Another good day at school! By: Macy M

We did some persuasive writing at school today. First we picked a book, movie, or a restaurant that we really like. Then we thought of persuasive reasons that it is a great choice for other people to try. We started to design a poster with all of our information on it that will persuade our readers to give our choice a try. We shared a few of our examples with the class! After lunch we went to art class. We made a Dr. Seuss picture. In Social Studies we finished reading a book called, "Are We There Yet?" It was about an Australian family who took a 3 month trip all around Australia. They saw many of the things we are learning about, including the Great Barrier Reef, the Sydney Opera House, Uluru, and Bondi Beach! We added a few new words to our Australian Picture Dictionaries, including: jillaroo, jackaroo, ice block, fair dinkum, and lolly! In math we started learning about fractions! We divided shapes today into halves, fourths, and eighths.

Have a great night!

Macy M.

A Good Day at School! By Macy M.

We went to PE today and we showed the kindergartners how to use the Obstacle Course. In Music we used sticks to show symbols in music. In math we reviewed for our Unit 7 test and then we took our test. We also started talking about fractions! In Social Studies we talked about fun places to visit in Australia, including the Great Barrier Reef, the Sydney Opera House, and the sheep stations in the outback! It was a quick day!

See you tomorrow!

Macy

A Fun Friday! By: Steven

Hello!

We took our usual Friday tests today in DOL, Grammar, and Spelling. Before taking our spelling test we played a game of Sparkle! Margaret won today! (There is a little smiley-face eraser on her desk right now for winning today!) We read a Time for Kids newspaper about George Washington in honor of President's Day. We learned that he was our first president, he led the army in the Revolutionary War, his home was called Mount Vernon, and he was married to a lady named Martha! This afternoon, we went to the LMC to work on our Australian research projects. We finished sorting our facts into categories, and then did a little more research in the categories that could use some more information. Our class is almost ready to make our commercial about each of our territories! We also finished our persuasive writing pieces about our favorite food to each for lunch. Maybe we will convince you to have the food we wrote about for lunch one day!

It was Dominic's Star Student week. His parents, his grandparents, his aunt, and his older sister came to visit! It was called "Air Support." He dropped two different parachutes on the ground to see which would fall the fastest. One had a knot in the top and one did not. The one with the knot fell the fastest because less air got trapped inside it. Dominic is a star because he is nice, he is a fluent reader, he is fun to play with at recess, he is fair, and he follows the rules at school.

Have a great Saturday and Sunday!

Steven

Thursday's Thinking by Drew

Hi! We reviewed our DOL and Grammar skills this morning. And guess what! we received letters from our pen pals at Olive Mary-Stitt School! They were letters in response to our letters we sent a little while ago. We read them and then wrote a letter back, answering all of their questions. We put a picture of ourselves on our letter so our pen pal would know what we look like. We also practiced addressing the envelope! We measured the lines in centimeters. We learned the cursive letter n. We learned about the aborigines, or the native people of Australia. They have a celebration called a corroboree and they play a musical instrument called the didgeridoo! Its a long, narrow instrument. In math we practiced finding the median again, but this time we found the median length of our arm spans. We found the minimum and the maximum in our data set. We all stood down the center of our classroom in the order of length from smallest to greatest, and then the student at either end sat down one at a time until we had the middle number. (That's what the median is!) Sometimes there will be two numbers left in the middle, and then you need to find the middle in between those!

Have a nice snowy night!

What a Wednesday! By Steven

We had PE today. We played Sharks and Minnows. We jumped rope. We ran, galloped, skipped and jumped around the gym. In music class we sang a song called "Shoo Fly."

In reading we read a nonfiction article about different kinds of storms. We read about blizzards, hurricanes, tornadoes, hailstorms, thunderstorms, and lightning. We learned that in Illinois there could be up to 6 tornadoes a year. In order to stay safe during a storm, you can go to your basement or in a closet away from windows. Listen to the news, radio, or look online to see if there is a storm coming your way.

During math we wrote down our longest jump from yesterday in centimeters on a post-it note. Then we looked for the smallest number or the minimum, and the largest number or the maximum. Then we subtracted the two to find the range. Our smallest jump was 70, and our largest jump was 150. The range was 80 centimeters. All of the kids got in order by number, biggest to smallest. Then we found the MEDIAN, or the MIDDLE number. Our class median was 112 cm.

