Boy, how time does fly! We recently marked the 100th day of school.
Working so hard in second grade this year sure has aged us! Hopefully we'll get some much needed rest over vacation.
Valentine's Day is a wonderful opportunity to show friendship and HEART. We enjoyed sharing Valentines and some special treats together. Thank you to all the parents who donated supplies and their time to our party.
On to the next 80 days!
There have been a lot of famous faces in room 205 lately.
Everyone read a biography, wrote a report, designed a poster, created a timeline, and presented their report to the class.
Each student learned from their own experience and benefitted from their classmates' research as well. From the oral reports, we learned about 19 different famous people.
In class we read about Milton Hershey. He was our model for the research and timeline project. We all wish Hershey Park was a bit closer. We'd like to see his chocolate town up close!
Today three firefighters visited to talk about fire safety.
The 3 big ideas were:
To help us remember to talk to our families about deciding on a meeting place, they gave us bags with special treats inside.
THANK YOU FIREFIGHTERS!!!!!
The firefighters invited everyone to stop by the station with their parents at anytime to see the trucks and to learn more.
They also told us when we're in sixth grade we could enroll in the Fire Adventurers Program and help them out! WOW! That's something to look forward to!
These are some of the treats inside the bags they left for us!
The FROG BLOG
For the past five years Room 205 has happily housed African Dwarf Frogs as class pets.
First there were
Ben and Jerry.
When Jerry passed we got Franklin.
Ben and Franklin.
Then Ben passed so we got Aretha.
Aretha and Franklin.
Last week Aretha passed.
Berry is our newest addition.
Frank and Berry.
They are becoming fast friends and enjoy hiding in the new aquatic plants.
Speaking of hiding....we recently studied animal adaptations, with a particular focus on how animals adapt to winter. Each student camouflaged a paper snowshoe hare in our classroom environment. Here are a few examples:
Can you find the bunnies?
In reading we're focused on identifying the main idea and finding details that support it. This coincides with our writing focus of constructing paragraphs with topic and supporting sentences.
A great way to highlight main idea is with nonfiction text. We're fortunate to have many high interest titles to choose from.
This week the kids took a break from their usual reading groups and paired based on common interest. After reading a book of their choosing, they worked together to represent the main idea and key points on a poster.
The end results are both creative and informative! Well done second graders!
Watch for my next post about our lesson on animal adaptations in winter. You'll have to see it to believe it!
We have a lot to say.....
Now we're learning how to organize our thoughts and words into paragraphs. We're using the traffic light method.
We started by creating class paragraphs. Different students contributed each part. They held colored circles representing their part. It was easy to physically move them if the class felt the paragraph needed revising.
Next we wrote our own paragraphs.
We're working on varying sentence beginnings. Soon, I'll introduce transition words and phrases such as "however, since, because of this." Use of those will help the detail sentences flow.
Stay tuned for my next post about our awesome project on main idea and details. Your kids are VERY talented.
We have big plans for 2015....
Every class is making a resolution. Stop by to see the posters in the main lobby!
Our class is working on respecting personal space and not disturbing others as we walk
through the hallways.
We started the new year by reading Squirrel's New Year's Resolution. Afterwards we thought about what we could do this year to improve our lives or the lives of others. We were sure to make our resolutions realistic and measurable.
Everyone formed their thoughts into statements. We took a picture
for prosperity!!
What are your plans for the new year?
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