A Great Class!

I am enjoying this class so much! They are such hard workers and they love to read! Here is a peek at some of our activities.

Aliyah- Working with Words

Emma -Working with Words

Darius -Working with Words

Dylan and Tarin- Partner Reading

Hailey and Macy working on writing

Emily-Working with Words

Clint, Hayden, and Andrew partner reading

Word Work

Alex and Mariah partner reading

JUST FOR FUN  PICTURES!

Welcome to our room!

Our Meeting Area

Back to School Books and Book Boxes

Reading Vocabulary and Strategy Wall
Math/Reading Station  Materials

Small Group Area

Mailboxes and Writing Area

Writing Notebooks and Materials

Front Door and Schedule

Sink Area

Teacher Area

Rocket Math

Word Work Area

Math Vocabulary and Math Station  Board

Computers 

Library

CAFE Board

view from back of room

view from front of room

Math Calendar

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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I Knew it was Spring

Painting Word Pictures
In writing we have been discussing how writers use words to help readers visualize what is happening in the text. We have discussed how we use "wow" words in our writing to paint pictures in a reader's mind.
We practiced painting word pictures by writing a poem about spring.

Painting Word Pictures was a series of three minilessons.  We started the poem with a writing framework based on the days of the week. The first day we closed our eyes and made a picture in our minds about what we see in the spring. We finished each line in the poem with a noun.

On day two we revisited our poems and revised them by adding on details at the end of each line. We added a verb and a "where","when", or "how".

On day three, we revisited the same poem and discussed adding adjectives and other descriptors to  our poems. We revised our poems by "pushing in" a word right before our noun.

And-that is how we know it is spring!

I knew it was spring when I received a beautiful bouquet of flowers from a student!