We've got mail!

The children were SO EXCITED to receive a response in the mail from the White House! Included in the packet was a letter from President Obama, photos of the President and the First Family, President Obama's answers to frequently asked questions, a map of the White House, and a photo tour of some of the artwork inside. We loved revisiting our citizenship unit and reading and learning even more about the President, his important job, and the amazing & historic White House!

Our cursive lessons have begun! The children are so eager to learn cursive handwriting and are doing their VERY BEST work during our lessons! They are doing a great job of sitting tall in their chairs, slanting their papers in the correct direction, holding their paper firmly in place with their guide hand, and tracing and writing the letters with smooth strokes. Their work looks great!

We took a few minutes during our short week of school to spruce up our classroom in preparation for our upcoming Valentines day celebration! Their lovable little owls are adorable!

As we continue to dig deeper into our Australia Unit, the children took turns "teaching" their classmates about the Australian animal they studied at home! Once again the children took ownership of their learning and became experts on a topic that they presented to the class. I am in AWE of the hard work and the real learning that took place as I watch my truly remarkable 2nd grade students talk about an animal that they might have never even heard of before! WOW!

 Paige created a colorful poster along with her report about the cousin of the kangaroo, the wallaby!

 Joe put together an informative Powerpoint Presentation about the Koala, and even used the laser pointer to share specific details!

 We learned so much about the sugar glider from Meg's colorful and eye catching poster!

 Frankie amazed us with his details about the enormous emu!

 Emily showed us what the giggly kookaburra looks like in her shoebox diorama.

 Alexandra taught us all about the thorny devil with her shoebox diorama that was complete with facts both inside and out!

 Jovanni became a tasmanian devil expert as he shared his poster full of pictures and facts with his classmates.

 Scott very creatively constructed a platypus out of a paper bag and straws!

 Leo amazed us with a homemade blue tongued skink in a habitat full of facts!

 Maggie wowed us with her quokka presentation, complete with two habitats!

 In other news this week, the children took a DOG (Daily Oral Geography) quiz, using a US and World Map for support.

 It was Scott's week to be our super star student! We enjoyed a visit from Scott's older brother John who dropped in to share some information about Scott's pictures, assist Scott with his experiment, and share why he thinks Scott is a star brother. We loved our time with him!

 Here, Scott and John show the class how the center of gravity of a meter stick can change with the help of a few pennies to redistribute weight.

 Scott began reading "Wump World" to the class before we headed off to PE class. We are so lucky to have such a bright, sharp, and funny fellow in our class this year! Scott adds so much personality and dimension to our classroom and we love working and learning along with him every day at school!

 We finished our afternoon on Friday with a few more Australian animal research projects! Emma made a beautiful diorama to accompany her facts about a major predator... the dingo!

 Joana chose great pictures and captions to highlight the life of the prickly echidna from start to finish.

 Ryan made a lifelike model of the adorable wombat to go along with his terrific facts!

 Curtis created a very professional looking presentation about the numbat that fascinated us with facts!

 David made his frilled lizard do all the talking in his blabberize presentation!

 Kurt answered all of our questions about Australia's 2nd largest flightless bird, the cassowary, in his Powerpoint presentation.

 Natalie did a remarkable job teaching us about the clever lyrebird that can repeat the sounds he hears!

 Tyler brought his diorama of the kangaroo around for the kids to get a closer look after sharing his informative research with us!

We have a few presentations to finish this week but our minds are literally bursting with facts after these terrific projects we have seen! What an amazing connection between the learning at home and in school!

In math, the children were exposed to subtracting two digit numbers with regrouping. We practiced this little poem to help us remember to begin in the ONES place, and to know when we should regroup (or borrow from the tens place). Please help us practice this same procedure during practice at home!

Our nonfiction reading lessons this past week focused on identifying the meaning of new words, and determining the author's purpose: to Persuade, Inform, or Entertain us!

It's hard to believe that February is already here!

Just a few reminders:
* We look forward to a fun Valentine's celebration in our class on Friday, February 12th. We will be making Valentine envelopes to hold our valentines at school. Please remember to choose valentines this year that do not have candy attached. Thank you!

* The Scholastic Book Fair will visit Dryden School this week! Our time to visit the book fair to create a wish list will be on Tuesday afternoon. The children will have permission to make purchases at the book fair during their lunch and recess times during the day.

* There will be a family reading night at Dryden on Thursday evening! Hop into your jammies and head to school with your family to celebrate reading with some great books before bed with your friends!

Thanks for checking in to see all we have been working on in 2nd grade!

A terrific week in 2-2!

The children amazed me with all of their hard work this week! I am so proud of all of the learning that took place in our classroom. Here are the highlights!

 Our Australia research continued with the help of Mrs. O'Kelly in the LMC. The children worked in their small groups to study their territory in depth. This week, we focused on the climate, the land, and the exports of each territory. The children feel such ownership of their studying, and it really propels them forward! When we make a connection to our whole group learning back in the classroom, the hands literally SHOOT up into the air so they can share what they know! (Hooray!)

