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