Fun Friday! Thank You Mrs. Williams!!

Way to start fun Friday, Danny! Great morning meeting and awesome game of sparkle!! James and Owen were our sharing friends this morning. James shared a great story he crafted at yesterday's writing workshop, and Owen shared some extremely cool drawings inspired by Ed Emberly! Well done boys! We caught up on work board, and truly enjoyed our last day with super awesome substitute teacher Mrs. Williams! She's been pinch hitting for Mrs. Cialek for over a month, and she has turned into a very special member of the 2W family! We will miss you Mrs. Williams, and are so grateful for everything you did to help second grade run smoothly! This afternoon, we continued our geometry unit and reviewed attributes of solids and shapes (2-D and 3-D). We listened to our cool rap about 3-D shapes, and also watched a 3 minute brainpop... and LOVED IT!! Mrs. Schumacher helped our at read aloud today and Matilda never sounded better! We ended the day in writing workshop and continued working on yesterday's writing prompt: If you could order a new friend on line... what kind of friend would you order? We practiced how a careful writer rereads and checks to make sure everything they need is in their writing, and how to add words and ideas and pictures, to make your story better! It wasn't just a fun Friday, it was super productive! Well done friends! We are ready to "finish strong" in second grade! It might be the end of May, but we still have lots of inspiring, exciting work to do! Great day! Enjoy the weekend, and remember, Memorial Day is a time to remember all who have served our country! See you Tuesday!

More Geometry and Mrs. Cialek!!!

Buenos dias Amigos!! Alena got our day started with Oh Susanna, sparkle, and the koosh toss greeting! Nice Alena! And thanks for the help Jake (substitute for today) who took his job seriously and got morning ready for Alena to jump right in and lead the show! Team work! We reviewed our spelling rule (syllables) and practiced separating our spelling words according to the syllable chunks, all while rainbow writing! Wow! Excellent job friends! Everyone caught up on work board today... with some supplemental jobs for those who have completed the work board... Time Match Bingo, and story summaries! In math we stretched our learning in geometry to include solids, 3 dimensional shapes! We examined the attributes of cubes, cones, rectangular prisms, pyramids, spheres, and cylinders! It was so fun, we thought we'd rap about it! Check it out for yourself! After Brady's awesome math meeting, we had a surprise visit from our very own Mrs. Cialek! Everyone's heart was full, and loved every minute of updating Mrs. Cialek on the latest news and information as it related to 2W!! We ended the day with writing workshop and writing to a prompt... If you could order a friend on line... what kind of friend would you order (characteristics, attributes). Writers had some BIG ideas of what kind of friend they'd want, and had some very creative ways of sharing their ideas in writing! Well done second grade! Great day everyone!

Geometry!!! Shapes, Sides, Angles, and Attributes!

Another busy day in second grade! Zenani started our day with a great morning meeting, and we were off to music with Mr. Hines! It was Danny's sharing day, and even though he had some (lego-style) "deconstruction" issues on the bus ride to school, he quickly fixed it all up, and was ready to share! What resilience, Danny! Way to cope with an unexpected situation on the spot! No worries, no quitting, no doubting... just fixing and moving on to sharing! Outstanding!! We caught up on work board while Ms. W. and Mrs. Williams met with reading groups. In the afternoon we started a new unit on geometry! After talking about what we already know about geometry, we watched Annie and Moby talk about shapes! We talked about the attributes of different shapes too! By the way... did any second graders use the word "attributes" at the dinner table tonight?? If you did... I want a full report!! We will review our learning in geometry tomorrow and practice what wwe know about shapes with a "Shape Hunt"! After math we were off to the computer lab for fluency practice! Some students worked on place value, some on math facts, some on odd and even numbers, and some even tackled multiplication facts! NICE EVERYONE! While we were indeed a little too chatty for the library, we got in some good practice, and will try to do even better next time! Remember... the only way... the best way... to learn those pesky math facts is to PRACTICE!!! A tiny bit, each and every day, will help you know them (with out fingers and number lines)! We ended the day in PE with Ms. Gebo, followed by Harry's game of Zelda! Well done Harry. Zelda seemed to take on the form of... a four legged creature, but it was still Zelda! Good work Harry! Remember... Shapes have angles and sides!!!! Great day friends! See you all tomorrow!

