Monday and Tuesday Posts!

From Brayson:
I had a good time in math today.

From Chase:
We had a great day and a fun time.

From Mrs. Clough:
First I want to apologize for not getting to you last night! We had a crazy busy day here in 2nd grade.  Lots of learning and fun activities going on!  Over the weekend and while I was gone on Friday, ALL of our caterpillars turned into chrysalises!

I stayed late yesterday to transfer all of our chrysalises into the net so that when they hatch, the butterflies will fill our cage!  :)  The kids were excited to see this today.

We have been doing lots of new activities and "investigations" in math dealing with money.  We are learning and making observations about all of the coins and how they can be traded to make other equivalent amounts.  Today we played a game with partners called "Collect 25cents".  It was quite fun. I even played a little bit too!

In Shared Reading, we have begun talking about SCHEMA.  Everyone's schema is different but it is all about being able to make connections to what we're reading and building to/adding to our OWN schema.  We have read two stories so far, Hazel's Amazing Mother and Koala Lou to begin our discussions and work with making connections.  We are beginning with text to self connections.  When you are reading with your child at home, ask him or her to make a connection to the story you are reading!  We have practiced this a lot already and have also done some writing activities to go along with it.

Today we also took some time to talk about how historic September 11th is.  Without getting into many details, we talked about why we celebrate, or remember, September 11th as Patriot Day.  I chose to share the book September 12th: We Knew Everything Would Be All Right.  It is a book that was written by a group of 1st graders in Missouri and does an excellent job of addressing the events of 9/11/01 in an extremely kid-friendly way.  I then took some time for questions and discussion, without getting into many details because I recognize it is a very sensitive topic, especially at a young age when this is an event that happened before they were even born!  Regardless, I hope everyone was able to take a moment today to reflect on the events that occurred 11 years ago today.  

A couple of reminders:

*Tomorrow, September 12th, is an EARLY RELEASE AT 1:40PM...please note the time change (it is different from last year)

*School Picture packets and information went home today.  You are not required to buy your child's school pictures.  However, if you would like to, please fill out the information and send your money with your child to school on or before Wednesday, September 26th!

Thank You!  Check back again tomorrow!

Mrs. Clough