Its time for Winter Break! by Dominic

We had our classroom book exchange today! Everyone brought a book wrapped from home. We all got a number and then we picked books from the center of the circle one by one. When everyone had a book, we unwrapped them! It was fun to see our new books!

Today was Owen Schneider's star student day! His mom and his little brother Ben came to do his experiment with him. They mixed water and milk, and then turned off the lights. They shined a flashlight on the cups and the mixture looked blue! Mrs. Schneider read us a story called, Auntie Claus!

We cleaned and Cloroxed our desks before winter break so they are all clean when we come back. We watched Arthur's Christmas. All of the holidays we learned about were in that movie, including Kwanzaa and Hanukkah and Christmas!

WANTED: Nigel the Dolphin!

Do you know what happened this morning? Mr. Robinson snuck into our classroom while we were in music class and he dolphin-napped our class dolphin named Nigel! He left us a note on the white board that said he borrowed something in our classroom, and we have to sing him a Christmas carol in order to get it back. Nigel is usually sitting on top of the tall filing cabinet, and when we looked he was GONE! So we marched down to Mr. Robinson's office and sang our very best version of "Santa Claus is Coming to Town". He gave Nigel back to us and he is now safe back on top of the filing cabinet again. Luckily Mr. Robinson took good care of our little dolphin while he was gone! :)

We did a cute Reader's Theater this morning! In the play, I was Santa Claus and all the kids wanted me to become the President of the United States! It was fun to perform a short play with our class! We also had PE and Music. In music we had a choice to watch The Nutcracker or to play Dreidel. In PE we jumped rope. We also walked, skipped, galloped, and ran around the gym. We learned more about polygons and shapes during math. A quadrangle and a quadrilateral are both shapes that have 4 sides and 4 angles. Some shapes have a square angle. A square angle is also called a right angle, and its in the shape of a square. The corner of a notecard or a post-it note fits perfectly inside. Only 2 shapes have square angles, the rectangle and the square!

One more day until winter break!

Dominic

A Musical Day! by Miss O'Sullivan

It was another fun day at school today! The children performed their 2nd grade musical for the rest of the school this afternoon. They looked great, and they sang beautifully! Way to go, class! We'll see you back at school tonight at 6:45 for the night time performance. :)

Tuesday's Tidbit by Miss O'Sullivan

Today went by so fast! The kids started out their by day creating a cute holiday card for their families. Did you know that the tradition of sending holiday cards began back in England? We also learned that the English traditions include: singing carols, open "crackers" that hold small toys after their holiday dinner, and participating in a day full of baking called "Stir Up Sunday!" Have you heard of Boxing Day? On Boxing Day in England, people reach out to the less fortunate by donating money and goods. People in England decorate their homes with ivy, mistletoe and holly, and they burn a yule log in the fireplace. We learned that many of the traditions we have here in the United States have come all the way from England!

The children read a new story this week called, "Officer Buckle and Gloria." We looked carefully at the illustrations and noticed that they can help us better comprehend what is happening in the text. In the LMC this afternoon, the children practiced using reference materials. They identified guide words in the dictionary, and had the opportunity to use an atlas, too! Finally, the children had their final musical rehearsal at the end of the day before their big show tomorrow.

* Reminder for the music show tomorrow: Please have the children meet in our classroom at 6:45 tomorrow evening. Mr. Deptula has asked that they dress in holiday colored shirts and dark pants. It will be helpful if the parents would keep their children's coats with them during the performance. We look forward to seeing you tomorrow!

Monday's Message by Dominic

Today we learned about polygons during math. A polygon is a shape that 1) has closed sides 2) the sides are all straight and 3) there are no curves. Some of the polygons we learned about are a triangle (3 sides), a quadrilateral (4 sides), a pentagon (5 sides) and an octagon (8 sides!) We took our spelling pre-test. We had PE class and musical rehearsal. We played Chicken Tag and Sharks and Minnows. We jumped rope too! I think it was for 5 or 10 minutes. Owen S. shared his star poster and his pictures from home. It was also his birthday! Happy Birthday, Owen!

Make sure to comment on the blog!

:) Dominic

Fantastic Friday by Danny

Today was a fun day. This morning Mrs. Psarros came to school for Steven's star student presentation! Steven did an experiment that showed the force of air and water. He demonstrated how a notecard could stick to a paper cup with water inside it, and he turned it upside down! Mrs. Psarros read us two stories! One was called "Snow family", and the other was called "Two of Everything." Steven had a great week. We had musical rehearsal in the gym this afternoon. We reviewed what we learned about Hanukkah. We reviewed our spelling words and action verbs too! I think we got smarter this week!

Have a great dolphin weekend!

