Brady, Doubles, and Frontier Football!!

Fun Friday started with the rhythm stick greeting and today's question: Who has checked the blog from home? We noticed 12 "no" and 6 "yes" responses. I can't wait to share with all you parents out there exactly how the blog works. We visited Ms. Kidder in computers this morning and after that it was writing workshop where we learned about analogies. We also learned to proofread the second grade way, while paying close attention to our spelling rule, short a vowel sounds!
In math we reviewed our learning about doubles facts. We remembered important vocabulary (sum, equation, addend) and listened to a great story by Lily Hong called "Two Of Everything". After that we were ready to create our own doubles riddle book! Fun! After math we were visited by a new student athlete from the Frontier football team, Brian! Brian read with us and shared his secrets to being a dedicated athlete while keeping up with his studies and homework! Impressive Brian! We also played one of our favorite games with Brian, Boppity bop bop bop!
We ended the day with one very special VIP, Brady! We learned even more about what an awesome kid he is, how important his family is to him, and about his super cool cowboy boots!! Well done Brady! Hope to see you at the Sunderland Fall Festival Saturday, tomorrow! Don't let a little rain keep you from partaking in the fun! Happy Weekend friends!

Doubles, Fun/Run, and a Very Red Eft!!

Howdy Friends! OK... so here's why YOU wish YOU had MY job! Seriously, what a great day! It started out rainy, VERY rainy, but we succeeded in having our first Fun Run/Walk of the year thanks to Nurse Jeannie and the weather! We started our day with a great meeting, "slap it, shoot it, ka-boot it" greeting, "Sandwiches", and (later in the day) the clothespin game! We did our first word sort (with short a vowel sounds), and learned how to do "Ed Emberly" (a sequencing activity fusing art, sequencing, and following directions in one fun activity)!! We took a short break to watch a "coughing" video. That's right we watched how to cough safely into your fabric covered arm to limit the spread of germs. Who wants their neighbors cooties? Not me!
Alena shared one super cool newt (maybe a salamander?) called a red eft. It was very red, very little, and very cool! Thanks Alena! Mother Nature has truly created some amazing creatures, and the red eft is certainly one of them! In math we reviewed what we've learned about equations, math facts, number sentences (algebraic style), and learned about DOUBLES!! We learned a new word today, "addend". That's the official math word for the digits that we're actually adding together! We LOVE super cool official math lingo! After practicing with doubles, the clouds parted, and we were ready for our first Fun Run/Walk! Our whole school community gathered together and essentially "stopped" in house schooling for some outdoor exercise, fresh air, social connections, and tasty apple treats (thanks to Ms. Palmer)! We ran a new, super safe route around our school and were joined by many visitors, Cali's Mom was one of them! While the route was a bit wet, we were undeterred, and completed no less that 6 to 9 laps around! WOW! Friends really got their running "groove" on, and I think we made Nurse Jeannie quite proud! I know I sure was! Can't wait for the next one! Awesome day friends. Homework due tomorrow. See you on fun Friday!

Scientific Observations!

Oops! Forgot the camera at school today, so no pictures until tomorrow! None the less, it was a busy day in second grade! We started our morning meeting with the pinky handshake greeting, singing in rounds (NOT easy...) and fixing up spelling sentences! Writing a proper sentence is a very important skill we will learn in second grade. We started one of our first ongoing science projects in second grade with our bulb observations! After a short video on plant life cycles, we examined our bulbs the way a scientist would. Taking care to notice every little detail. Then it was time to write our observations! So, what's an observation? It's what you see, what you notice, describing what something looks like or behaves like! Lucky for us, our bulbs were very well behaved, and pretty much just sat there while we drew and wrote about them! Thank you bulbs! Quiet reading was full of more books by Marc Brown, Diary of a Wimpy Kid books, and a new nonfiction favorite, animal fact books! We worked on spelling sentences and making corrections on our original work. Writing is a process, and it's very important that we learn how to reread our writing, and make sure it's written properly (capitals, punctuation, proper spelling of word wall words) and ... make it INTERESTING! We're studying short a vowel sound and how to spot it in words (especially in cvc, or consonant, vowel, consonant words) so all our spelling words have short a vowel sound! We also used our spelling words to practice rhyme, phonics and letter substitution, and even ABC order! Well done second graders!
Lola ran a spirited math meeting with lots of money counting and weather graphing! Well done Lola! We practiced more equation writing (using our math facts to 10) and learned that a math sentence can have the "sum" in the front! WHAT???? You mean, you can actually write an equation that starts with the sum... like 10=6+4!!! WOW! You don't always have to start your sentence with the addends (the 6+4 part)... this BLEW OUR MINDS!!! Wait until we learn that 5+5=2+8. WHOAH!!!! Awesome! We had fun with more energizers (the mullet and corn, to be exact). tomorrow is library day, library books please!

Dino-Man and Lola's Math Meeting!!

Greetings Friends! We started our day in the Jurassic period with Dino-Man!! Brontosaurus balloons filled the gymnasium as we listened to Dino Man tell us all about dinosaurs! Thanks to our awesome SES PTO for great enrichment programs like this! Pretty amazing! We practiced spelling sentences with our spelling words, and learned how to sort our spelling words the second grade way. Quiet reading was.... very quiet, and full of readers... just the way we like it! Lola hosted her very first math meeting today, special thanks to the amazing super math helper Jake for all the preparation too! Great team work! It was pocket day in math today and that's exactly what we did, count pockets! We recorded all our pockets, and noticed we had 18 numbers to add! YIKES! Soooo, what do you do when you have a bunch of numbers to add together? You find "friendly" numbers, or "easy" numbers that work together! Like doubles (4+4, or my favorite double, 9+9). Some more easy numbers are "teenager" numbers! Like 10+6=16... teenager! 10+3=13... teenager! 10+9=19... another TEENAGER! We also noticed combinations of numbers that equal 10 are ALWAYS FRIENDLY! Thinking in terms of ten is always GREAT mathematical thinking!! And, like we say in 2W, when you're thinking, you're winning!!! Our first pocket day was so much fun, and we can't wait for our next pocket day! We ended our day learning another work board center called "independent" work. We talked about what "independent" means, and how everyone may have different work in this learning center. Working independently means working all by yourself and the work will be tailored just for you! PE was hot, but lots of fun today! Another PE day tomorrow, sneakers please!