Harrison's Meeting and Dictionaries!!

Greetings Friends! Harry started our day with a rousing rendition of This Land Is Your Land, the cube greeting (rock and roll style, whisper style, army sargent style, and the newly popular bunny style)! What a great bunny-tastic way to start the day! In word study we used our long a vowel words to segment sounds, and worked with rhyming words too. It's always fun when we get to use dictionaries with our spelling words and that's exactly what we did! After putting words in ABC order, we used our dictionaries to double check! In writing workshop it was writing to a prompt (a special type of writing where we answer a question with lots of details). Today our prompt was to write about a special moment spent with someone special, important, someone who really matters to us. More writing tomorrow!
In math we took a close look at our learning about place value and triple digit numbers up to 1,000! WOW! We've really learned a lot, and will continue to practice adding ones, tens, and hundreds and (subtraction too)! After Makayla's math meeting we were off to computers to practice math computation fluency! We routinely start every day with 5 minutes of math fluency practice (math facts, fast and automatic), and we took advantage of practicing on computers instead! Computation fluency is only one part of math, but it's very important that we learn those math facts (up to 20) automatically (without even thinking about it) by the end of second grade! If you'd like to practice at home, remember, just scroll down the blog on the right hand side, and click on math games (under followers)! What a fun way to practice, learn, and master our math facts!
We ended the day in PE and worked up quite a sweat! What a work out! Just the way we like it! PE tomorrow as well, sneakers please.

Monday Meetings.... Owen and Makayla!!

Howdy Monday Amigos! We got started today with Owen's morning meeting, Chicken Lips, ball toss greeting (tricky) and sparkle!!! Great meeting Owen! Our new spelling rule today was long a vowel sound (when a says it's name). We watched a quick video snippet called Boot Camp Long A and saw how long a says it's name when it's with silent e, or in front of another vowel (check the link on the right, and see for yourself)! It even gets a little help from Y (sometimes a vowel on it's own)!! After sorting our words, we were ready for writing workshop. Today is Monday, and that means weekend stories (personal narratives)! Today our focus was on WOW words and replacing "said" with some fancier words like "replied", "shouted", "whispered", and "yelled". Student authors Owen and Skyler shared their stories today at our author's share! Well done! Writing workshop could have gone on all morning, accept it was time for recess! Once back, after lunch and recess, it was time for more with place value and adding tens and hundreds! Makayla hosted her first math meeting, and I must say it was great! Calendar, days in school, counting money, and graphing the weather! Well done Makayla! We ended the day with work board, reading groups, and fluency practice, and everyone did their job! Job well done! Great Monday everyone! See you tomorrow... PE, sneakers please.

James, Makayla, and Someone Turns 50!!

Fun Friday was exactly that!! Full of fun challenges and unexpected surprises! First, James started our morning meeting with Rockin' Robin and the koosh greeting! Clothespin game was a challenge, but we loved it! Our line plot graph data this morning was about siblings. How many brothers and sisters do you have? Buddy test went along without a hitch, and we are officially experts on digraphs sh, ch, wh, and th (rude brother and sister... the only time you may stick your tongue out at the teacher). We discovered it was Mr. Merritts 50th birthday today, and that was an occasion for a very special kind of writing, birthday card greetings! After generating some vocabulary and thinking about what we'd like to say to Mr. Merritt, we crafted some beautifully written cards and illustrated them with balloons, presents, cake, guitars, and even math problems!! Yeah! Mr. Merritt was truly touched, but we didn't stop there! Oh no! Indoor recess lead students to the snap cubes, where they crafted yet another birthday greeting out of colorful cubes! Outstanding and very creative! Well done! Kaela had her last math meeting of the week and Makayla's officially ready for that big job next week! Nice job Kaela! In math we reviewed our learning in place value and practiced more with expanded notation and adding hundreds and tens! Challenging! Work board went extremely well today too! Probably one of our most productive, thoughtful days ever! Well done friends! We ended the day with our VIP, Makayla! What a wonderful job she did sharing photos of her family, celebrations, events and silly moments! We are so lucky to have you in our class Makayla! Job well done! Next VIP will be Skyler! Can't wait! Have a great weekend everyone!

Yuni's Meeting and Fun Run!!!

Greetings friends! What a busy Thursday! Yuni started with her morning meeting and Black Socks, a line plot graph, koosh greeting, and sparkle!! Nicely done Yuni! Spot on! We took some time to reflect on our second grade year of learning, and think about how "we", the students think it's going. An honest, thoughtful moment was taken to think about all we've learned so far, and what we still want to work on! Well done friends! This task required a mature, honest approach and that's exactly what we brought! Your student's reflections will accompany their report cards tomorrow. Speaking of report cards, there should be absolutely no surprises! If anyone has any questions on how to interpret the rubric and what the numbers mean... please, drop me a note, or call for some clarity if necessary! Bottom line... second grade is going GREAT! The expectations are high, the work is rigorous and require effort, thought, perseverance and creativity! Just the way we like it!!
In math we loved some extra computer time with place value games that really reinforced our learning about expanded notation (300+40+1), and standard form (341) of writing and understanding numbers and place value. These are all links on the blog (right column, scroll down, just below "followers" and you'll see "math games"). They are great games, visually appealing, and support our core concept learning in place value! PLAY THEM AT HOME!!
We ended the day with a fun run organized by Nurse Jeannie and Ms. Gebo! What luck we had with the weather! It was awesome! 3 laps amount to about one mile... and Nurse Jeannie told me that MANY second graders completed up to 6 or more laps! Impressive! WOW! That's what I call a healthy, happy, productive school day friends! A little singing, reading, writing, math, computers, running/walking, snacking, and friendship! Great day! Fun Friday tomorrow!!