January 30, 2013

Cydney shared her poster and had thirty people in her house for Thanksgiving. She stated, "They were sleeping all our the house."  Her dog died of being in the sun too long.  She told us she was born on February 2, 2005.  WOW! her birthday is about to be here, can't wait to hear all about it.  Also she said, "This happened before I was born."  She demonstrated some dance moves and she looked cool modeling it for us. Her favorite singer is China Ann McClain.  Her favorite animal of all time is the monkey.  She went to Sea World at the water park she told us, "I had to wear a life jacket because the water was too deep." 
I am sorry about CGI math, it was funny to hear them tell me about my crazy mistake.  Thanks for letting me know, you all keep me on my toes.

Reading still poetry and creating mental images in our head. 
Math 2 digit addition and why we should try other strategies besides draw circles. We should show models of groups of tens not ones.  they seemed to love trying to write haiku's ask them to explain?  Then we completed our day with our Native American unit and discussing how Christopher Columbus made a mistake and discovered the wrong place and how the Indians are now called Native Americas, interesting how their minds light up when they hear something about history.

Music teachers wanted me to share

Dear parents and friends,

      

 The second grade class would like to invite you to A journey around

the world in song.  Our musical journey will take place on Tuesday,

February  5, 2013 at 6:30.    Please have your child arrive at 6:15 and

Meet  in the music room. (Mrs. Barker’s RM).     

        They should dress in a solid colored tee shirt of the Class

Country and blue jeans.    

Carlson:  S. Africa - Yellow

Duckworth: Mexico - Green

Marcano: Brazil- Green

Thomas: Sweden - Red

Wolfean: Japan-Red

Zahm: Laos- Blue

We look forward to seeing you on February 5^th.

Musically Yours,

Mrs. Barker and Mrs. Koenig

January 29, 2013

Today was another day filled with loads of learning.  We continued look and analyzing poems as a reader and writer.  We also continued exploring using models to help build our strategies for addition in math. I am trying to use the vocabulary to build understanding for math and reading, so they should be coming home trying to explain some difficult words.  Today we were using algorithm, stanzas, haiku, and line breaks.  These might be some new to you or you heard them.  Please see if they can explain tonight and even later this week.  During math we had a blast with our class visitor Mrs. Schultze came to explore two digit addition with us.  We had a blast modeling using base ten blocks, unfix cubes, and drawing a picture.  Then we closed our day with starting our Native American unit in Social Studies.
My Top Banana is Cydney, Nicholas had a great regin as a Top Banana, but it is time for a new head monkey.  They love this and I do too.  We learned that Cydney loves pizza and thinks it is yummy, I do too.  We found out she loves to dance and watches the show Jessie.  When asked why she enjoys the show she stated, "It is fun." 

January 28, 2013

I was here late last night and forgot to post this.  I came in this morning and noticed the computer still on, guess I was tried.  we had a fantastic day got through all the lessons, but was too busy at the end of the day.  We had Cafe reading and we got to meet in groups to discuss our book and we had a blast learning how to read poetry.  We learned the use of a line break helps us by giving the reader time to think about the poem.  Then we read poems with our buddies and even discussed mental pictures poems help create.  Then we began our new writing unit poetry.  We are looking at poems through the eyes of a poet.  We discussed how we as a writer need to use our mentor writers, published authors to help guide our writing.  The first topic of discussion was to explore how to come up with a big idea.  We need to look at the big idea through the eyes of a poet and come up a new look on it.  Then we began our unit on 2 digit addition and explore the algorithm or rules to follow for solving addition problems.  We got out our Base ten blocks to model our strategies.  Then we closed our day with spelling, we are studying plurals.  We will look at them deeper next week.

January 24, 2013

Today was a crazy kind of day. However, we did get to all lessons.  We began off with cafe time for reading and went right into our writing subject books.  We are working on how to read and understand poems.  We are learning how to take notes while reading, and using them to communicate with our reading buddy.  Then we did math with addition and mental math.  We also tried to get a math test complete, which they could not study for.  We will be completing our fraction unit in math tomorrow.  Then we are moving to mental math with addition and subtraction using two digit numbers. We visited and walked the lunch room to see the science fair projects.  Ask them which ones they thought were excellent? 

January 23, 2013

"WOW!" she remembered I know you are thinking this.  I did I did remember to post about our day.  The students had a great day we made it through all activities.  Also please make sure to take care of yourself, kids and parents.  There must be something going around, because many are not feeling well.  I am loving my new behavior system, ask the students about their new "Greatness" we are keeping track of?  We are starting our new genre study on poetry we learned about breaks and why it is important to focus on punctuation marks.  Ask them why they should use these and how do they help us as a reader?  They should say because it helps us to understand what the author means when we stop and think about what they have written.  We have two more days on our all about subject books to get them published.  We worked on fractions and how to measure if they are closer to zero, half, or one.  Please review with them and have them give you some math problems.  Then we learned about natural resources, we wrote what we think and we will write what we learned from our video.  You could ask them to describe the video to you.  