Byee!

Steven

Back to School! By Steven

It was good to come back to school after a long weekend. This morning we took our spelling pre-test. We learned new vocabulary words! They are destroy, prevent, beware, grassland, uprooted, and violent. Then we read about Super Storms! That is our theme of the week. This afternoon we went to the library. We were working on our Australia research projects. Today we cut apart all of our facts and sorted them into categories we came up with based on our facts. My group made these groups: weather, fun things to do, and animals to see all in South Australia. During math we practiced measuring our arm span using a tape measure. We measured in inches and in centimeters. Then we broke into small groups to see who could jump the farthest. Each group had a jumper, a measurer, a line judge, and a marker. We all took two turns. Dominic and I had awesome jumps! Mine was 128 centimeters and 50 inches! It was fun measuring our jumps. We are going to sort the data tomorrow.

Have a nice night!

Steven

Happy Presidents' Day!

Hi there!

The students have been doing such a great job keeping everyone up-to-date with their posts, its been a while since I've had a turn! Last week was a very busy week for us at school.. Here come some of the highlights...

* Our Valentine's Day party was a huge hit! Thank you to Mrs. Geisler for planning a perfect party for the children, and to Mrs. Erickson for helping to execute. The kids had a sweet and a healthy treat, made huge, super cute Valentine envelopes, distributed their valentines, and played a game of Valentine Bingo! They had such a fun afternoon.

* Our Australian unit is moving along nicely! The children have been broken up into cooperative learning groups to research each of the 7 territories/states of Australia. They are seeking to answer these question: "Why should I live in this part of Australia? Why should I visit this part of Australia? They are using a variety of online sources to help them find an in-depth answer to these questions.

* The children had a Skype conversation with my cousin, Robert, who lives in Melbourne, Australia. We had a great talk with him and his two sons, Jasper and Rory, who are just about the age of our second graders! We learned so much in a short time about the animals, the sights, and their daily life in the land Down Under. They talked about some of their favorite foods and explained to us the games of Cricket and Aussie Football! We can't wait until our next conversation!

* The variety show took place at school this week. I understand we had a handful of performers from our very own class! Way to go, you guys!

* Thank you for sending in those conference request forms in so quickly. Many of you requested evening time slots! Aligning sibling conferences back to back and incorporating additional staff members' schedules into the process as well can be very challenging. I do appreciate your flexibility- and the fact that you are in town for the conference! Trying to schedule conferences outside of the conference day is not only time consuming, but it takes away from my daily preparation for your child's lessons. I very much appreciate all of your efforts to be here on conference day.

Here come some academic highlights!

Spelling

The children practiced words with the /oo/ sound, spelled ‘oo’ and ‘ou’! Next week we will encounter more words with the /oo/ sound, spelled ‘ui,’ ‘u,’ and ‘ue.’

Reading

This week our focus was on the environment. We read a nonfiction text called, “A Way to Help Planet Earth.” The children imagined what the Earth would be like if people didn’t recycle. We learned what happens to the items that we do recycle! The children now understand the concept of a landfill and how it holds the garbage we throw away for years to come. We focused on the comprehension strategy of creating a web to organize the key points of the text we have read. The children put the main idea in the middle, and then summarized the text by attaching key ideas they read in the circles that stem from it. We learned several new vocabulary words that tied in with our texts this week, including: conservation, extinct, hardest, remains, and trouble. The children identified nonfiction text features such as graphs, charts, and actual photographs. We also noticed that there are changes in print in nonfiction texts that catch our attention and give us more information. These features include the size, thickness, slant, and color of the letters. We realized that the author makes these changes to stress important details! We reviewed the idea of comparative and superlative words, noting that comparative words compare two things and end with ‘er’, while superlative words compare many things and end in ‘est.’

Grammar

The children worked on irregular verbs including: see/saw, do/does, and say/said.

Math

Over the course of the week, the children worked to find halves of even numbers. They solved “What’s My Rule?” problems involving doubling and halving. We practiced reading numbers on a scale. The children learned that there are 16 ounces in a pound and practiced estimating weights of different objects. This week the children will participate in "Data Day," where they will take standing jumps in small groups. Then they will take all of the data from their classmates and sort it, identify the range, and then look for the median- or average- jump length.

I hope you've enjoyed your long weekend! See you back at school tomorrow!

:) Miss O'Sullivan