Fluency Friday

Fluency Station

The students enjoyed using the Fluency Station. There are four activities to choose from:

• Expression Passages- The students must read the passage using the emotion the spinner indicates.
• Interview Flip Books- One student is the interviewer and the other is the interviewee. The students loved using the microphone!
• Fluency Reading Books- The reader may choose a fiction, nonfiction, or poetry book to read. The other student uses a checklist to provide feedback to the reader.
• Fluency Sliders- The students read common passages using a slider. The other student times them for a minute. The reader tries to see how many sliders he can read in one minute.

Interview Flip Book

Expression Passages

The students also listened to A Picture Book of Abraham Lincoln. Listening to fluent readers also helps students with their fluency.

We are ready for Dr. Seuss Week!

We love Dr. Seuss!

Second Grade Program

Mrs. Bushong's Class

The Second Grade Program was wonderful! The students did an awesome job. The stage deorations were unbelievable and they were all made by Ms. Rogers!

Fluency Friday

Today we practiced our patriotic poems which we will perform for one another on President's Day.  We also sang some patriotic songs. Another class favorite book is Yankee Doodle. We have fun singing it and the illustrations are wonderful.

We made scrap paper flags and decorated our graham cracker flags. The edible flags were so cute and they were delicious!

We used white baking chips for the stars and pull-n-peel twizzlers for the stripes. 

The Red, White, and Blue!

We have been learning a lot of information about our flag. This week we read The Red, White and Blue-The Story of our Flag in our reading book. The students chose their favorite facts and wrote and illustrated them in their response journals. We are currently doing a writing unit that teaches us how to write about our reading. This was a great story to practice that skill. Our comprehension skill this week is fact and opinion. This concept is difficult for some students. Today, we made a T- Chart and brainstormed all the facts and opinions we could think of about the American flag.

America Theme Wall

Reading About History

We are also learning about our country's history in Social Studies. We have learned about the American Revolution and George Washington.

Writing About History

We are currently reading The Magic Tree House - Revolutionary War on Wednesday. The Magic Tree House books are so wonderful because they incorporate factual text in the books. We learn facts about history as we travel through time with Jack and Annie. These books are wonderful for second graders!

Another favorite of ours is George Washington's Teeth. George had bad teeth all his life. Did you know he had only two teeth when he crossed the Delaware? He had only one tooth when he became president! Poor George!








We drew portraits of George Washington. This was a directed art activity.

Portraits of George Washington

Tomorrow we will be reading patriotic poems. We will also be making edible flags with graham crackers and twizzlers! I will be posting pictures of our creations so stay tuned!

iPod Grant

It is amazing how a grant can change everything you do. I received a grant for five iPod Touches from the Shawnee Education Foundation.  Needless to say, the students love the iPods and they are a great learning tool. I never imagined that they would have such an impact on the things we do daily. There are so many apps to compliment our curriculum and to practice skills. I cannot imagine my class without iPods!

 Two months ago I would never have dreamed that I could navigate my way through making a classroom blog. Now I am finding myself wanting to post pictures of my class all the time!  I am using the iPods to record the things we do in class and share them with whoever would like to join us on our learning journey.  A HUGE shout-out to Shawnee Education Foundation! You have touched many lives!

Nonfiction Unit

This is a picture of our theme wall. We just finished our Penguin Unit. We studied the text structure of nonfiction books, we compared nonfiction and fiction books, and we learned how to determine importance from a nonfiction book. We also studied fiction books. We compared stories by the same author and we retold the stories we read by writing in our response journals.

We are continuing to study nonfiction this week. The snow days really changed the timeline of this study. This week we are reading a nonfiction book about frogs by Gail Gibbons. The students made the outline of their report before the snow days and took them home to work on them.

We will move on to our America Unit next week!

I have a blog!

Four days of no school and reading  hundreds of blogs have convinced me I need a blog. Don't know the first thing about maintaining a blog- but I think I can learn. I am so excited to go to school tomorrow!
Here goes!
Thanks blizzard of 2011!

My sons and a friend playing in the snow!

Contact

You can contact me at rmbushong@shawnee.k12.ok.us

About

I am very lucky to teach wonderful children every day. I have been teaching for 22 years. This is my 12th year to teach second grade. I taught third grade for 10 years. I graduated from Oklahoma State University with a Bachelor's Degree in Elementary Education. I received my Master's Degree in Early Childhood Education from the University of Central Oklahoma.  I became a National Board Certified Teacher in 2006. I have twin boys, Aaron and Austin, who are seniors in high school. I have been married to the best husband in the world for 24 years!