Then to close our day we heard form Nicholas our Top Banana.  He described his four animals, oh my yes four.  He has a bird, hamster, dog, and a hermit crab.  He He was six years old when he got his hermit crab.  Also he told us,"I think it is really cool because they have purple pincher's."  he reported that, "We do not collect the shell we buy new ones when he gets too big." His hamster was named after the lion in the Lion King, Samba.  I thought that was special because this is one of Ms. Wolfean's favorite movie. 

January 22, 2013

Okay, okay, I know I am awful.  I have been horrible about updating.  I am restarting over from now and I will try to not forget to post the blog.

Today we had a new top banana, Nicholas and Courtney was awesome. 
Since I forgot to post on the blog I wanted to inform you about what Courtney shared with us.  Courtney describe her bike last week and stated, "It is fun and pink!"  This was why she liked her bike, when asked by another student.  She also told us she is the middle child because she has an older sister and a younger sister.  "They both attend Gaitts Elementary, and I love them" she replied when someone asked about them.  She reported she loves all her dogs and Daisy is her favorite right now.  She loves Christmas because it is her favorite and "I get presents!"  She has a hard time sharing because she is shy and does not like to talk in front of the class.  I think she found her voice this week.

Today was a great day filled with lots of learning, we completed most of our tasks.  We started in Cafe reading and discussed connections and how to take notes on them while reading.  Then we were luck and headed to the library.  We know we have a new reading program for Six Flags.  We also learned how to take reading tests on the computer using our library books.  This will help them raise their comprehension in reading.  They need to read their library books with a sticker on the binding.  These are the books they use.  Please ask them where is there book?  Here is a picture of the sticker.  Also we did a new kind of CGI it will involve subtracting.  Please make sure they are explaining how they solve not just what strategy.  We them finished our day with continuing to study all about our natural resources.

January 14 and 15

I am busy and just remembered I need to continue to post our day.  I promise I put myself in time out and made sure I did have study hall. 

Courtney is our new Top Banana she discussed about how one of her four dogs just had a puppy.   The new addition to their family is Daisy, she fits into your palm.  Then she shared she has two sisters and they both attend Gattis.  Courtney is the middle child, and is shy.  I am very proud of the fact she shared today.  Sage forgot his show in tell and we will allow him to do that as soon as he remembers!! 
Now for the past two days I have been teaching in reading cafe strategies to help build comprehension.  We have been working on summary.  We have been looking for the who, when, where, why, did what and to make a complete summary we must add the events to our story.  There are normally five events to add.  We are record our findings and practicing how to locate these things in our chapter books and small readers.  We have working on fractions again this work.  The skill which is hard for them is comparing fractions as part of the group.  For example if there are 8 ladybugs color 1/4 of them?  You might want to work on this at home.  We will be completing our rock unit and are moving into natural resources unit.  The students have been loving the study of Jan Brett and are enjoying the activities to build from.  Ask them about her books and please visit her web site.

January 8, 2013

I love blogging everyday it helps me reflect how I can make the day better for the students.  Please ask them tomorrow what new behavior incentive I have started?  I hope you all find it fantastic and the students get excited. 

We shared Sage's poster, he is our new Top Banana.  He shared about how he loves to play soccer and has been playing for many years.  I want to hear more about his trips he has been on because today he reported he has been to California and San Diego.  What a lucky child, he told us he loved Lego Land.  I look forward to hearing more from him tomorrow.

Today we started off with Reading Cafe and completed that task in flying colors.  We then visited Mrs. Wallingford and she shared an excellent book.  You should ask your child to take you to see and hear it?  Yes, it is on the Library Website, please let me know if you do?  We then came back for a small amount of writing, but did not have much time because we had to have recess. Then we moved into math and continued to discuss fractions, and had a new CGI math problem.  After lunch we completed math CAFE time and had a great time working with friends in our groups.  We finished up our day with science and began our lesson on rocks, stayed tuned for tomorrow's update.

January 7, 2013

Man what a day, we had a great time getting back in touch with one another.  We had a fantastic time cleaning out our desk drawers, and changing seats.  We are now in a new year with a new attitude and a fresh start.  You might have seen a lot of papers come home, I sent all papers done or not home.  I decided lets start all over and begin on new feet.  I really missed all my little monkeys and wished we could have spent more time talking and sharing.  We will tomorrow because I forgot letting those who did their reindeer journals a chance to read them.  We will for sure read them and share their vacation time with me.  We started our day reviewing CAFE reading time and getting back in to reading mode.  Then we met with our friends about our books.  We also listened to Ms. Wolfean read The Gingerbread Baby by: Jan Brett.  She is our new author study, we are investigating her books to help us gain reading strategies.  We are working on comprehension.  We then moved on to writing and continued from where we left off working on our all about books.  Then we moved on to math and began our unit on fractions.  We discussed equal parts, whole, and equal share.  Please ask them what this means?  Then we were to share about Sage, we ran out of time.  We will do this tomorrow twice to make up for my memory lose and lack of time.  Please forgive me Sage?