See ya, September!

We have completed our first full month of school, and boy was it a full one!

Below, view photos of some of our 2nd grade adventures this week.

Look out October, here we come! :)

Our unit on life cycles has begun! The children traced and measured a hand and a foot so we can see just how much we grow over the course of the school year! We anticipate the arrival of our caterpillars so we can watch and learn about their life, too!

The children have LOVED the exploration and collaboration that the cardboard challenge experience has provided us.  They have really interesting and creative ideas and it was so much fun to watch them try and tweak and try again to make those ideas come to life!

It was picture day on Thursday! The children looked adorable in their picture day outfits and their smiles sparkled! :)

One of our reading lessons this week revolved around the concept of retelling. We have been talking about ways to connect more deeply with the text. The children practiced visualizing, re-reading, and making connections to go from the "wading pool" as we called it to the "diving well!"  This week the children took their reading further by considering the most important parts of the story: the characters, problem, beginning, middle, end, and the conflict resolution. We practiced as a whole class with The Interrupting Chicken" and then the children were challenged to practice the same skill after reading a book of their choice on their own.

One way the children have been interacting with each other and the text is by participating in the "fish bowl."  The children will eagerly hop up to volunteer to sit in the conversation chairs and take turns discussing the topic or question of the moment.

In the LMC this week, we learned all about digital citizenship. The children listened and thought about ways to show responsibility using the internet. Then, they created a chatterpix message reiterating a key idea from today's lesson!

We realized our American flag is a bit out of the way and in the corner of the classroom, making it hard for everyone to see during the Pledge of Allegiance. The kids and I thought it would be a great responsibility for the "teacher's assistant" to hold the flag for everyone to see each morning! Thanks, Max, for displaying our flag so proudly for us this week!

We talked a bit more about the "Zones of Regulation" this week. The children have begun to develop a good self awareness of the zone they are in throughout the day. Our lesson today provided the children with various scenarios, and they moved to stand underneath the color that best corresponded with the feelings in this zone. We noticed that some scenarios could cause different feelings for different people, and that's okay!

After talking about the different zones and reasons people might move from one zone to the next, we came to the understanding that it is OKAY to have feelings in each of the zones. The goal, however, is to find ways to get ourselves back to the green, happy, content zone. We reviewed some strategies that can help us get back to our happy place including taking a quiet break, getting a drink of water, listening to music, writing down how we are feeling, or even doing some jumping jacks or taking a walk!

We were so happy to welcome Nicholas' grandmother into the classroom for his star student presentation! We thought about how a ball rolls vs. how an egg rolls. We listened to a great story called "Otis," and we shared all of the terrific reasons that we are happy to have Nicholas in our class this year! He is such a happy, hard working, bright, and strong student, friend, and classmate!

Thank you for stopping by our blog this week!
Have a great weekend!

Busy Bees in 2-2!

It's pretty amazing to think about the huge range of skills and activities the 2nd graders cover in a week at school. Below are some photo highlights of the wonderful learning that made our class shine stronger and brighter by the end of the week!

A reading lesson this week encouraged the children to "take note" while reading nonfiction texts this week. The children thought carefully about their background knowledge before beginning, and they jotted down a question they are wondering to set a stage for reading their carefully selected book.

The children were encouraged to write down interesting facts that they would like to discuss with a partner once their reading was complete. The children wrote these facts on post-it notes and stuck them in the corresponding place inside their books.

It was very clear that the children were reading carefully and taking notes that they found important!

Watching the children share their facts with their buddy was enlightening. The children followed a procedure list to guide them in their discussion, and it was awesome to see the children listening carefully to each other's facts, look at any pictures that supported or enhanced the understanding of this fact, and then ask their buddy if they have anything to add to the fact to build their understanding even further! Their conversations were focused and took their learning and understanding much further than just reading on their own!

During math this week, one lesson had us working with number patterns. The children enjoyed pulling out their calculators to turn them into "counting machines" so we could create and identify our own patterns, too!

We had fun in the library this week with Mrs. O'Kelly!

One of the highlights of our week was the Cardboard Challenge. The children were so excited to learn about a little boy named Caine who created his very own arcade out of cardboard in California. Learning about what this child was able to create inspired our own students to think outside of the box about what they could create, too!

The children broke into groups and brainstormed some ideas of what they would like to create.

Then, they narrowed these ideas down to the one that seemed like the most functional idea.

They started drawing and planning how they would go about putting their plan into action.

And then it was time to begin! The children worked together to pull materials that would help their creation come to life. They cut, tape, pasted, stacked, and arranged the boxes into a variety of ways!

There was an energetic buzz in the classroom during this time! The children were eager to talk about their plan, demonstrate how they were hoping it would work, and arrange their materials carefully.

Mrs. Wasik went to get even more cardboard for us as the children's ideas grew and changed as they worked and worked!

I was astounded to see how far the children's thinking, planning, and created traveled in just an hour. We will work a bit more on our cardboard challenge projects next week! The whole school will be sharing their creations on a "play day" on October 13th!

We stopped for a moment to snap a shot of all of our classroom sports fans! It was such fun to see the different sports and teams the children in our class were fans of!

It was Dawid's week to be Star student! We welcomed Mrs. Porebski to our classroom on Friday afternoon. Dawid and his mother showed the class a fascinating experiment called "Raisins Rising!" They used baking soda and vinegar to create carbon dioxide that lifted the raisins up! Wow!

Then they shared a book with the class called "Brave as Can Be" which got us thinking about facing our fears in order to overcome them! This book is now a part of our classroom library. Thank you for the wonderful gift that the children will enjoy sharing all throughout the year, Dawid!

We are so lucky to have this strong, bright, and caring student in our class this year! Dawid is a powerful classroom leader by setting such a terrific example for his classmates each day.  You had a terrific star week, Dawid!

Thank you for stopping by our blog this week to see what has been keeping our 2nd graders busy, moving,  and thinking! Enjoy the weekend!

:) Kelly O'Sullivan