Hugs from Room 403!

Last week my kids and I enjoyed a LOVEly Valentine party!  My kids know how to have a great time!  Take a look for yourself...

We made Valentine bags...

 

 

 

 

 

We also made yummy sundaes! 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We passed out Valentine cards and sweet treats to our friends...

 

 

 

 

A HUGE Thank You to these wonderful moms!  They were such a big help in making this an enjoyable day for the children!

 

I also want to thank my sweet children for the precious candies and thoughtful gifts that were given to me for Valentine's Day.  I cannot thank you enough for thinking about me on this special day!
I also want to thank Mrs. Lizz Pearson for the Lindor White Chocolate Truffles she brought me Friday...I had a battle with the dust bunnies in room 403 Saturday morning, and those truffles helped pulled me through!  BTW I won the battle!!  LOL!!!

 

Now let's look at what lies ahead for this week!  We will be working on plot and theme for another week as our comprehension skill. 

 



 

We listened to the read aloud, Rainbow Fish, and completed a tri-fold where we wrote and illustrated the plot of the story.

 

 

 

 

 

We then extended this activity with a comparing a contrasting writing activity.  We listened to the read-aloud, Big Al, and compared and contrasted the characters from both stories.

 

We first completed a Venn Diagram about the two characters.

 

 

 

 

Then, we used our Venn Diagram and wrote two paragraphs about our two characters.  The first paragraph tells our readers how the characters are different.  The second paragraph tells our readers how the characters are alike.

 

 

 

(Click on the pictures for a better view!)

 

 



 

 

 

 

In grammar, we are still learning about adverbs.  Last week, we learned how adverbs can tell when and where.  This week, we are learning how adverbs can tell how.

 

 

 

In math, we are learning how to count money.  The children absolutely love learning how to count money!  They are able to use manipulatives in order to learn how to count money.  Please make sure when you help your child with homework, you only work a few problems each night.  Having your child count coin combinations each night will help so much! 

 

In science we are continuing our unit on animal characteristics.  I have some really great activities that we've completed in class to share with you really soon! 

 

 

We will be having our reading/language arts assessments on Friday due to the 4 day week! 

 

 

If you ever have any questions or concerns please feel free to call the school office and leave a message for me. I will return your call as soon as I can.  I hope everyone has a wonderful week!





 

 

 



 

 



 



 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



AWeSomE AdjeCtiveS and MoRe

This week we finished learning about adjectives.  The children completed an activity of drawing a picture of an animal and writing 4 or 5 adjectives to describe it.  Take a look at some examples of their outstanding work.  The details and creativity absolutely amazed me!  I hope you enjoy these pictures as much as I do!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



We also worked on comparative and superlative adjectives last week.  We completed this sorting activity I downloaded from the Teachers pay Teachers website.

 

 

Our vocabulary skill last week was suffixes.  We completed this activity sheet with suffixes -ly, -ful, -ness, and -less.

 

 

OH MY!  6 more weeks of winter!!  My children and I were not happy to hear that!  My children listened to the read - aloud, Geoffrey Groundhog Predicts the Weather, by Bruce Koscielniak.  We then connected this story to our comprehension skill, fact and opinion, for last week.  We completed a groundhog sort in partner groups!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Next week I will be out for trainings on Monday and Thursday.  Although I will miss my children, I am looking forward to learning new strategies that I can incorporate into my classroom teaching to benefit my students.  Testing will still be on Thursday.  Here is the learning line up for next week:

 

Phonics skill:  compound words and syllable patterns

Reading:  The Night the Moon Fell with the comprehension skill plot and theme

Vocabulary skill:  multiple meaning words
Math:  working with subtracting with three-digit numbers
   ** Test on Topic 11 Adding and Subtracting Three Digit Numbers will be on Friday, February 14
Science:  Animal Characteristics

 

I am so excited about our unit on animals.  I have a lot of great activities planned for this unit.  Keep checking for these activities posted on our blog!  

 





 

Don't you just love Charlie and Snoopy!!  Just a reminder that our Valentine Party is not scheduled with the other classes at PLES.  Since I will be out for training on Thursday, our class party is scheduled for Wednesday, February 12 at 12:15.  Children are allowed to bring Valentine cards to exchange on this day!  I am really looking forward to enjoying this day with my students!

WheRe WiLL yoUr ImagInAtioN taKe YoU?

I hope everyone had a nice little break last week!  BBBBRRRR!  Talk about some cold weather, right?  It was great getting back to school to see my sweet kids! 
Last week we finished up our inventors unit.  The children thought about a toy they would like to invent.  They completed a toy invention application form. Then they designed an ad for their toy.   I was blown away by their awesome ideas!  Here are just a few of their toy inventions...be prepared to be absolutely amazed!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Amazing!!!!

 

We have been learning about adjectives in grammar.  We learned how adjectives describe nouns.  We worked with adjectives that use our senses.  Adjectives that describe how a noun sounds, smells, tastes, looks, and feels.  We also worked with adjectives that tell about number, size, and shape. 

