The latest in 2-2!

As usual, it has been a non-stop few days in room 153! Read below to see what we've been up to!

It was Phillip's week a few days ago to be our 2nd grade star student! We welcomed Phillip's dad in to demonstrate an experiment and to share a book with our class.

 The children were captivated with Mr. Czapulonis! He talked to the children about particles and matter and he showed them how light reflected off of the particles of milk when he and Phillip poured it into a class of water and shined a flashlight on it. There was a blue glow!

 Mr. Czapulonis got the children thinking about volcanoes, plates, and the earth around us!

  Such a great picture of Phillip and his dad. We love having such a bright, happy and energetic boy in our class this year! Phillips works hard, and plays hard, too! He LOVES soccer! You had a great week, Phillip!

 We were excited to find that our caterpillars were starting to move into their chrysalis or pupa stage of their life cycle! It was time to start moving them into their new home, the butterfly house!

 Two helpers planted pea seeds into our small classroom green house. Just one more way for the children to witness the life cycle process first hand in our classroom.

 During character counts week we focused on a very important pillar of character each day. We dressed in a different color each day, and we had good conversations about making healthy and safe choices when taking care of ourselves and in interacting with others!

 It was a rainy week last week, and the children spent some time indoors during recess. These three completely impressed and surprised me! They asked me for some paper, and they went into the hallway to create an entire book full of sports poems. They wrote the poems, illustrated them, and then stapled them together to form a book. At the end of recess, they shared their book with their classmates! Way to go Quin, Mia, and Chase!!

 As we look ahead to our citizenship unit, we were happy to welcome the Arlington Heights Memorial Library's Bookmobile to Dryden to visit the 2nd graders! We learned that the bookmobile houses 3,000 items compared to the 300,000 items found at the main library. Many of the children brought their public library cards from home and couldn't wait to choose some books to bring home!

 Hooray for books! Hooray for READING! and Hooray for amazing services in our town!

 We are noticing beautiful changes to our class tree as we move further into the fall season! We can see our tree through the classroom windows, and when we saw the beautiful red leaves we had to head into the courtyard to take a closer look!

 What a pretty and deep shade of red!

 As we near the end of the 1st trimester, the children have taken some classroom assessments to show their understanding of concepts in spelling, math, geography, and grammar! I will be sharing these with you at our upcoming parent/teacher conferences in a few weeks.

 Mrs. Zemla and Mrs. Cinkler are our art appreciation moms this year! They came by to talk to the children about two works of art: White birds and Flowering Cherry. The White Bird artwork was a form of Japanese print art. Mrs. Cinkler and Mrs. Zemla prepared an activity for the children to practice their own print making, by carving an image into a styrofoam plate and transferring it to paper with paint. They loved it!

 Then it was Mia's week to be our super star! Mia's mom came in and shared an experiment with us that got us thinking about how rocket ships work. Mia and Mrs. Michael attached a balloon to a straw and the children watched as the air from the balloon pushed it across the string. The children were excellent observers, noting that the balloon traveled in the opposite direction of the air.

 Together, Mia and her mom shared a festive book about a peppery pumpkin soup. What a great choice for the season! The children all shared how much they enjoy having Mia in our class this year. They shared that she is sweet, hardworking, helpful, sometimes silly, and cute! I couldn't agree more! You had a terrific week, Mia!

 The children had fun making Frankenstein monsters to celebrate Halloween!

 Below are some pictures of our Halloween parade and party at school on Monday! The kids looked great in their costumes, and we couldn't have asked for a more beautiful fall day!

 The Halloween party was a blast thanks to Mrs. Lokun and Mrs. Pawlik's careful planning and organizing!

 Mrs. Phillips helped the children complete a skeleton craft using toothpicks and black paper. They turned out very spooky!

 Mrs. Cinkler prepared mysterious boxes full of creepy objects for the children to feel and guess what they thought might be inside. The children squealed as they wondered what could be inside each box!

 Mrs. Zemla sparked the children's creativity as they took turns adding pieces to a scary story!

 Mrs. Lokun found the best prizes for the kids for being such great participants!

 THEN it was mummy time! The children had fun wrapping each other up in toilet paper.

 At the end of our party, Mrs. Zemla set up a karaoke station for the children to sing some Halloween tunes!

 Before I knew it, it was MY turn to get wrapped like a mummy! I think the children liked this part of the party a little bit too much?!

 A+ in wrapping, class! Thanks again to all of our wonderful parent helpers for planning such a fun and exciting Halloween party for the children! They thought of everything!