When a student leaves the room they will move their magnet to the appropriate place...I'm hoping this will help me keep track of everyone and also if anyone should come to my room wondering where a child is, I will be able to tell them!

Final product!  Now I just have to find something sturdy enough to hang it on the wall by my classroom door.

Originally I had my calendar set up on this bulletin board, but after talking with some co-workers, I decided to create a "Bucket Filler" board where my students will be able to write nice things or compliments for one another every day and we will share out (after establishing guidelines/boundaries/manners of course!).  I found the tin buckets at Target in the $1 section!

Right as students enter the room in the morning they will indicate their lunch choice by placing the correct color paper strip in their pocket.

Finally, here is our main meeting area at the front of the room.  I think it has come together pretty nicely!  Huge thank you to a teacher from back home (Jeri!!!) for the color mat squares, you see on the floor!
More to come!  I'm hoping to get a number of things done tomorrow and then work begins Monday/Tuesday!  Check back!
Mrs. Clough

Moving Desks and Building Rainbows!

Despite having some wonderful house guests this weekend, I did get some school things done!  Today my husband (Ben), my sister-in-law (Sarah), and their cousin (Kara) came with me to Starry...

They wanted to see my room though little did they know I would enlist their help to get the desks arranged in my room! :)

I'm going to try having the desks in pods of 4.  I really like the idea of student collaboration and interaction, so hopefully with careful management and monitoring, my kiddos will be able to keep their talking to a minimum (when necessary!)!  I also am happy with the way the desks are arranged because we will have two main meeting areas and focus points on either side/wall where the desks are currently positioned, so by sitting sideways the kids will be able to see either direction from their seats, if we are not meeting on the floor.  Thank you to Ben, Sarah, and Kara for their help today-it would have taken me a long time on my own!

As part of my classroom management, I am going to have my kids "build rainbows".  For (exemplary) positive behaviors they will be able to earn pieces of their own rainbow and at the end of the week if they have built their entire rainbow, they will be able to pick a ticket, or tickets (I haven't finalized the details yet).  Instead of a physical reward or treasure box, I have created a selection of reward tickets that include lunch with the teacher, wear a hat, sit by a friend, be the teacher assistant, chew a piece of gum, and more.  For negative behaviors, I am creating a stoplight system with green, yellow, and red lights...more on that later!  Anyway, hopefully I will see lots of rainbows by Friday afternoon every week!

I can't believe that I have new teacher workshops later this week already and the entire district goes back to work a week from Tuesday, followed by students the next Tuesday!  Time is flying!
Thanks for stopping by, check back soon!
Mrs. Clough

Thankful for GREAT help!

Well, today was my second full day of working in the classroom and thankfully, my mom came to help me and I do believe we got quite a bit done.  I am very grateful she came (and also brought some things I had left in Fort Dodge-including ALL of my books).  She had ideas that I wouldn't have thought of and together I think we accomplished quite a bit!!!  I will be back in this weekend and am looking forward to new teacher workshops the end of next week!  The kiddos will be here before I know it! :)  I'll leave you with some pictures...

 Still need to work on organizing/categorizing my books, but they look good in their baskets!

Until next time!!!!
Mrs. Clough

Beginnings of a Classroom!

First of all, welcome to Mrs. Clough's 2nd grade classroom!  Also, I want it to be known that I have never composed a blog before, so we will work through this together! :)

I am thrilled to be joining the Marian Independent School District, and more specifically, the staff at Starry Elementary!  To begin preparing to enter my classroom and put it together, I made a trip to the teacher "mega-store", The Learning Post, and purchased many things that I hope will make my classroom a welcoming and warm place!

On Monday, I made my first trip to Starry Elementary, and toured the building and entered my classroom for the very first time.  I was (and still am) excited, but felt a brief moment of panic, as the room was pretty bare!!!

I sat for quite some time, trying to visualize how I wanted to arrange and organize my room.  I could not locate a stapler, tape, or tacky, so after going through some things and making a list of what I needed to still get, I decided to call it a day! :)  Although, Mrs. Tank (a fellow 2nd grade teacher), graciously came in to school to go over some curriculum and general questions I had!  I believe I am going to be working with a GREAT team!

Today I made a trip to school to meet with the other 2nd grade teachers, and I truly am looking forward to beginning the year with these wonderful ladies! I also worked on getting some fabric and borders up no my bulletin boards.  It at least is beginning to look like a teacher may teach in the room! :)  Slowly, but surely, I will make this a room where children will love to enter and be excited to learn!

I am heading back tomorrow, and thankfully will have an expert helper, my mom!  Hopefully some great progress will be made, so check back again!
Mrs. Clough