Each table worked together to complete these really fun sheets I found on the Teachers Pay Teachers website!  The children had to name adjectives that described the feet or shoes on their sheet.  They then had to write a story about their feet or shoes using their adjectives.  Some of the students got to read their stories to the class.  Here are some of the students' work...

 

 

 

 

 

We have also been working on comparative and superlative adjectives.  When we compare 2 nouns we add -er to our adjective (comparative).  When we compare more than 2 nouns we add -est (superlative).  Here is an activity where the children chose an adjective, wrote the comparative and superlative forms, wrote a sentence using each form, and drew pictures illustrating each sentence.  WOW!!!  That's a lot of great skills compiled into one activity.  That's a piece of cake for the children in room 403!!

 

 

Our comprehension skill this week has been fact and opinion.  I read the story, Stellaluna by Janell Cannon.  We then read statements about the story and sorted them by fact and opinion.  The children worked very hard on this activity.  Fact and opinion isn't an easy skill, but my children seem to be understanding it!

 

 

 

 

                                                   

 

 

I have much, much more to share with you!  I will be back hopefully tomorrow to share even more activities from our classroom! 

 

Some important notes I want to share with you before I sign off...

 * My second graders will be taking the performance series test this Friday (Feb. 7th) beginning at 8:15.  Please make sure your child is present and on time.  If your child cannot be present on this day, I will make arrangements for her/him to take the test before the testing window closes.

 *  I will be absent from school on Monday, February 10 and Thursday, February 13 for training.  The trainings I will be attending will be wonderful opportunities for me to learn new teaching strategies that I can utilize in my classroom to help benefit student learning. 

 

ALSO...

 

       

Our Valentine's party will be on Wednesday, February 12 at 12:30.  If you can send in an item for this party please send in the red sheet signed with your child's name on it as soon as possible.  I will be sending item requests home by Friday (Feb. 7th).  Thank you all for helping with our parties this year!

 

Please check our classroom blog again very soon to see other activities we are working on in our room!

      

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hard Work is Paying Off!

 

Greetings from room 403!  I hope everyone is staying warm these days!  BBBRRRRR!!!  Things are busy as ever for our second graders.  This week we are working on syllables consonant + le.  The children are really catching on to this!  We worked on a story named Trifle and then the children worked together to find all of the words containing the syllable consonant + le.  They did very well on this activity!
We are learning how to draw conclusions and make inferences in reading comprehension this week. 

 

 

We listened to a read aloud today titled, Tuesday, by David Wiesner.

 

 

It is such an awesome book!  There are no words in this book just pictures.  The children had the best time making predictions and drawing conclusions!

 

Another book we will be reading this week is What Would You Do with a Tail Like This?, by Steve Jenkins and Robin Page.

 

 

 

The children are going to love this book!  I cannot wait for them to draw conclusions throughout this book.  I love listening to their ideas.  Many times they have ideas that are wonderful and I have not even thought of!  They are so smart!

 

We are continuing to work with place value to 1,000 in math.  We will be assessing this topic Thursday and Friday this week.  Here is an anchor chart that the children can refer to during this topic.

 

 

 

We also added several entries to our journals this week. 

 

 

 

 

We will be finishing up our inventors unit in social studies.  We learned about Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Edison, Alexander Graham Bell, and the Wright Brothers.  We learned how their inventions and hard work affected us!  The children are now bringing in AR books all about inventors.  It is GREAT!

 

 

 

We started learning about a timeline about great inventions in history.  This was a great way to connect math to social studies. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We learned many interesting facts from a power point and several American Hero videos from the Discovery Education website. 

 

 

 

 

 

The children wrote the facts they learned in their social studies journals.

 

 

 

Our second graders are really working hard, and the hard work is really paying off.  I am so proud of my students!

 

 

 

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year everyone!  I know this blog entry is a little late, but I still hope you have a wonderful new year.  I'm looking forward to starting 2014 with your children!  Well, it is back to school and back to work.  Due to a very cold and short week for us, we will be taking our assessments from last week...this week!  All of our language arts and reading assessments will be Tuesday, January 14.  We will also start our unit 3 test Tuesday.  I cannot believe we are wrapping up unit 3.  This year is going by way too fast!
Place value to 1,000 is what we are learning in math.  The children are really doing a great job working hard with his topic and its many lessons!  It will be at least a week before we take a test on this topic.
We are learning about inventors in social studies.  One of my students said it was like "time traveling" which I thought was a very creative way to think about it.  I love to see my students so eager to learn about these inventors.  They seem to really enjoy this social studies unit.  I cannot wait to complete the activity I have planned for them at the end of this lesson.  They are going to love it!  I will share it as soon as my students have completed it.  It's going to be great!  I will be back at the end of the week to share some pics of activities completed in class! I will also be sharing skills and concepts we will be learning next week.  Until then, I hope everyone has a wonderful week!