Fun in the Sun!

Wow! We had so much fun today on our Beach Day! Even though the sky was cloudy, we pretended we were on the beach on a sunny day! We took our beach towels, books, and sunglasses outside to read. We read for about 20 minutes then we took a break and played a beach ball game. We named a number then we counted as we passed the ball around and if you had the ball when  that number was said you were out of the game and moved to the middle of the circle. We counted by 2's, 5's,  and 10's. We also played with days of the week and months of the year.

Then we played a relay game with our second grade buddies in Mrs. Loftis's class. We put all our shoes in a pile. Each student had to run to the pile, find and put on their shoes, and then run back and tag the next person. We won by a hair!

We were tired! We then ate our popsicles on our beach towels.

When we went inside, we started our writing project titled Second Grade was a Ball. The students colored a beach ball and then glued their writing on the ball. Next, they spread glue on  construction paper and sprinkled sand on the paper to resemble the beach. Then they glued their beach ball on the construction paper. It looked like the ball was sitting on the beach!

After lunch, we read some more on our beach towels. We were then ready to get our  real beach balls! The students chose their beach ball and then  had their second grade friends sign their beach balls.  It was so much fun! We ended our day by playing Go Fish and eating a snack of gold fish.

It is hard to believe we only have two days left! This year has flown by. I will miss this class very much. They are wonderful children!

Character Makes a Comeback!

A few years ago I wrote a grant for the Shawnee Education Foundation. The grant, Character Makes a Comeback, was for a video series titled The Six Pillars of Character.  The series teaches children essential character virtues with the Popcorn Park Puppets. In the videos the puppets become entangled in problems that require them to sort out right from wrong.  Each video has inspiring songs and delightful humor. They  provide a fun way to engage students in thinking, talking and writing about the kinds of people they want to be.

We watch the videos at the beginning of the year as we learn to become a caring classroom community and we revisit the videos throughout the year.  At this time of year, as the days wind down and our schedule becomes very busy, we sometimes forget how our actions and words affect one another.

We recently watched the program Respect. In this video, a little girl discovers that name-calling, teasing and put-downs are not good natured fun.

After watching the video, the students made a poster to teach other children about respect.

An acrostic poem about Respect

Make Every Day a Sunshine Day!

In the video the little girl learns that what goes around - comes around...how you treat people is how they usually treat you!

Using Kind Words

Free Character Education Resources:

www.goodcharacter.com

www.goodcharacer.com/popcornpark (songs and lyrics in the video)

www.charactercounts.org

Our Field Trip

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