Happy Memorial Day Weekend!!

Hope you all had a fun Friday (no doubt with Kristin and Ms. Cialek in the house)!! Hope you all enjoy the holiday weekend. See you Tuesday as we greet our Conway friends. Looking forward to sharing our building with our neighbors to the north!

No School!?

Holy moly, what a storm! I heard all about it in Tennessee. Hope our school is back in action soon, and that everyone is safe and sound at home and school! See you soon!

This Puts New Meaning to: "Bending over Backwards"!!!

Greetings Friends! A hot day in school today (80 degrees, to be exact... according to Autumn who read the thermometer with ease!!). It may have been hot, but we still got down to business in 2W! We finished our measurement unit in math with some "cup, pint, quart" review, but stretched our thinking to... "How many pints in a gallon? How many cups in a gallon?" Way to challenge yourselves! We also started a new work board with many fun literacy based jobs... including a little article on millipedes! Hope you like it...thanks for the inspiration Kai, and Legs!
Today's sharing was....oh, what's the word...AWESOME!!!! First Grace shared some ribbons and pictures of her riding (yup, riding, as in horse back riding) competition! That horse was HUGE, and there was Grace, sitting right on top, calling the shots! Way to go Grace! As if that wasn't enough, Alex was up next, and boy, was it worth the wait! We witnessed the most amazing abbreviated version of her winning (if I do say so myself...) gymnastics performance. This girl puts GUMBY to shame (OK, dating myself, but seriously...). First she bends, then she's on her hands, then she defies gravity, and then WHOOSH!!! Her feet fly and she's on her hands, and back on her feet again. Truly impressive. Two young ladies with some serious skills... just sayin'!!!

Morning Meetings On The Move!!!

Howdy Dudes and Dudettes! Now that we're getting ready for our friends from Conway to join our school, we've needed some space, so... we've moved our morning meeting to the cafeteria! Anything's possible with a song, message, and "wheels" to move it all! We loved our new, HUGE space! Now that all our V.I.P.s have celebrated their stories with us, we've also begun daily sharing as part of our morning meeting. Kai and Alina kicked off the new routine, and what a great job they did sharing their...pets? Kai shared his amazing millipede, Legs, his habitat, and some millipede facts. He also hosted questions and comments from a very attentive and curious 2nd grade audience. If that wasn't enough, Alina then shared her enthusiastic kid-lovin' dog Bruin with us! She shared his breed, how she takes care of him, and even showed us some tricks! Well done Alina and Kai... and props to Bruin and Legs too!

Measurement... Degrees of Comfort...

Greetings Friends! What a week! Students have stretched their learning in our measurement unit to include thermometers! We learned degrees Fahrenheit and Celsius and how to read thermometers. We also learned to measure liquids with cups, pints, and quarts. You sure better know how many cups are in a pint when someone's pouring that water into the container.... OVER YOUR HEAD!! Are there really 2 cups in a pint? Because if it overflows... someone's getting WET (and today it was Ms. Worthley wearing all the water!)!! Fun! We also compared our measuring tools. Does a wider container hold more than a tall container? Do shorter containers hold less water? Thinking.... love all that thinking, comparing, measuring and learning! Math rocks!!

Isaac's VIP!

Incredibly, Isaac's VIP celebration was on his last day in OUR second grade classroom! Amazing, how one boy could make so many connections in such a short time! Students honored their friend with a book of memories, clearly a meaningful gesture and genuinely appreciated by our friend Isaac. Good luck Isaac! Illinois!

Math Choice! Games Gallore!!

Thursday and Friday students had a blast playing math games! Tens Go Fish, Closest to 20, Place Value Bingo, and even Smallest/Biggest Number! All games reinforced our learning in number sense and cooperation... fairness and working in groups! Unbelievably, Otto and Gabe each had their most "unlucky" and "luckiest" day ever with cards, and in Gabe's case a "most lucky day indeed". Shocking.... 3 rounds of Closest to 20 and you get 20? Otto demonstrated great sportsmanship, and actually enjoyed the shock at such a ridiculous batch of cards being dealt in one hand of Closest to 20. Way to go Otto! So much fun and math wrapped up in 2 days of choice.... by request, by second graders in honor of our friend Isaac. Knowing it was Isaac's last day we chose to honor him by having math choice and math games! Way to show respect and appreciation for our dear friend on his last day in our class, second graders! Truly impressive!