Danny

Thursday's Thinking By Danny

Today was a fantastic day! In math we learned about parallel lines. They are lines that will never ever ever ever ever cross. Some examples of lines are : in a square, a rectangle, on our notebook paper, and train tracks! We also learned about Hanukkah today also known as Chanukkah. We read a story called, "Hershel and the Hanukkah Goblins" by Eric Kimmel. Hanukkah is the festival of lights. Jewish people celebrate for 8 days. They light candles on the menorah, starting with the shammesh candle. They eat latkes and play dreidel games. They also celebrate with prayers, gifts and songs!

More tomorrow!

Danny

What a Wednesday! by Danny

We had a fun day at school! We did the Daily 5 today. We practiced our Word Work, we read with a buddy, and reading groups met with Miss O'Sullivan too. After lunch we went to art class. We made an abstract piece of dancing art on the computer. You can see it if you click here http://drydenart.weebly.com/fugleblog.html. We studied how the holidays are celebrated in Germany. We got the tradition of trees, gingerbread houses, and carols from Germany! In math we learned about points and line segments. Every point needs a name! (Ex: point A, point B, etc.) Thank you to Steven for being a great classroom helper! :)

Thanks for reading the blog!

Stay warm!

Danny

Tuesday's Tidbit by Danny

Today was a great day. This morning we read a folk tale called "Head, Body, Legs" It was a story that showed us how it is nice to work together. We practiced the skill of Cause and Effect. For example, because the head wasn't connected to the body, it couldn't swim to the other side of the river. We had our Citizenship luncheon today for all of the kids who completed their landmark challenge projects. It was fun to have lunch in the classroom with our teacher! I hope we can do it again sometime! In the LMC this afternoon we learned about a holiday, for example: Eid, Hanukkah, Christmas and Kwanzaa. After learning about it, we wrote down important words about the holiday and we made a wordle! It looked like a bunch of words scrambled together. You can go to http://www.wordle.net/ to make one at home! In math we looked at groups of shapes and decided which fit a specific rule, and which did not.

Have a great dolphin afternoon!

Danny

Monday's Memories by Danny

Today was a great day. This morning we took our spelling pre-test. I read in my reading group. We went to PE and Music. We are practicing for our musical. It is on December 14th. After lunch we learned about the holidays in Mexico. Did you know they say "Feliz Navidad?" Children don't get their gifts until January 6th! We made poinsettias because they come from Mexico. We reviewed ballpark estimates during math and had our Unit 4 test. Now we are getting ready for home.

Stay dry!

Danny

Fantastic Friday! by PJ

It was a test day at school today. We reviewed our citizenship facts and then we took our unit test. I think it was sorta easy! We had to name the President, pick the National Anthem, and find patriotic symbols. Then we took our Unit 2 Treasures test! We took our spelling test after lunch. Then we shared the rest of our landmark presentations. Kayleigh's was a WATERmark presentation, she studied the USS Midway which was a large ship. Drew studied Mount Rushmore, Isobel made a clay Liberty Bell, Lily studied the Statue of Liberty, Ria taught us about Gateway Arch in St. Louis, Steven made a book about the White House, and Cal made a diorama about The Washington Monument. Mr. Gries and Emma came to our class and showed us pictures of their family trip to Washington D.C. He went to a lot of cool places that we learned about! Then Madison's family came. It was her mom, her dad, her aunt, and her adorable cousin Jayden. We used mirrors to see what was going on behind us. Madison read us a story about a crazy dinosaur with funny pants.

The weekend is here! Have fun!

PJ

Thursday's News by PJ

Today was a fun day at school. We had reading groups this morning. My group finished our book! We practiced our pasts Treasures stories with retelling cards. We practiced antonyms. We went to see Mr. Gries in the gym. We had buddy walkers, fitness dice, hula hoops, stepping stools, and the climbing wall. In music we played instruments and reviewed our songs. After lunch we practiced ballpark estimates and solving problems using partial sums. As a social studies review we did a "Connect 2." We tried to connect 2 words that go together in some way ex: Washington DC and President go together because the President lives in Washington DC. We learned about the Statue of Liberty from Amelia's shoebox diorama, and Mount Rushmore from Owen's book that he made himself!

See you tomorrow!

PJ

Busy Wednesday! by PJ

We had a writing celebration today! We put all of our desks in a box and then we walked around and read each other's personal narratives. We commented on the back of the ones we read. All the kids did a wonderful job. Charlie's was funny because his was a circle story that started over again at the end. We went to art class. We did two steps of our "Different is Good" project. We earned erasers for good behavior and work in art class. In math we practiced ball park estimates. If the number ends in a 5 or up, round up. If it ends in a 4 or under, round down. I did my presentation on the Lincoln Memorial this morning! It went well. Charlie presented the Statue of Liberty. He even had handouts! He read us a poem. Madison taught us about Mount Rushmore, and so did Alex. They made models of it that looked just like it! Margaret made a styrofoam model of the Washington Monument. Dominic studied the Golden Gate Bridge and made it out of straws and string and construction paper. The projects were so cool!