 Among so many other learning experiences, this was a week full of winter assessments. These assessments included our CBM reading fluency, M- COMP (a math computational progress check) Founts & Pinnell guided reading benchmarking (not yet complete) and the above handwriting assessment. The children were so excited to "pass" their handwriting test so we can *finally* begin cursive next week! They did a remarkable job- I mentioned to the children that if they can write this neatly on their handwriting test, they can write this neatly ALL the time...! :) Cursive, here we come!

 We have jumped right into our persuasive writing unit! This writing unit connects nicely to our current social studies research and efforts to persuade our classmates to visit our particular territories! Persuasive writing involves providing lots of evidence, adding colorful description, and using strong, persuasive terminology.  After reading the book "I Wanna Iguana," the children proceeded to choose a pet that they would like to have.  They began to write a persuasive letter to their families sharing persuasive reasons why they should have this pet!

 The children started off by first brainstorming which pet they would like to have. Then, they considered all of the reasons that this would make the perfect family pet.  They arranged their thoughts into sentence form and organized them into paragraphs using a graphic organizer. Finally, we developed a powerful opening sentence (ex: beginning with a sound effect, a question, or simply stating their opinion in the introduction) and a clever closing sentence that reiterated our point of view. We edited their work together checking for complete sentences, proper punctuation, and accurate spelling.

 The children published their work and it turned out BEAUTIFULLY! They completed a rubric that allowed them to double check their own work to be sure their work was as thorough as possible. These amazing pieces of writing are now on display in the hallway outside of our classroom. I wouldn't be surprised if a new tarantula, butter snake, turtle, scorpion, or macaw flew, creeped, or crawled into some of your homes in the next few days, this work is pretty persuasive!!

 It was Curtis' week to shine as our super star second grader. Curtis and his dad got us thinking about wind, the direction it blows, and its power to change the course of sailboats and footballs! Curtis showed us a youtube clip of a few field goal kickers who missed their kicks due to some seriously strong gusts of wind!

 Curtis and his mom shared a wonderful story called "Miss Twiggley's Tree" which was about a shy woman  who lived in a tree- but in a time of crisis she overcame her shyness in order to help others. What a great book with a powerful message!

An added bonus: Mrs. Droste brought in some photos of a trip she took to Australia a few years back! She traveled to Sydney and shared details about her trip including seeing the amazing sights (the Sydney Opera House and the Harbour Bridge) and visiting the zoo to see the unique and indigenous animals, many that can only be found in Australia!

 

What a perfect picture of the Drostes! Thank you so much for coming in to celebrate Curtis' star week with us. It was especially fun to see the children spontaneously break out into the birthday song for Curtis -but the children added both Curtis and Martin Luther King Junior's names to the song! We should have ALSO added Drew Brees- superstar former Purdue and current New Orleans Saints quarterback... Curtis shares such a special day with some other special people! 

 Speaking of Martin Luther King, Jr,. the children and I read two different books about him to enhance our nonfiction reading unit and to deepen our understanding of the different types of nonfiction texts. On the left is the book "Martin's Big Words." We decided that since this is a nonfiction text written in a story format, that it would fall into the literary nonfiction category. The book on the right was called "Martin Luther King, Jr." and it seemed to be a combination of a reference book/biography.

 The children completed a Venn Diagram comparing/contrasting the text structure.  Again, there was tremendous thought and careful analyzing involved in comparing these two texts. The children were able to notice and note many nonfiction text features! In the small blue reference/biography text, the children found actual photographs, an index, bold print, a table of contents, and a glossary. In the literary nonfiction text the children identified drawings, quotes, bold words, and more of a story format. I am in awe of the learning that the children in our class are doing every day!  I'm so proud of them!

 We transferred this skill one more time to our reading of another nonfiction text- a National Geographic Magazine for kids. The students were eager to label all of the nonfiction text features they could find with post-it notes as they read.

 The children found photographs, labels, close-ups, maps, bold words, subtitles, and glossaries within the magazine. They really enjoyed the articles, and realized that these features helped them to better understand the content!

Another wonderful week in the books for 2-2!

Some additional important items:
* Remember it is a short week next week! We celebrate Martin Luther King Jr. on Monday 1/18, and teachers have a work day on Tuesday 1/19.
* January online book orders are due on Tuesday morning by 10 AM.
* The children received a class list on Friday with the names of all of the students in our class, in case they decide to get a head start on their valentines over the long weekend. Please remember that cards with candies attached are no longer permitted. Thank you! Also, we will be making large valentine envelopes at school to hold all of our valentines in and transport them home.
* If your family has a younger sibling, or you know a neighbor eligible for kindergarten at Dryden next year (The child must be five before September 1, 2016.) Please call the school office now to request a registration packet. Kindergarten registration day is February 9th.
* The children's Australian animal home research projects are due on January 27th! We can't wait to learn about these amazing creatures!

Thank you for reading!
Enjoy the long weekend!

Kelly O'Sullivan