Happy Holidays from Room 210!

Happy Thanksgiving!

We have had a fun-filled week in second grade learning about the first feast of Thanksgiving. I hope you have a wonderful celebration with your families!

Drew adds details to our Wampanoag vs. Pilgrim Venn Diagram

We created 'thankful pumpkin centerpieces' for our Thanksgiving Day tables!

Students worked on adding sums to color turkeys in Math Workshop

We celebrated earning all of our feathers. We showed GRIT!

Personal Narrative Stories!

Our class has been busy throughout the months of October and November working on our personal narrative writing unit. We started generating ideas for writing by discussing small moments that matter. We compared a big overarching topic to a watermelon, and a small moment to a seed. Each child started a list of small moments in a ‘tiny topic’ notepad in their Writer’s Notebook.

Personal Narrative Anchor Chart

We started our own narrative stories by choosing one small moment and stretching it out. We practiced planning our story across our fingers, remembering details from our personal experience. We then mapped out our story with short phrases across our pages. Next, we added detailed pictures to our phrases. We worked hard to write the words to our story and look at mentor texts to study author’s techniques and how to craft a detailed narrative.

We wanted to take our finished product to the next level by creating an audio recording! Mrs. Klipfel helped us use the Book Creator app to take pictures of our illustrations, record our voice reading our story, and add a fun title page. 

Rider, Sage, and Ava take pictures of their illustrations using their ipads

Quinn records his voice using the Book Creator app

Students are so excited to share these projects with you! Enjoy!

Happy Veteran's Day!

This morning we celebrated Veteran's Day with a special assembly to honor all the men and women who served our country in the armed forces. We participated by singing songs and sharing card-bundles with our local veterans. Mrs. Costa asked all veterans to line the front of the room, and students were asked to raise their hand if they knew a veteran. It was an amazing sight to see!

We were so lucky to have Mr. Erickson, an army veteran, help us out for Writer's Workshop today! Will was so excited to have his Dad in. Thank you for your service Mr. Erickson!

Empathy

Last week Mrs. Edelstein, Ms. Kezer, and Ms. O'Donnell met with our second grade girls to talk about empathy and what it feels like to be connected with each other. They read the story The Invisible Boy and talked about the steps to communicating empathy. This week in class meeting, the girls taught the class about what they learned.

Maggie shows the class the 'look, assess, decide' chart

You can model empathy by talking to your kids about what it feels like when others make an effort to connect with you. You can also start infusing the word empathy into conversations about social situations or about books you are reading together!

Here is a link to the book: The Invisible Boy

Mrs. Edelstein's Feelings and Friendship Flick: Empathy

Fundations: Syllable Chunking

This week in Fundations we started talking about how many words we know now that we are in second grade! Now, our second graders can use word parts and sounds they know to spell multisyllabic words. We practiced these skills with some fun stations.

Students shared their work in a 'fishbowl'

Addison and Emily work on a syllable sort activity

Students try spelling multisyllabic words using the 'chunking' technique

Veteran's Day Assembly Song

We have been discussing Veteran's Day here at Steward and why it is important to acknowledge and pay our respects to our country's veterans. Each year we have an assembly where we honor veterans past and present, near and far. This year, second and third graders will be contributing to the assembly by singing a song. We have practiced as a grade and in the classroom, but if you would like to practice at home as well I have posted a link to the nicertube video that includes the lyrics.

Veteran's Day Song

Happy Halloween!

It's a bird, it's a plane, it's... the second grade super hero vowel team!

Happy Halloween from your favorite second graders! Thank you to those who donated to our Halloween Party with delicious food or games. A special thanks to our room parents for organizing our event and all the parents who helped during the big party! We look forward to our next celebration in December!

G.R.I.T.: Earning Feathers

It is hard to believe it is already November! We are kicking off this month of Thanksgiving with a new incentive plan in our classroom. Over the next couple of weeks, students will be working to earn feathers for their own Native American headdresses. Did you know that Native Americans used to earn feathers by doing good deeds for their tribe? Sometimes the chief of a tribe would have a very long ornate headdress! Our second graders will be earning feathers when we show the characteristics of guts, resilience, innovation and teamwork. We can't wait to show how we use G.R.I.T. in the classroom!

G.R.I.T. feathers

Students brainstormed a chart of ways they can earn each feather.

WIN Block: Addition and Subtraction Strategies

This week during WIN Block we have been focusing on addition and subtracting strategies that will help us have 'fact power' and fluently add and subtract to 20. We have learned these strategies through songs, games, and chants.

Maggie plays Double Dash to work on doubles facts.

Lucien and Drew team up to work on double facts.

This song is a class favorite...