Second graders are busy people!

:) PJ

Tuesday's Fun by PJ

Today was a busy day at school. First we did our personal narratives. We published and illustrated them. We searched on google for 4 different landmarks. We found where they are and an interesting fact about each one. The ones we searched were: Mount Rushmore, The Grand Canyon, The Statue of Liberty, and The Washington Monument. We visited the library. We watched a Brainpop video on National Landmarks. Then we used Google Earth to fly to them and learn more about them. In math we learned about inches and centimeters. We measured our desk, chair, and the classroom door. We are about to share a few presentations before we get ready for home. (Danny blabberized Mount Rushmore, and I created a power point presentation on the Lincoln Memorial! I am going to present it tomorrow!)

See you tomorrow!

PJ

Monday's Tidbit by PJ

It was a good day! Everyone on the 6 minute solution beat their reading score today! It was good to be back at school after a whole week off. We made our own spelling lists because this is a review week. All of us have "Barack Obama" as one of our words. We had PE and Music. In PE we had physical stations. We had buddy walkers, climbing wall, and jump rope. In Music class we learned 2 new songs and played instruments. We started our landmark presentations today. Ava W. made a model of Devils Tower. Will studied the Washington Monument. Macy M. made the crack in the liberty bell talk to us using blabberize.com! Macy G. and Owen S. studied the Golden Gate Bridge and made really cool posters. It is a lot of fun to learn from the kids in our class!

See you tomorrow!

PJ

Friday's Feature by Macy M.

Today was a good day at school. We made some cute corn that said why we are special. We practiced our spelling words with a spelling buddy and we did a word sort. We reviewed our possessive and plural nouns. We worked on our personal narratives, they are almost done! We watched a little video about our president, Barack Obama, and wrote down six facts about him! Did you know he was born in Hawaii? He married a lady named Michelle. We had Cal's star student experiment. He did a great job. It was fun to see his mom! She read us a story about three little girls. We got our report cards.

Thanks for checking the blog!

Macy M.

Thursday's thinking by Ava D.

Today was a busy day. We buddy read "Nothing Like Baseball." We had gym and music today. In gym we did bowling. In music we practiced our songs. We played on the instruments. We read "Thanksgiving In The White House." President Lincoln pardoned a turkey. President Lincoln made Thanksgiving a national holiday. In social studies we read about some good citizens like Clara Barton, Sojourner Truth, and some other people. We wrote in our journals.

Have a nice evening!

Ava D.

Wednesday's Wisdom by Ava D.

Today was a fun day at school today! We did our mad minute after we did our math minute. We compared temperatures during math using a "Start, Change, End" box. Mrs. Maloberti came in and did art appreciation. We went to art this afternoon we started our art project by ourselves. We learned about American symbols. One of them is the Statue of Liberty, another is the Liberty bell, then there's the American flag, and the bald eagle. We are proud Americans!

See you tomorrow!

Ava D.

Tuesday's Tidbit by Ava D.

Today was a busy day at school today! We read a book called There's Nothing Like Baseball. We mixed what we know and what we read and made an inference. We had library. We typed recipes on how to make a turkey on the computers. We finished our flag packets. We did our math minute.

Have a nice afternoon!

Ava D.

Monday's Message by Ava D.

I am finally the classroom blogger! We had gym and music. In gym we did cosmic bowling. In music we practiced our musical songs. We also played on the instruments. We did our spelling pre test. We played vocabulary magic. Our vocabulary words of the week are imaginary, uniforms, tryouts, practiced, coach, and starting. We learned about recipes. They have ingredients and directions. In math we practiced part part total. In social studies we learned about the flag. Did you know that the flag's nickname is Old Glory?

Quiz question for the kids:

Where are some places you will find the American flag?

Thursday's Thinking by Drew

Today was a learning day at school. We learned about Veteran's Day. Veteran's Day is when we celebrate all of the people who fought in wars and kept our country safe. We made cards for Veterans telling them thank you for serving our country. We watched Carrie Underwood sing the Star Spangled Banner. Its our national anthem and its a song that shows our patriotism! We thought about what it would be like if we were the president. If I was president, I would want our country to be fair and safe.

Have a happy Veteran's Day!

Drew

Wednesday's Wisdom by Drew

We met Mayor Mulder today! She told us that Arlington Heights is the oldest city compared to the cities around us. We will be celebrating its 125th birthday very soon! Did you know she has trustees to help her make decisions for our town? They say "AYE, and NEY" when they vote. They meet at Village Hall and we can see the meetings on our cable channel on TV! Did you know Mayor Mulder used to be a teacher? Did you know she taught PE and was also a science teacher? When we got back to our class we had our class election. "Fair Frank" won! He was the best choice because he would keep things fair and honest, and help us learn at school. I think the kids made the right choice. We also learned that the "majority rule" is when one person gets more than half of the votes in an election. Fair Frank got 16 votes, which is more than half of all of the votes!

