Building Community

At UMS we strive to build strong classroom communities where students feel safe, recognized and demonstrate kindness.  On Friday, Mrs. Thibault's Class shared their homemade community applesauce with us.  The students giving were so generous and proud of what they were doing.  My class was more than thrilled to accept their "tasty" gift.  We felt very special and recognized that they chose our class to share with!  What a great community building and bucket filling activity!

  Thank you Mrs. Thibault's Class!!!

 

Math Workshop

The past two days in math we have been learning about double facts.  There is a catchy Doubles Song that we have learned and today we made "Double Dude".  The kids love him!  Students needed to list as many double facts (5+5=10, 7+7=14) as they could.  Research shows that knowing your double facts will be beneficial in learning your other fast facts.  Coming up next is doubles + 1.  Example:  5+6=11

 



Work on Words -Daily 5!

We are so busy learning and practicing the 5 components of the Daily Five.  The Daily Five occur during our reading workshop block.   When it is up and running smoothly, students will be engaged in the Daily Five, which are compromised of:
1.  Read to self
2.  Read to someone
3.  Work on writing
4.  Work on words
5.  Listening to reading

There are very specific behavior expectations that go with each Daily 5 component.  We have spent many weeks working on building reading and writing stamina, learning the behaviors of of the Daily 5 and fostering our classroom learning environment.  I am also learning about your child's strengths and needs as a reader in order to best plan for reading instruction.  Therefore, I will be inviting parent volunteers in after we have accomplished this important work.  Thank you for your patience and understanding!

We have learned 4 out of the 5 so far!  Below is an example of a work on words activity to reinforce spelling words, sight words or red words.

Red word writing with crayon resist

 



Blogging in Second Grade

We are learning to blog as part of Work on Writing.  Work on writing is one of The Daily 5 components that we have been practicing during Reading Workshop.  Today the lesson was simply logging into Kid Blog using an I-pad, taking a picture of their self-portrait and uploading it as their avatar.  Doesn't sound like much, but with technology there are always "issues".  We did encounter some minor problems (pictures not uploading, cropping, ect.) and Mr. Antonicci reminded me that technolgy is just like that sometimes.  I am HAPPY to say we all successfully have an avatar and know how to log in.  Thank you to Mr. Antonicci for helping us with the initial blogging process.  Next, students will make their first writing entry.  Students will respond to a prompt I give them.  Please stay tuned and check out your child's blog and leave comments once we get rolling!

Success uploading an avatar photo

Mr. Antonicci helping out in our classroom

Cropping was a challenge for me, but the kiddos were experts!

 

 







Writing Workshop

To launch writing workshop in 2nd grade we asked the following questions during our mini-lessons this week:

  Why do writers write? 

 

What do writers write? 

 

Do you have a writer's eye? 

During this lesson I wore the GIANT green glasses to reinforce the four things to "look" for while writing.

1.  Captials at the beginning of the sentence

2.  Punctuation at the end of a sentence

3.  Finger spaces between words

4.  Lowercase letters throughout writing (ie: b vs. B)

 

We have learned and practiced list writing after reading Oliver's Must-Do List and practiced writing letters after hearing Dear Mr. Blueberry.



 

 

 

 

Reading Workshop

Launching the Reading Workshop

We have been busy learning the expectations and routines of Reading Workshop in second grade.  We also discussed the three ways to read a book, how to pick a "just right book" and have spent a lot of time practicing how to read to ourself and how to read to someone.  Please ask your child to show you what "EEKK" is (I hope they remembered the mini-lesson).  Our reading stamina is growing and students are excited about reading!

Read to Self

Read to Someone

 

Classroom Community

We have been busy establishing our classroom learning environment.  It is important for all students to feel comfortable and safe in the classroom.  I spend 6-8 weeks creating a caring environment using the Responsive Classroom Approach.  We are using our morning meeting and our theme time to get to know each other through morning activities, art projects, and technology.  It is a great time to learn about each other!  We have established our classroom rules (Be safe, Be Kind, and Do Your Best) as well as implemented the apple tree behavior system.  The apple tree is a visual reminder for your child and myself to remind us of how their day is going. 
Below you will see some photos that capture our getting to know you activities.

Mystery Name of the Day - student leading the choral read

At this time a student is in the "spotlight" during morning meeting time.  The class can ask 3 questions to get to know this person.  I write the learned information about the student modeling appropriate writing skills (begin with a capital, spaces between words, end with punctuation, lowercase letters throughout).

Self- Portraits

Each student is creating a self-portrait to hang in the classroom and to use as their avatar in technology. 









Below students are creating their name plates - using a watercolor resist art technique

Super 2nd Graders!!!!



Thank you for sharing your child with me!  It has been a great 7 days getting to know each of them!  It is going to be an awesome school year!