It's Only Tuesday

Alright, so like I said previously we have started our money unit! It is so fun to see what they know and how well they are grasping the new concept! The lessons we teach are broke down daily, so our focus today was counting nickels and pennies. It was fun to challenge my different level groups in different ways! 

Big Books are such a BIG hit during our Daily 5 routine. I just introduced this new choice during read to someone earlier this week. The kids are digging the stories and doing great reading aloud with their partner. I feel like they are really building up their fluency! 

I must brag about this art project...I am OBSESSED with it! When the kids came back from recess they were like, "Oh no! Is that our art project?" They were pleasantly surprised when they watched me create this piece and saw how simple it actually was. They all turned out AMAZING. I don't have a picture of them all together but they all seriously look just like mine! They are brilliant little artists. :) 

On a side note--I sent home progress reports Monday, they need to be signed and returned ASAP! I also sent home our conferences time slot sheet today, on a purple piece of paper. Please get them turned in ASAP as well so I can get you in at the time selected! Thank ya!! 

Coming Up!

Hello all!

I just want to throw out there what we have planned for this coming week! This week we will be doing our winter MAPS testing on the computers! I have planned for Monday we will do the math test, and Wednesday reading!

Some fun topics we will be starting this week will be our money unit in math, singular and plural possessive nouns, endangered species, cause and effect in stories, and the 100th day of school writing project! Yes Friday is our 100th Day of second grade!! I can NOT believe it. This year sure is flying by..

See ya tomorrow kiddos!!

-Miss E☺

PS Start thinking about your Valentine's Day boxes! Here are a couple ideas I saw on pinterest the other day! I will be sending home a sheet with some info because we will be having a classroom competition!

Random Acts of Kindness Month

February is known as "Random Acts of Kindness Month". To start off the loving season I decided to have kids draw a name of a classmate. They had to think of three positive good things about that classmate and write one on each heart to post on their locker! I love spreading the love, and I really love that I had the kids keep it a secret. They loved going out and reading what was said about them! 

Here are just a couple examples up close. . . 

We launched a new unit in our WIN time with Miss Spee and Mrs. Nelson. We will be talking about endangered species. I thought it might be interesting for you to see the way in which we tell the kids what their final product will be when we start them project. Below is their goal that they look at each day! Sometimes I don't think people realize how AMAZING these kids are with the level of knowledge they use! As I would tell the kids...they are AWESOME-SAUCE! 

Our buddy brought in some cool things from home today! In our launch text we talked about beach combing and this kiddo LOVES sharks and had some neat things to share!

I love setting the timer and having the kiddos roam the room and solve some questions with a partner.  Today I let them choose a partner from their pod to answer comprehension questions to a short video about ground hogs day! 

Lastly, Check out our new door! :) Took the kids a minute to understand it! 

Let's hope to have a happy Fri-YAY tomorrow! We will kick off our day with a math test on telling time! I did send home some little games for fun and practice tonight! 

Catch up..

Here are a few things we have been working on..last week we did this fun art project with water colors. One of my students came up to me and showed me theirs and said they wiped it to the side with paper towel. WOW did it look cool! The kids all decided they wanted theirs to be "smeared" too! 

I love teamwork in the classroom. It is fun to see them working so hard in different areas of the room. Desks are to boring to do ALL of our work in! 

 We are just starting our unit on TIME this week. This is a challenging concept for some kids. Today we worked on quarter to and quarter after! Please practice with your child to get them using that skill daily!

They begged me to record them so we could put their new song on the blog! We love learning via music style! Plural nouns are now stuck in my head! 

Today's art project was a hoot! I had made this fish below and when I opened it all the kids facial expressions were SO funny. They let out a gasp and giggle. Below are some of their works of art! 

I also sent home report cards today! They are in a white envelope in the kids homework folders. I also sent home a signature form about the students being on the internet at school. They NEED to bring these back ASAP or they will be cut from being on our computer systems (boo, no fun) 

Have a great weekend!! 

-Miss E

Friday...

In our last post I posted a couple posed pictures of a few kiddos! Well...did you make your guess as to what we were creating? The kids have been working on a writing called "If I were Stuck In a Snow globe". 

I just got all of my guided math resources labeled and on the shelf! We are in the middle of our measurement unit which has been such a blast for the kids! They are so engaged by this unit. 

Last Friday we had four different types of math tests to take. It was a lot and we took mini break break between and after we finished. The first brain break was a teamwork skill! I had all the kids lay down and link arms. Then together they had to got from laying down to standing up all while staying linked to the person next to them! 

Here is the video of the results....:) 

Finally after we finished all those tests I introduced, "Zen Time". For 5 minutes I shut out the lights and turn on relaxing music. They can go anywhere in the room and relax for five minutes. Some of them grabbed a stuffed animal and propped it under their head, while others were sprawled out on their stomachs with their eyes closed. Once their five minutes was up I turned on one light and gave them a "Zen Challenge". They were put into groups of 6 and had to sort the papers they just turned in into alphabetical order...all while staying in ZEN mode! It was awesome and they did great!

Crushing It...

What a week! We have been busy! Yesterday we started our cursive unit, and I love how excited the kids are! Yesterday we started our "Rockin' Round" letters! We have now learned our cursive a and d. 

In writing we have been working on topic sentences and closing sentences. This actually was a tough thing to teach to the kids and I ended up having everyone start over after creating a story together on the smart board! I started something new called, "Quiet 10" which is where I set the timer for ten minutes and play smooth jazz music with no words. During this time the kids do their writing and can't talk unless they raise their hands for questions. I was so excited while I walked around and saw the big improvement of fresh good ideas and detailed writing!  Below is a video of our first time doing the Quiet 10!

I was so excited because when the timer went off all the kids went...awwww :( I am so excited they loved this nice quiet relaxing writing time. 

Can you guess what our writing project may be about with a couple of these pictures??? Hmmmm...

Lastly the kids have been getting their math fact sheet every night for homework! As a teacher I noticed that we were pretty slow on solving even simple math equations! This is an easy quick thing to do for homework each night. 

Happy Holidays...

Sorry on the late post for Christmas!! I bunched together some pictures and videos from our last week of school to share! I hope everyone had a great Holiday season and enjoyed their extra day off thanks to our big snow storm! Can't wait to see the kids tomorrow!!