More tomorrow!

Drew

Tuesday's Tidbit by Drew

We read a story about a caterpillar and duck who were friends. We practiced making inferences by mixing what we read with what we know. We listened to speeches from 4 fictional class candidates who are running for class president. They were Healthy Harry, Tough Tiffany, Silly Sally, and Fair Frank. We made campaign posters for the candidate that we want to win the election. We went to the library and finished our president reports. Finally, the 4th graders sang to us in their musical!

Stay dry!

Drew

Monday's Message by Drew

It was a fantastic day at school. Miss O'Sullivan showed us this cool way to practice our vocabulary words. It was called vocabulary magic. When you move the vocabulary word on the screen, it turned into the definition! It was magic! Some of our words were: giggled, recognize, snuggled, and peered. We had PE and Music. We played bowling in PE. In music we practiced songs for the musical. We learned what a possessive noun is! It is something that somebody owns. For example, Drew's dog. In social studies we learned about how to vote and we are going to have a mock class election! In math we practiced counting coins and making change.

Bye-bye!

Drew

Friday's Fun by Isobel

Today was PJ's star student day! His dad came and they did an experiment where they trnasferred water from one bowl to another using air pressure. He read us a story about a pig and an elephant. In social studies we learned about the government. The leader of our town is Mayor Arlene Mulder. The mayor helps make laws and solve problems in the town. We read a Time for Kids newspaper about bullying. We never want to make someone feel bad. We took our Friday tests. They were easy.

Have a happy weekend!

:) Isobel :)

Thursday's Thoughts by Isobel

Today we went to gym and music. We did our first bowling of the year. We did pretty good! In music we are getting ready for our 2nd grade performance. We are singing Christmas and December songs. In social studies we learned about rules and laws in the community. We watched a video about those rules and laws. They keep our community safe and calm. In math we learned about making change. Start with the amount something costs and count UP to what you pay with!

That's all for now!

Isobel

Wednesday's Wisdom by Amelia

We read a story called Thanksgiving at the Tappletons'. We wrote in our journals about what we are thankful for! We learned different resources that give us information. These included a globe, a card catalog, a newspaper, an atlas, an almanac and a telephone directory! We had art this afternoon and we made a "different is good" picture. We drew how people can be different from each other. In math this afternoon we practiced solving frames and arrows problems that had 2 different rules! In social studies we read more fun facts about the presidents, and we listened to "America the Beautiful" and thought about what the words meant. New words we learned today are tax, government, and law.

Have a good afternoon!

Amelia :)

Tuesday's Tidbit by Isobel

Hello! Today was great. We got new seats in the classroom. We made turkeys for Thanksgiving decorations. We read a story about visiting the Emergency Room. We were assigned a president to study in social studies. Did you know one president had two pet bears? We read about Wacky White House pets! My president is Thomas Jefferson. We learned how to find the average, or the MEDIAN during math class by counting our pockets! Emma came in from Student Council and let us vote on our Spirit Day in January! We picked Pajama Day.

Have a great night!

Isobel

Happy Halloween!

We had our Halloween Party and Parade today! All of the kids looked great! We had a hockey player, a cheetah girl, a game of Twister, Smurfette, and Special Forces Agent! We played Pictionary and Wrap the Mummy. We had cupcakes, Twix candy bars, and grapes! It was such a fun afternoon. We heard two Halloween stories! Thank you to Mrs. Geisler, Mrs. Ford, and Mrs. Schneider.

Happy Halloween!

Isobel

Friday's Fun!

Hello kids! Madison escaped today before we got her blog post done, so I thought I would write a quick recap of the day for you! This morning we took our weekly assessments. We also read a book called "My Dog is as Smelly as Dirty Socks!" It was a book full of similes. We learned that a simile compares two things, using LIKE or AS. After our Treasures test, the children all made their own similes! What a great way to make our writing more fun to read! We also brainstormed possible story topics for our personal narratives. After lunch, Mrs. Misner came in for an Art Appreciation lesson about Michelangelo. The kids then tried to color a picture- of Miss O'Sullivan- on the floor on their backs! It was a lot harder to do than it looked! Then we went to the LMC to see Mrs. Dufern. Mrs. Dufern finished our podcasts with our Arlington Heights Landmark drawings, our voice recordings, and our actual photographs if we had them. It was so fun to see and hear all of the work that each of the children did! We learned about a NEW challenge in our classroom for the month of November, its a US Landmark challenge this time! We are to choose a landmark in our country to study, and we will present them to the class at the end of November. Finally, Ava's mom, dad and older sister came to visit our classroom for Ava's star student presentation. She did an awesome experiment showing how hot air expands- it blew up a balloon! Ava read a cute Halloween story to the class! What a great day at school we had!

Have a fantastic weekend!

