Fire Truck Visit

We had our Fire Safety Assembly and Fire Truck Visit today - we learned a lot and beat the rain!

These Kids are the BEST!

We had another amazing week in Grade 2 with your children.  Each day they make us smile, laugh and impress us with how much they have grown in such a short amount of time.  We have accomplished so much:  topic #1 math, our first science unit on ants (test next week) and the students have already started drafting their own personal narrative and so much more!  Please continue to read with your child and work on those fluency passages throughout the week!  We met with our 4th buddies on Thursday to practice reading fluency.  They read their books on Christopher Columbus which they loved because they got to decorate/color it, they also read their books on ants & fire safety in preparation for our assembly on Friday, October 9th.  The kids are doing such a great job with attending to punctuation and distinguishing the differences between telling, asking & feeling/big emotion sentences.  As they read, we can really hear it in their voices!  Be sure to help your children pause at the commas while reading with them.  Your children also began working on their personal narratives.  They have grasped the concept of a small moment and have started brainstorming some ideas about their small moments.  Next week, they will start their very first draft.  Ahhh ... so much to write about!  Be on the lookout for our first "Brown Bags & Books," invitation coming up in November (October is too hard with the half-days, etc.).  Below are some highlights from our week!  

Using Sticky Notes as a reading strategy to have a deeper understanding of the text.

Recording Our Thinking!

Katie is deep in thought ... super reader!


We love to sit back & watch the kids use the strategies learned on their own!

"I AM BATMAN!"

Reese was our 2nd STAR STUDENT and I am sure you have heard she has been to Disney 7 times!  The kids were very jealous of her ... and Jillian who is now in Disney!

Reese shared her favorite belonging!  We hope Jillian comes back from Disney with them too.

"Does it LOOK right?"
"Does it SOUND right?"
Does it MAKE SENSE?"

Putting new learning into practice.

A PERFECT PAIR!

Jack & Zoey

Aryan & Atticus

Anton & Scott

Lucky Katie had 2 BUDDIES yesterday since poor David was out sick!

Dylan & Henry

Matthew & Sanjay

Kapreece & Jonathan

Reece & Owen

Megan & Alice

Sydney (and her Halloween gloves) & Aiden

Steven & Brady

Isabella & Josh

Julia & Hayden

Mrs. Dillon came in to read to our class!

Fluent Readers!

We have been working hard on our fluency the 2nd grade.  Here is a clip of the girls in our class, reading a poem titled, "Ants, Ants, Ants." 

Applesauce & more!

We just wanted to give a huge thanks to the parents who helped donate apples, crockpots, mason jars and their time in helping to make the forst community service project a major success!  Between both class we made over 40 jars of applesauce!  Beth Kourt and I delivered the applesauce (and some leftover apples) this afternoon and you would not have believed the thanks and appreciation we got.  They were so honored that two classrooms of kids made this happen.  You should all be so incredibly proud of your children.  We will be meeting this week to work on fluency & our October community service project will be making placemats to be delivered to the elderly with the company "Meals on Wheels."  Here is a picture of both classes this morning!  Again -- bravo to you and your children!
BUDDIES!  Celebrating our first project together!

Steven - our first start student - about to share his star qualities!  

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MISS KATIE (9.26.15)!!!

Science Stations!

We wrote about what we know about ants in our science journal and then as we learn more we will add to our list.  



Science stations!  Putting together their own ant books for their book bins.

Guided Reading group using books about ants!

Observing, drawing & labeling our very own ant colony

Reading poems about ants & other insects.  The kids could also decorate their poems too!

Practicing their reading fluency ... any guesses what the passage is about?  Yup!  ANTS!

Reading Poetry together!



Busy Bees in Grade 2!

The crazy first weeks of school has come to an end. We feel like with days off and not a full week of school yet, things have been crazy!  We are very much looking forward to finally a full week with your kids.  I am sure they will be exhausted though by Friday ... us too!  We are thrilled to see many of your children have been making progress on xtra math and raz-kids already.  It's so great to see they are motivated to work hard to learn their math facts.  They have their September math facts test on Wednesday -- 100 facts/5 minutes.  Be on the lookout for that to come home so you can see their progress.  Here are some highlights from the past two weeks in school.
The kids LOVE WORDO!  WORDO is an excellent way to practice their reading fluency.  They practice reading 3-4 word phrases then come and read it to us.  After reading 9 lists fluently, they receive a prize.  Then go onto the next 9 lists and so on and so forth.  There are 27 lists that get increasingly more difficult.  

Mrs. Dubb loves to read!  

Anton has been our class rules reader ... he has done a wonderful job in doing so.  Here he is practicing the school motto, "Always Our Best!"

Sydney & Zoey working as partners -- we will do a lot of partner work in the 2nd grade.

Dylan is helping us to write the date.  Ask your children about where the commas go when writing the date and why they are there.

The kids loved the lesson on what makes a book easy, just right & challenging.  They thought it was a bit silly but they definitely got the idea.  

Working Snack!


Isabella has the biggest peach we have ever seen for snack one day!  I think she ate it all too ... go Isabella!



Quiet work zone!

Chase reading his WORDO list to Mrs. Dubb!

Steven ... always smiling, always happy, always a model student!

Reese told us all about her NYC Trip and the contest she won.  Her photo was highlighted in Times Square for the world to see!  Go Reese!

Spelling was much more smooth the 2nd week.  They have a good handle on it now.  Remember the kids get their words each Friday so they can complete their assignments over the weekend ... Monday = ABC Order & Highlight the pattern, Tuesday = Words #1-6 in sentences, Wednesday = Words #7-10 in sentences, Thursday = Spelling Test

Thanks to all who helped out with our first community service project, making applesauce for the South End Children's Cafe!  We bottled more than 40 jars of applesauce to donate!

Working with their buddies!

BUDDIES!

Mrs. Tobin brought the word's greatest (and coolest) apple peeler!  

Peeling apples at its best!