Measuring BIG... Use A Big Stick!!

Students continued to practice careful measuring with yardsticks today! If you're measuring something big... you need a BIG tool, and today yardsticks were the tool of choice. We reinforced our learning about feet, inches and how they relate to yards and then the fun began! Our mission, to work together to carefully measure the distance between 2 X marks in the hallway. Easy, right... but some of the distances were up to and over 20 yards long (yes, indeed we do have a very long hallway that hosted today's math lesson)! We will move on to temperature and volume later in the week.
We bid our friend Isaac goodbye tomorrow. Some special surprises are in store for our students, in honor of celebrating our friendship with Isaac!
Tomorrow promises to be a beautiful day for outdoor play!

Special Guests Join Our Readers Theater!

Stone Soup! You know the story! You've heard it a thousand times in a variety of ways....but not like this! Our friend Michael shared this classic story with a group of friends and invited them to perform a Readers Theater with him! What a cast, Amanda was a very convincing old woman, and Jakob the old man... so poor from a poor town, with no food to spare our young traveler, played by Michael, of course! The young boy (Ben) and young girl (Aryanna) proved there may be small parts, but there are NO SMALL PLAYERS!! The Narrator part was well chosen and in the capable hands of Clay, who kept the entire cast on track and sounding great! Readers Theaters are an exciting way to celebrate our reading accomplishments and experience the joy and wonder of a great story! Excellent job second grade! More to come!
Again, friendly reminder, we will say goodbye to our most recent community member, Isaac. Your friendship, generous spirit, and enthusiasm for learning will never be forgotten Isaac! Go show Chicago what you're made of! You will be missed!

Happy Mother's Day!!

As promised, I've waited to post pictures of students working on their mother's day "critters" until Sunday! Students took some time to talk about our mothers and "mother's day" and why there's a special day for mothers? Interesting discussion. Some heartfelt, thoughtful and caring responses, as you'd expect, and cute little critters for all our second grade mothers to remind them of how much their students love and appreciate them! Moms rock!

Grace's VIP and One Great Math Meeting Helper!

Great ending to a great week! Jakob did a great job graphing weather, keeping track of our calendar math, and posting money to match "days in school". Nice work Jakob. We also ended the day with Grace's VIP! She shared beautiful family pictures of important moments full of friendship, accomplishments, and important people! Great job Grace! Worth the wait... for sure!!
Next week we will sadly, say goodbye to one of our newest and dearest friends in 2W, Isaac. He will continue his journey with his family on to a new home and new school. We will miss him, and wish him well!

Mandalas!!! Thank You Sunderland PTO!

Guest artist from Maine introduced our school community to the art and proces of making Mandalas! Students represented themselves on the beautifully woven mandala with cleverly crafted clothespins and fabric. The end result... inspirational words representing each student on ribbons with each of their own "doll like" representatives arranged all around the mandala itself. Come in and check out this extraordinnary piece of art and collaboration by our Sunderland students! Thanks again to our Sunderland parents and PTO for providing yet another thoughtful, creative experience for every Sunderland student!

Careful Measurement...Why it Matters!!

This week math was all about measurement! Rulers, yardsticks, and important concepts and vocabulary...inches, centameter, feet, foot, rulers, and yardstick. Being careful matters when you're measuring, and practice makes perfect... so practice we did! Next week we'll continue to stretch and practice our learning in math and measurement (temperature, liquids, and more with perimeter)! Fun!

Writing Workshop...Getting Ready to Publish!

Writers learned how to conference with other writers this week in preperation to publish our stories. Picking the right story to work on, and knowing where to add to a story, stretch out a story moment, or even change/rewrite part of a story takes a lot of thought and hard work. Students teamed up with their conference buddy and took their jobs very seriously! Working together to decide on a "just right story" was our mission this week. Next week, the rewriting and editing process begins!