:) Miss O'Sullivan

Thursday'sThoughts by Madison

Today was a busy day at school. In math we were counting with tens and ones. We are working to remember to write down our assignments so we keep getting our homework stickers! We had PE and Music. We walked, skipped, galloped and ran laps around the gym. Mr. Gries is very cool and nice and funny. Margaret started her subtraction fact timed tests today! She almost beat Miss O'Sullivan at the addition facts in one minute. We took a Math Review to see what we've learned so far this year in class!

See you tomorrow!

Madison

Wednesday's Wisdom by Madison

Today we had art class. We put the finishing touches on our spooky landscapes. We watched the black marker video before we outlined our work. In class we wrapped up our Arlington Heights Unit. We made a Venn Diagram comparing early settlers with how people live today. We went over our unit tests together. We learned what a personal narrative is. Its a story about something that happened in our life. We are going to be writing our own personal narratives! The 3rd grade musical was today, it was a Halloween theme. They sang about ghosts, goblins, and bones! They danced to Thriller! They told funny jokes in between songs.

That's it for now!

Byeee! Madison

Tuesday's Tidbit by Madison

Today we practiced telling time using our own little clocks. We learned that you can tell time by looking at only the hour hand, because its always moving! We went to the LMC and we heard about all of the Dryden Dolphin Book Award books! If we read all 20 books, we can win a prize! We took a mad minute. We are getting faster at our facts every day! We read a story about a baby seal who was left behind. We practiced finding the beginning, the middle, and the end of stories.

That's all for now!

Madison

Monday's Message by Madison

We had PE and Music class this morning. Miss Chiappe's class was with our class because Mr. D was preparing for the musical. We sang songs and played 4 corners. Ava W. is our new star student. We looked at her pictures and her poster. Her poster was really cool and sparkly. It was also her birthday today! We played a game called Jeopardy because this is the end of our Arlington Heights unit. It helped us review before taking our test. The West team had 2,000 points and the East team had 1,900 points. It was a fun game. We practiced using coins by buying fruit and vegetables during math.

Byeee! Madison

Weekly Recap!

What a wonderful week we had at school. The children and I (along with Mrs. Goodman, Mrs. Domlija, Mrs. Basu, Mr. Denney, and Mr. Psarros) took a walk to the Police Department on Friday afternoon. It was a beautiful day to be outside and in the community we have been learning about. The children were outstanding listeners as Officer Doug Hajek took us through the important places of the Police Department. The children viewed the jail cells, the fingerprinting computers, the evidence room, the shooting range, and even the report room- where the officers were ready for role call! We also went outside to take a good close-up look at the police cars. Not only did we learn about the role of the police officers in our town, but we were reminded to make good choices, always tell the truth, and to use our words in situations that could be harmful. I was so proud of the stellar behavior the children showed during this trip. Way to go, class! And a special thank you to the parents for coming along!

One quick reminder before the academic recap...

* Please return your pink conference forms tomorrow if you haven't done so yet. It will help to have this information before we meet as a staff to arrange our conference schedules. We do our best to set sibling conferences back to back, and to include any specialists your child may work with at school. Thank you for being flexible, it can be a challenging task to meet everyone's requests.

Also...There was a “Hard Lock Down Drill” at school today, reminding us what to do in case of a security situation. The children were reminded that in a situation like this, they are to find the nearest secured location, stay quiet, and listen to their teachers for further direction. They did a great job during this drill!

Spelling

After working with short and long /u/ sounds this week, our pattern will become more complex next week. The children will study words that have both long and short /i/ sounds, and long and short /a/ sounds!

Reading

The common theme to our literacy activities this week was seeds and planting. We began the week listening to Jack and the Beanstalk. New oral vocabulary words include: thrive, expect, fertile, and sprout. Our whole group story was called, “The Tiny Seed” by Eric Carle. It was about a little seed that blows through the air with its companions. The seeds face a variety of dangers including potentially landing in the ocean and desert, blowing too close to the sun and burning up, and being eaten by birds! The children came up with a great moral to the story- the seed may have been little, but it was strong! New vocabulary words from this selection include: burst, desert, drifts, drowns, gently and neighbor. The comprehension strategy we focused on was drawing conclusions. To do this, we first identified important facts from the story. Then we put these facts together to determine what the author was intending for us to understand, without directly stating it. The children went on to practice using their context clues (reading around a new or unknown word) to determine its meaning. All of the children met with their small guided reading groups as well. In the guided reading groups we focused further on gathering facts and developing our own conclusions based on books that more closely match their reading level!

Grammar

The skill of the week was learning all about nouns (a person, place, or thing). We also identified lists of items in a variety of texts, and practiced separating them with a comma.