Global Read Aloud: The Year of Billy Miller

Our class is participating in this year's Global Read Aloud with the realistic fiction text The Year of Billy Miller by Kevin Henkes. We can't wait to Skype and chat with other classes around the world about our predictions, connections and inferences. We have already responded to Mrs. Jordan's grade three blog post about a connection we had to Chapter 1, and replied to a Padlet prediction with other grade two and three classes from around the United States! It is so fun to share our reading and thinking with others!

Padlet Prediction

Assembly G.R.I.T. Video

Hi Parents! Our second grade team will be doing a performance on October 21st in front of the whole school singing this song about resilience! Your children brought home the lyrics yesterday. We will be practicing in the classroom, as well as with Ms. Swanson in Music Class. Any practice at home is appreciated! Thank you!

New Incentive Plan

Our class has been struggling during transition times throughout the school day- putting materials away from the workshop and moving around the classroom in a timely manner. During class meeting on Monday we made a goal for ourselves that we will work on listening to our teachers and following directions the first time they are asked during these unstructured transition times.

We have started a new incentive plan in our classroom where either I, Mrs. Hutt, or Mrs. Serino will provide positive reinforcement with a 'golden ticket' each time we see a child following directions and listening to the teacher's directions during transition times. If a child receives a ticket, they write their name on it and put the ticket in a bucket for a daily drawing. At the end of each day, I will pick one ticket and reward the student's good behavior with either a phone call, email, or positive note home. 

When we come together for class meeting again in two weeks, we will reflect on our goal. Your students are doing a great job with this plan and we already see big improvements in just two days!

Our Classroom Assistants

I wanted to introduce you to our two wonderful classroom assistants that are in and out of our classroom throughout the school day! I am so lucky to have the support of these two teachers. They have given me such a warm welcome to Steward and helped to make my transition that much smoother!

Both Mrs. Hutt and Mrs. Serino help me to implement the Workshop Model in math, reading, and writing. They are very familiar with our classroom rules, structure, and routines.  If you are ever in to volunteer or visit our classroom, you will see these smiling faces!

Mrs. Hutt and Mrs. Serino

Writer's Workshop: Pumpkin Personification Poems

Last week in Writer’s Workshop we started our first Picturing Writing project. We started a 'Pumpkin Personification Poem' where we gave a jack-o-lantern human qualities. Using the Picturing Writing approach, students drew and painted a picture on special watercolor paper, and then used this visual to write poetry. Early in the week we created a colorful picture of a jack-o-lantern on an autumn night. We read and shared professional author's words to help influence our writing, and we brainstormed strong verbs, adjectives, and color words to describe what our jack-o-lantern could see, hear, taste, smell and feel on a graphic organizer. 

Paintings, graphic organizers, and manipulatives are great visual and kinesthetic tools to help motivate students and incorporate multiple intelligences in the classroom. The students really enjoyed this approach! This hands-on method was also a great way to encourage the use of rich, descriptive language. The poems are beautiful and will be on display in our classroom until Halloween.

If you are interested in learning more about this writing approach, feel free to visit their website: Picturing Writing

FUN with Fundations!

This week students reviewed bonus letters as well as glued sounds in Fundations. This group is constantly impressing me with their knowledge of spelling principles! In Writer's Workshop we are working hard to spell challenging words independently. Ask your child how to 'tap' out a multi syllabic word!

Lucien, Addison, Michael and Lana show how they can 'mark up' bonus letters, glued sounds, and closed syllable words!

Writer's Workshop: Map of My Heart

In Writer’s Workshop this week we read a fun mentor text ‘The Best Story’ and students brainstormed ideas for a ‘Map of My Heart’. We will be doing a lot of writing in our classroom over the next few weeks to celebrate the fall and Halloween season just around the corner.

Ava shows off her Heart Map

Busy, busy writers!

Parent Seminar Night

Thank you to all parents who attended Parent Seminar! It was great to meet you and share our second grade curriculum, our classroom, and some of your child’s hard work. Thank you to all parents who will be contributing their time to volunteer in our school and classroom. You are so generous!  

 

Welcome to Room 210!

Our first week in second grade was fantastic! Our second graders are developing good routines and work habits. When they arrive in the morning after recess, everyone reads our daily schedule, passes in notes, and signs in for lunch. Our schedule is consistent from day to day, and we set aside time for Reader’s Workshop, Writer’s Workshop, Fundations, Math Workshop, and content areas on a regular basis. So far, the children have explored the classroom library, begun working with Math in Focus and Xtra Math using the Math Workshop approach, written their “I Know a Summer Day” poems, and completed a spelling inventory. We have learned that “Math is Everywhere!” and “Math is Patterns!” We’ve brainstormed strong verbs that described activities we enjoyed this summer. We can't wait to show you all our hard work at Parent Seminar on Thursday!

Our second grade classroom!

Second Grade Hopes and Dreams

Math Workshop Game Station