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 :)
Thursday, August 30, 2012
Wednesday, August 29, 2012
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!
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
Tuesday, August 28, 2012
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
We decorated our composition notebooks.
From Mrs. Clough:
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
Monday, August 27, 2012
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
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!
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.
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
Thursday, August 23, 2012
A Little More About the 3rd Day of School!
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).
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
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
Wednesday, August 22, 2012
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!).
Some of the highlights of our day included:
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
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