Math

The children’s math fact scores continue to rise! It is very clear that there is a lot of practice happening! We have reached the end of Unit 2, after working with “in and out” boxes and “frames and arrows” problems. The children have not only completed these problems using a variety of rules, but they have had to critically look at completed problems and identify the rule on their own. They had practice with equivalent names, fact families, and writing addition and subtraction story problems based on a given fact family. The children took their Unit 2 assessment this week, and we were ready to begin Unit 3! Looking ahead, the children will be working with place value, money, and time.

Social Studies

We have been learning about the great William Dunton, who not only donated land for our town, but arranged to have our first one room school house built, organized the first church, and donated land and money so the train could come through town. Did you know that our town was named Dunton from 1854 until 1874? No wonder we have a statue of him at the corner of Arlington Heights Road and Northwest Highway! Learn more by visiting these websites on the sidebar to the right! This week the children looked at how transportation has developed and changed over the course of the last 120 years, from the covered wagon, to the horse and buggy, street car, early locomotive, up to our modern transportation methods of today. We also learned why Arlington Heights was such a desireable place to settle: near the train, near the city of Chicago, fertile soil, and a good climate for farming! We also learned that “Heights” was added to our name, because our town is approximately 106 feet higher than Chicago! We discussed the benefits of living on elevated land. The children learned about several additional early families, too, including the Meyers, Klehms, and Sigwalts. Finally, we have begun memorizing the names of the towns that surround Arlington Heights. The children learned a silly sentence to help them remember... Ask them to tell you! We are ready to wrap up this unit, and move on to Citizenship this week!

As always, thank you for visiting the blog to read about our adventures in 2nd grade!

I hope you had a restful weekend full of time spent outdoors!

:) Miss O'Sullivan

Friday's Fun!

Today was a great day! We went on a field trip to the Arlington Heights Police Station. It was a nice walk. We got to go in the jail! We learned its good to use your words when there's trouble. We should always tell the truth. We should never touch a gun. It was Margaret's star student day! Her mom, dad and her little sister Charlotte came to school! Her experiment was really good.

What was your favorite part of the field trip?

Have a good weekend!

:) Macy

Thursday's Thinking by Macy G.

Today we had PE and Music. We did rotations during class. In music we sang the Arlington Heights song! We learned the names of the towns that surround Arlington Heights. We learned a silly sentence to help us remember them! It was "Buffalo walk past me every rolling path!" Kids, can you name the cities? We also learned that the first fire truck was called "Old Faithful."

Have a nice day!

By Macy

Wednesday's Wisdom by Macy G.

Today we took our Math test. We practiced problems on our slates before we took the test.We had art class. We finished our Haunted House paintings. We wrote in our journals about which story we would like to jump inside of. In social studies we talked about early transportation. Long ago they used horses to pull their cars! Did you know that Arlington Heights is higher than Chicago? Its the end of our unit, we are almost done learning about our town.

Quiz question for the kids: Can you name all of the names of our town before it was Arlington Heights??

Have a nice day!

Macy G.

Tuesday's Tidbit by Macy G.

We went to the library today. We finished our Arlington Heights landmark pictures. There were a lot of moms helping us to record our voices with our landmark on the computer. We read a story called the Tiny Seed. We learned how to draw conclusions. We learned that not all seeds can grow into plants. Today was a very fun day!!

That's all for now!

:) Macy

Monday's Message by Macy G.

Hey everybody! I am the new blogger, Macy! Today was a great day at school. We took our spelling pre-test. We had PE and Music class. We had Mr. Gries again now that Mr. Staehlin is gone. We did several stations. One was the climbing wall, another was jumping rope, and one was throwing bean beags and the last one was lifting weights. We got some new books for our classroom book bags. We started learning the names of the cities that surround Arlington Heights, like Wheeling and Buffalo Grove!

More tomorrow!

:) Macy

Fall Greetings!

Hello!

Thank you for popping in to visit our blog and read about our week at school! I have to quickly start off by saying what a wonderful job the children did on their first book reports! It was apparent that not only did the children read their book carefully, but they took this project very seriously. They were happy and eager to have the spotlight for a moment to talk to their classmates about their book. Thank you for helping your child- these reports were a huge success- they were thoughtful, creative, and informative! (I attached some photos of the children and their reports to the sidebar on the right.) The children are so lucky to have such supportive families!!

Spelling

This was a Treasures "review" week. The children were challenged to choose 10 of their very own spelling words to practice! I was pleased to see that they chose interesting words that were appropriate to the time of year, our learning at school, and their ability level! As we begin Unit 2 next week, we will focus on words with the long and short /u/ sound!

Reading

Being a review week, the children prepared for and completed their first reading Unit Assessment this week. We were able to meet several times with our small guided reading groups! As the children are practicing their decoding reading skills during these groups, we have also begun developing our comprehension strategies as well. While they are reading, I will ask the children to pause to: make a connection, visualize, ask a question, make a prediction, make an inference, or even to think about their background knowledge about the topic. All of these strategies challenge the children to really think about what it is that they are reading. You may see post it notes come home that have snippets of information about a book (or Time for Kids newspaper!) and now you know why! Feel free to give your child 2-3 post-it notes while they are reading at home to connect to their reading and strengthen their comprehension while they are away from school, too! (As these are strategies that we are currently developing, they will initially need some guidance.)

