Kirsten's Morning Meeting, and Olivia's V.I.P!!

Great Day! Howdy friends! Here we go...
Kirsten started us off with a great morning meeting and another interesting and unexpected game of "telephone"! Well done Kirsten!
We had an early VIP presentation with a very special guest! Olivia shared meaningful collections from events she and her family have shared together... but she didn't stop there, she brought in a very special member of her family... her dad... and they showed off one very cool handshake! Well done Olivia! Loved the family photos (especially the one with your vampire-sister), the key collection, and the special Easter egg blanket!
Readers showed off their fluency skills with our poem of the week, "Cute as a Button"! And I believe it's safe to say, that they were all, indeed, as cute as a button!
Mr. Deane hung around for a little fun-math trivia on our smart board! And yes... the number 4 is the only number (in the entire UNIVERSE OF NUMBERS) that shares it's value with the amount of letters in it's name... 4... FOUR... 4 letters! Very cool!
We continued to stretch our learning in math with place value, and built high numbers, low numbers, and all kinds of numbers by changing and rearranging the place of the 3 digits! Tricky, fun, and challenging! Well done 2nd graders!

TJ's Many Meetings, 2W's Feast, and More With Place Value!

TJ started our day with a new song, new greeting, and new game! THANK YOU TJ!! Love the koosh, but I think we were definitely ready for a change! Well done! We launched into our morning with handwriting before another meeting about our 2W feast. A tradition in 2W is to have what we call a feast... in honor of all our learning about history, the pilgrims, freedom, and fall harvest! We discuss what a meaningful celebration would include, and voted on what kinds of food we'd like to include in our classroom feast... the democratic way... with a vote, of course! We all decided to prepare a vegetable soup with apple pie for dessert! Ms. Worthley's going to throw in some cornbread (because... it's cornbread, after all, and we love anything that has "corn" and "bread" as it's name!!) and we'll prepare our feast on Monday for our celebration on Tuesday. Can't wait friends! This is a memorable occasion, and we look forward to it each and every year!
Later in our busy day, we stretched our learning about place value with important vocabulary (ones, tens, hundreds, place, value, worth) and "built" numbers with base 10 blocks! YEAH!!!!! Love the base 10 blocks and especially when it's all about triple digit numbers! Well done second grade! Real hands-on, interactive, cooperative learning in math today... just the way we like it!!

Olivia R's Morning Meeting and a "Thankful" Writing Workshop!

I know... I know... Prince William is engaged, but there are much more important things happening in second grade that DEMAND your attention... so, let's begin! Olivia had a great morning meeting with a new song: She'll Be Coming Around the Mountain, the koosh greeting,and the telephone game! Loved it Olivia! Way to start the day! It took us a while, but we finally got that song down, and it sounded great!
We used a pictograph to scaffold our "thankful writing" in writing workshop, and will use our thoughts, ideas, and pictures to write paragraphs tomorrow. Some extremely thoughtful reflection went into our discussion about what it means to be thankful! The range went from, having "shelter", to being "ok" after having brain surgery, to "my little brother", to our beloved pets, to roast chicken.... now that's what I call a range! Very individual, and indeed meaningful for those who shared! Well done!
We stretched our thinking about place value in math and practiced with base 10 blocks (because they're so COOL!!!!). We will jump into 3 digit numbers tomorrow (paying close attention to the "place" of each digit...as it's value depends on it's "place" in the number)! Looking forward to some BIG NUMBERS tomorrow friends! We're ready!
We ended the day singing with Mr. Hines and our 2Z second grade buddies... now how good is that! All school sing tomorrow afternoon! Woohoo! See you then!

Ever want to "SUPER-SIZE" a photo on the blog? Just "left-click" that photo, and get a closer look!!

Mackenzie's Meeting, TJ's Math Meeting, and Karen Brings Malawi to 2W and 4B!!

I don't think we could have packed any more into our Monday! Wow! Let's begin with Mackenzie's morning meeting... Rockin' Robin, koosh greeting and clothespin game (tricky... blended right in with Adan's shirt)!!
We worked on our new spelling principle, long a vowel sound (when your mouth "smiles" and a says it's name)! We picked new words and wrote them neatly onto our homework packets! The gold star reminds us that neatness counts, and we really showed off some neat spelling words on our spelling cards AND our homework! Well done second grade!
In writing workshop we talked about more "great ways to begin a story". Last time we talked about starting a story with a question, and today, we tried starting with some dialogue! You can really grab a reader's attention with a great beginning, and that's exactly what Mary did in her story today! Though, you might have to be of the "feline persuasion" to understand the dialogue in her story, because her cat "Snickers" did all the talking!! Way to experiment with your writing, Mary! That was a great beginning, and a nice story (you can thank Snickers later...hee hee)!!
After writing we had an AWESOME meeting with Karen Hardy (Ms. Worthley's friend from Educate Malawi, check the link on the right hand side of the blog) and she picked up our letters to be delivered to Malawi! Karen shared some of her own stories, letters, and photos from Malawi as well and we all took a few moments to appreciate and understand how fortunate we are to live in such a wealthy country where we have so much opportunity and access to education! The work they do is truly inspiring, and we are grateful to be part of their global outreach work! Our deepest thanks to Karen, for bringing the pen pal project to Sunderland, and connecting us to our new Malawi friends in such a meaningful way! Can't wait to see what Abraham brings back from his trip to Malawi!!
Our afternoon was equally engaging! TJ had his first math meeting, and then we continued our learning about place value. We switched from unifix cubes to base 10 blocks (very cool), and built numbers! We stretched our thinking by comparing tens and ones (2 tens, and 8 ones...) and reasoned through some tricky problems with gloves, pairs, and 65 fingers!! Well done second graders! Not sure I've ever seen so many students tackle (seriously, like a LINEBACKER) that glove problem the way you all did today! Wow! Nice work!
We ended the day with more responsible research with Ms. Kidder in computers. When ever you wonder about something, or want to learn more, you can research a topic with Ms. Kidder on the computer! Nice! Great Monday everyone! Looking forward to another great day tomorrow!