Aine's Meetings and Science RULES!!

Super Thursday Friends! Kinda chilly, but it's DECEMBER, after all! We started our day by receiving a sweet thoughtful gift from our friend Abby! Thanks for the pencils Abby! You know JUST what we need to get our job done! Our new work board was equally awesome with the new buddy reading whisper phones! Loved it! In math we practiced more with place value and expanded notation WHILE thinking about 100 more or 100 less! Well done friends! Aine also had another great math meeting, and was our morning meeting helper too! We spent our afternoon preparing for a day of scientific work and observation tomorrow! After studying owls and Mr. Micardi's "birds of prey" presentation we will be investigating owl pellets, thanks to our PTO! Tomorrow EVERY second grader is a scientist as we dissect owl pellets and examine the contents of what owls "can't digest"! Can't wait! Are you ready for some hands-on SCIENCE??? I know I am!

12-12-12!!!!! Once in a Century!

What a cool date! Once in a century, nothing like this will ever happen again! Wow! It was also a pretty cool day in second grade too! We started our new work board and it was very well received by second grade! Students enjoyed making Ed Emberly characters and writing stories, skip counting, scholastic news, crosswords, and buddy reading with our new super cool buddy-whisper phones! YEAH!!! In math we stretched our learning in place value and practiced writing numbers in their expanded form (hundreds tens and ones)! Then we used what we know about comparing numbers and compared bigger, 3 digit numbers! Aine had another great math meeting! Probably THE BEST EVER, AND THAT GOES FOR NOT ONLY THE MEETING LEADER, BUT EVERY PARTICIPANT!!! Excellent! We read Strega Nona in read aloud and were reminded how much we LOVE Tommie DePaola's characters, Big Anthony and Strega Nona! Awesome! In writing we worked on stories and thought about revising, rereading, editing, and illustrating! All very important elements in crafting a great story! Tomorrow is library... remember your books so you can check out new ones!

Brass Attack and Wind Ensemble! Thanks UMass!

Place Value... Hundreds-BIG... Ones-small!

Happy soggy Monday friends! Today was our last catch up day on work board and I can't wait to start the next, new work board on Wednesday! In math we stretched our learning about place value and really worked our brains counting tens! Using 3 cards we first had to make the biggest number and the smallest number by moving the cards and their places. Next, we had to count 10 more, 10 less (but hold on to that hundreds place in our head)!! Very challenging and important work today! But, practice makes perfect, and practice we did!! Great job everyone! Making an effort and being a contributor, paying attention to your learning really makes a difference too! We sure noticed THAT today! Well done workers! We finished Matilda and were thrilled at the happy ending for Matilda and Miss Honey! What a team they make! Can't wait for our next novel in read aloud... Roald Dahl is a tough act to follow, that's for sure! In writing workshop we wrote thank you letters to Mr. Micardi about his birds of prey presentation on Friday! If any of you are still wondering what the special super surprise is, keep reading! After talking to P.T.O. (the parents who brought Mr. Micardi to our school) I asked them if we could get some owl pellets to dissect ourselves, like owl scientists... solving the mystery of what the owls had for dinner! WOW! How cool! What do you think we'll find in our owl pellets? I can't wait to find out! Who, who, whoooooooo's ready for some hands-on science? I sure am!!