Math

Math fact strategies we have practiced include “doubles +1”, the “doubles in between”, and they learned about the numbers that “make a ten!” I am very pleased to see their comfort level with these strategies strengthen! The latest addition to our list of strategies is "+8". I am very interested to see how the children perform on our next timed test, as they are moving very quickly through these isolated skills! During our lessons this week, we explored the concept of weight using a pan balance and a spring scale. The children learned that there are 16 ounces in a pound, and 8 ounces in half of a pound. They also reviewed name collection boxes and worked to find several different names for a given number. We worked with "in and out" boxes, as well as "frames and arrows" problems that encourage the children to identify the rule that is followed each time. We are nearing the end of Unit 2!

Social Studies

During our lessons this week, the children reinforced the information they have been learning about regarding traveling west and living on the prairie. The children watched a short video on Monday about Pioneer Life, and we paused it periodically to jot down important information we had heard on post-it notes. On Tuesday, the children were challenged to write 2 paragraphs with their new learning- one was about traveling west, and the other was about after they had arrived and began to settle into their new environment. The children developed a main idea and come up with details to match. It was fascinating to see the children's learning come through in their writing in this way! They learned to indent and organize their information! I can't tell you how amazed and pleased I was to see the final published versions of their writing. These are hanging in our hallway at school.

The children also learned about the early founding families of Arlington Heights, including the Miner, Kennicott, and Dunton families. Ask your child to tell you what they know! Aside from the the wonderful contributions of these families, next week we will learn about the contributions of several other important characters, including Charles Sigwalt, the Meyer Family, and the Klehm family! We did drop into the LMC on Friday afternoon for a bit to begin the drawings of our Arlington Heights Landmarks. I have already received a handful of photographs of the children near their landmark, thank you so much for sending them! What an authentic way to show the children that what they are learning has a direct connection to their town today. Thank you for your support!

Coming up this week is our field trip to the Arlington Heights Police Department. Not only will we learn that Charles Sigwalt had a hand in developing the early Police/Fire organizations, but this trip will also connect nicely to our next Social Studies unit- Citizenship! The children will learn about the services provided to their community with tax money, and this is a perfect example. If you are a parent volunteer arranged through Mrs. Geisler, please arrive to school no later than 12:50! We will leave promptly at 1:00 for a brisk 30 minute walk to the Police Department. Please please please- dress your children for the weather, including comfortable shoes. Thank you!

There is so much to cover, hopefully I touched on the highlights for you!

Thank you for visiting the blog!!

:) Miss O'Sullivan

Friday's Feature by Cal

Today was a great day at school. It was Spirit Day, which means we wore Dryden clothes, or red and white. We shared our book reports. They turned out awesome. They were all very different! There were a few WANTED posters, one live mermaid, a blog diary, and two kids did book talks. We read a cute story about a runaway pumpkin. We started our Arlington Heights Landmark drawings in the library.

Have a great weekend!

:) Cal

Thursday's Thoughts by Cal

Today we practiced "In and Out" boxes during math. There is a rule that tells you to add or subtract, and you solve a bunch of problems with that rule. In PE we played King Pin again. We were much better today than the last time. In music class we played a new game called "Call Captain." The captain names an instrument, and then the kids holding that instrument card had to run and switch places. This was a good review of the instruments we learned on Tuesday. In Social studies we talked about the coming of the train to our town. William Dunton donated $250 for the train to come and he donated the land too. We looked at the Arlington Heights Glog that is attached to our blog, its full of facts about Arlington Heights! Some kids helped Mrs. Fuglestad make inflatable street art in the shape of a ghost. It blew up and seemed to come to life!

From, Cal

Wednesday's Wisdom by Cal

We wrote 2 paragraphs at school during writing today! One paragraph was about traveling west in a covered wagon. The second was about living on the prairie. We practiced indenting our paragraphs. We started with a main idea, and then we wrote details. In art class we painted grass and sky on our spooky landscapes. We decided to make a BIG balloon in the shape of a ghost as an inflatable street art project with Mrs. Fuglestad. We talked about family life on the prairie and learned what prairie children did for fun.. Did you know they made toys out of wood? The girls made dolls out of corn husks. In math we practiced frames and arrows.

Bye-bye!

Cal

Tuesday's Tidbit by Cal

Hello 2nd graders! We had PE today. We played King Pin. We went to music and we named instruments! We named the flute, the xylophone, the violin, the cello, the harp, the trombone, the electric bass, the clarinet, the saxophone, the tuba, and the string bass. We had an extended fire drill. We learned where to go on the field to wait if there was a real fire. We chose our own spelling lists. We learned about ounces and pounds. We practiced name collection boxes.

