Welcome Mackenzie and Mona!

Well... ALL RIGHT!! We have some new followers! Welcome! Feel free to post any comments in the box below each blog entry! We'd love to hear from you... in fact, that goes for all of you out there... in the Sunderland's second grade universe!!

TJ's Meeting, New Work Board, and Mary's VIP!

What a beautiful fall day! We started our day with TJ's morning meeting and a new song: The Worm Song! We played "Alibi" and greeted each other with the "swirly-scarf" greeting! Nice TJ!
After the meeting, it was hard at work with handwriting, buddy test, and practicing our fluency with our new poem of the week: My Tongue is Tasting Terrible! Well done readers! We also began a "spooky" new workboard, complete with ghostly crosswords, scary stories in writing center, and a spooky scholastic news! We enjoyed some extra recess (earned yesterday for being ready in a SUPER TIMELY MANNER), and many of us played 4-square with the new "Ms. Gebo second grade rules"! It's hard to play a game where you may be out, but the fun of the game is that others get to play... and you're back in the game in "no time"! Learning to play by the rules, and play fair, along with being a "good sport" are all important things to remember, and make the game a lot of fun!
In math we stretched our thinking with odd and even numbers by learning that in even numbers, there is always a match (or a pair), in odd numbers there's always one "left over"! We thought about how odd and even numbers work together, how they are different, and challenged our thinking by adding odd numbers together. Using the 100's board helped us notice patterns with odd/even numbers too! Learning how to "think" about a problem, instead of being first to "solve" a problem is an important skill! Thinking... thinking...thinking!! When you're thinking, you're winning!
Finally, we ended the day with a lovely VIP presentation by Mary! Her soft spoken, yet articulate manner caught all our attention (you could have heard a pin drop)! She shared special collections, family photos (including Snickers, of course) and souvenirs from special trips. She also dazzled our coin collectors with a few rare coins of her own! Well done Mary! Every friend in the room was truly a respectful listener... way to end the day second grade! Well done everyone!
Enjoy your day off tomorrow. No school for students... just teachers! Have a safe Halloween, and see you all rested and ready for a busy day on Monday!

Soggy Wednesday!

Dang! Left the camera at school! Though it doesn't change all the great work that happened today... Highlights...
Great Morning Meeting with Adriana at the lead! We finished our current work board and talked about ways to get our work done INDEPENDENTLY! Learning to read directions more than one time, and giving yourself some "think time" before asking for help is a very good skill, and helps us self-govern our learning, and become independent! We continued skip counting in math, stretching our learning with 3's and 4's! Tricky, hard, and fun! We also began a new read-aloud book: James and the Giant Peach. This was the book I (Ms. Worthley) read as a young girl. This was the first book I "couldn't put down" as a reader... turned me into a "life-long lover of reading"! Do you remember the book or the moment that you felt the magic of becoming a reader? Pretty amazing!
Hopefully tomorrow will be drier, and we will get some extra recess (duly earned today) on Thursday! NO SCHOOL FOR STUDENTS ON FRIDAY, TEACHER WORK DAY. See you tomorrow!

Final Touches on Letters to Malawi... and "Holy Lockdown"!

What a surprisingly warm, beautiful Tuesday it was in Sunderland! Olivia R. started our morning with a great meeting! After a busy morning we listened to Galimoto, a story about a Malawi boy who dreams of building his very own vehicle (truck... galimoto). We continued to wonder about life in Malawi, and were impressed by the resourcefulness of our main character, finding enough wire in his village to make his dream truck (toy) come true... Galimoto! We reread our letters to our Malawi pen pals, put in final touches, and added some pictures. We all can't wait to receive letters back from so far away! Exciting!
This afternoon, as if you haven't heard... was "lockdown" practice. That's the word we used, though in 2W we talked about "hiding" in the closet and how Chief Gilbert would check to see of our door was locked. We made the analogy of "a little gerbil family nesting in our cozy closet... though in all honesty, it was hot, uncomfortable, and we weren't crazy about it. But... We did it, we didn't have a choice, and we will know how to make safe choices in a real emergency. And, if anyone could install a small bathroom in our closet, that would be AWESOME!! It was a nice surprise to have some unexpected visitors pop in to tell us what a good job we did... Chief Gilbert himself, and some very friendly MA State Troopers. They even joined us in our energizer (peel the orange, peel, peel, the orange)... now that was REALLY a fun and unespected surprise!!
Overall, good day! One of many! See you all tomorrow!

Mackenzie and Lannashia have Meetings, Weekend Stories, and Skip Counting!

Greetings Friends! Mackenzie ran a great morning meeting this morning, waking us up with the song Rockin' Robin, the koosh greeting, and Boppity bop bop bop! Nice Mackenzie! We adjourned to handwriting (Q/q), a new spelling rule (ordinal number words), and one very productive writing workshop! Ms. Worthley modeled her story, and choosing ONE topic to write about... stretching out the story with detail, describing words, and rereading (as all good writers do)! Students worked diligently on their stories, stretching out the sounds in words, spacing words, and using detail in their stories. Three brave writer's shared their weekend stories in our author's share, and we celebrated "things that they did well"! Nice job, Adan, Peter (AKA: Birthday Boy), and Olivia! The best news about writing workshop is that EVERY FRIEND wanted to share their writing! WOW! Like I said, what a productive writing workshop today.
After lunch we enjoyed the end of our read-aloud story Harriet's Hare, and loved the "happy ending". At least most of us did, some second graders are "grossed out" by happy endings that end with people getting married (you know, all that lovey-dovey stuff). But, we were all happy Harriet had a family she loved with a caring new mother to fill in the empty space left there in the beginning of the story!
Lannashia had her first math meeting, and was "spot on" with the money counting! Well done Lannashia! Our math lesson was skip counting... and I don't mean skipping while you count... we mean SKIPPING SOME NUMBERS, while you count! We skip counted by 2's, 5's, and 10's today, and recorded our thinking! Tomorrow, some "harder" skip counting (3's and 4's) while we stretch our thinking about how to count numbers! We ended our day in Computers with Ms. Kidder, and can't wait for another full, busy day in second grade tomorrow!

Another Fun Friday and Charlie's V.I.P!

Well... Happy Friday! Ethan launched our fabulous Friday with a morning meeting full of fun challenges! Clothespin game, koosh greeting, and great singing! Well done Ethan! We followed with our buddy test and "showed off" our poetry practice with our homework poem. Some read alone, some read together, some even memorized our poem! Wow! However you chose to do your reading, it was great fluency practice, and lots of fun! We reviewed fact families in math with a very interactive dialogue on equations, number sentences, how these numbers relate to each other (family) and included important vocabulary! Well done second graders!
Finally, we ended an awesome Friday with Charlie's V.I.P! We knew Charlie liked money... but we didn't know how much he KNEW about money, coins, foreign currency, and value of money! Wow! Loved the presentation, Charlie! Have a great weekend everyone! Can't wait to write about our weekend stories on Monday!