Brady and Kaela Start the Week!

Greetings Friends! We had a great start to our week today! Kaela started our Monday with the DOUBLE koosh greeting. Chicken Lips, and the clothespin game! Well done Kaela! We introduced our spelling rule with some challenging spelling words... syllables! Words with 1, 2, 3, and even 4 syllables! We have our work cut out for us this week, as these words are not easy! We caught up on work board with Scholastic News, Buddy Reading, and poems, just to name a few of our centers!! In math we played a new game using what we know about patterns on the 100's board, and, let's just say, it was a challenge! With a little practice, we were able to take what we know about numbers, and patterns, and fill in the missing piece... the missing number! Great work friends! Remember... when you're thinking, you're winning! Great day friends! Get a good night's sleep so you're ready for learning in the morning!!!

Another Special Weekend Edition!!

You asked for it... another weekend edition, pavilion style, to show all the progress on the 6th grade Pavilion Legacy Project!! SES 6th grade took all their fundraising money, every bit of it, and reinvested it into their school for classes to come and the greater Sunderland community!! Outstanding! It was another busy weekend for 6th grade as the post brackets were cut and fit... as well as all the trusses added to the roof!! WOW! Outstanding team work! Can't wait to see her when she's all finished! Thank you Sunderland 6th grade! And a special thanks to all the families and local business who have donated toward this worthy endeavor This is truly something special.

Fun Friday and Malawi Math!!!

Fun Friday might have reached an all time high!!! What a day! Jake started with a rousing morning meeting! Sandwiches, ball toss greeting, and "this or that" game! Well done Jake! After computers we worked on work board and reading groups... very productive morning friends! Ms. W had recess duty, which, today, meant learning a new game with the ladies of second and third grade!! All I know is, there were mermaids, zombies, and ducks??? How entertaining, ladies! So fun! Oh, and by the way, take a look at the pavilion project the 6th grade class is working on! They've taken all their fundraising money and decided to build this amazing pavilion for our school and community! Legacy project, indeed! In the afternoon, we closed our "kisses for Malawi" service project, and had a lot of counting to do! Money counting, kiss counting , and guess sorting committees had a lot of work ahead of them! And count we did!! And, recount, and as if that wasn't enough, we recounted until we finally arrived at the same amount of kisses at least 2 times (right Jake!!!). Finally, counting complete... 295 kisses!!! (Oh, and by the way... many donations were made, including David's 5 spot today! Much appreciated Dave!!) There was a lot of integrity and fairness involved in this contest. We were later joined by our 4th grade buddies, to sort any left over guesses to find the closest, the winner! At first, Stevie (6th grade) was closest (with 270) but then, using our number line, we calculated the closest guesses from all participants! Ella (6th grade) was close, David and Manjo (1st grade) were even closer, and even Chief Gilbert was real close! In the end, it was our very own Brady.... second grade... who had the closest guess at 293! Well done Brady! What a great response from the Sunderland Elementary School Community too! We raised over 85 dollars in two weeks, which will go a very LONG WAY in helping our pen pals in Malawi with their school and materials! And thanks to our super awesome 4th grade buddies, who made math feel like loads of fun! Wandering folks who popped into 2W this afternoon thought it looked like the New York Stock Exchange, with all the paper flying, uproarious number calling, and certainly, with all the math calculations! We couldn't have ended fun Friday any better! Everyone contributed, everyone worked, and everyone felt truly proud of their contribution! Now that's what I call character, integrity, commitment, and perseverance toward a very worthy project! Well done everyone!!!! So proud of you all!