It was a full day at school!

Sincerely, Cal

Weekly Update!

Hello!

Thank you for visiting the blog and reading about our week at school. It certainly was a full few days!

* The children had their school photos taken on Monday

* We took our field trip to the Arlington Heights Historical Museum, the Arlington Heights Memorial Library, and North School Park for lunch. It was such a beautiful day! The children were very well behaved, fantastic listeners, and took so much from this authentic learning experience! I hope you were able to get a feel for our day by viewing the photos in our field trip slideshow. Thank you to Mrs. Geisler, Mrs. Walsh and Mrs. Erickson for coming along!

* Congratulations to the

Erickson family!! They are the winners of our classroom project, "Family Game Night!" They were so excited to receive the box full of items for a night of family fun at the Progressive Dinner on Friday. Mrs. Erickson sent in this adorable photo of one very happy Lily! Congratulations!! Thank you all for participating, I understand it was a wonderful event and a prosperous fundraiser for our school.

Spelling

We worked this week on words that have the short and long /o/ sound. Next week we will have a review week, and the children will be taking a reading assessment covering all of the reading and writing skills we covered in Unit 1.

Reading

The common theme to our literacy activities this week was “Coming to America.” We kick off every new theme building our background knowledge by talking about the topic. New oral vocabulary words include: custom, journey, liberty, greet and varied. We talked a lot this week about immigrants who come to America- including the reasons they may come here as well as the customs they bring along with them. Our whole group story was called, “My Name is Yoon.” It was about a little girl who moved to America from Korea. Our comprehension strategy was making predictions, so the children paused throughout the story to think about what was going to happen next. All of the children met with their small guided reading groups as well. Each group read from the genre of historical fiction. We learned that historical fiction is a story that was created by the author based on historical events. In our guided reading groups we focused further on this genre, we practiced our decoding strategies, and we noticed our weekly vocabulary words! Our new vocabulary words from this week included: cuddle, favorite, patient, practiced, settled, and wrinkled. The children also worked this week to identify words with inflected verb endings. We noticed that the ‘ed’ and ‘ing’ at the end of words give us information about when the word is taking place- in the past or in the present!

Grammar

The children practiced identifying compound subjects and predicates, as well as combining sentences to create them on their own. We also worked to identify and incorporate quotations marks into sentences!

Math

After focusing on our +9 math facts, the children have been memorizing their numbers that "make a ten." (1+9, 2+8, 3+7, 4+6, 5+5) This particular skill will come in handy when adding two digit numbers! We went on to practice fact families this week, through the use of dominoes and fact triangles. The children were quick to see that each fact family has 2 addition and two subtraction facts! We practiced writing subtraction story problems based on these fact families, making sure to include a unit box (something to count) and a number model (equation).

Social Studies

The children reviewed that people require food, clothing and shelter for survival. We discussed how the area we live in now was once a vast prairie inhabited by the Potowatomi Indians. The children learned many different ways they used the land to survive- building their wigwams out of bendable branches and covering them with bark; hunting, gathering and cultivating food from the land, and even making their clothing out of animal skin and decorating it with feathers and quills. We learned that they created trails by traveling the same path over time, and eventually we paved those trails into our present-day roads and highways. (Did you know that Arlington Heights Road was once Potowatomi Trail?) We were also learned how the settlers moved into the area, forcing the Potowatomi to move west of the Mississippi River due to the Indian Removal Act of 1830. We were happy to know they left peacefully and were given a small amount of money. Finally, the children learned what it was like to travel in a covered wagon. We learned about dangers on the trail, the best location in the wagon train, and what would happen if the settlers encountered a steep hill, mountain, or even a river they had to cross. The children have begun "packing" their own covered wagons and illustrating life on the trail. They will write about their work next week as we learn about the early settlers that rolled into Arlington Heights in the late 1800s.

The children were each given an Arlington Heights Landmark to learn about during our time in the LMC! As an added challenge, take a picture of your child (or your family!) in the location of that landmark today- whether it is still there or not! You can email them to me (kosullivan@sd25.org) and we will add them to the children's research podcasts!

Field Trip to the Arlington Heights Police Department

Thank you for returning your field trip permission slips so quickly for our upcoming trip to the Arlington Heights Police Department! There is so much to learn about while studying our town, we are happy to have another authentic learning opportunity "in the field" on this upcoming trip. Please send in the permission slip if you haven't yet done so! And thank you to those of you that volunteered to come along! I understand we have 6 parent chaperones. I will send a reminder note home a few days before the trip, but please arrive to school by 12:50 on October 21st. We will leave promptly at 1:00!

I hope you are enjoying this beautiful weekend!

Happy Columbus Day!

:) Miss O'Sullivan