Faith Ringgold's Tar Beach

We have had a busy week learning and having fun!  Here's what we've been up to with reading, writing, and art...  In the early part of the week we worked with the story Tar Beach by Faith Ringgold.  After some close careful reading of the text, the children wrote their own narrative stories imagining they could fly just like the main character from the book.  Everyone began their journey at the book's setting and lifted up over the George Washington Bridge.  Then they were free to fly wherever their hearts desired.   I just loved reading the kiddos adventures!

P.S. The green and red cards are signals for the writers and me during writing time.  If the students are cruising along they keep their card on green.  If a writer needs help, they flip their card over to red which is a signal for me to strap on my roller skates and zoom on over! :)

To go along with their stories they created these vibrant art projects.  You know the saying nothing good comes easy?  Well I would classify this project in that category for sure!  Many steps were involved but the end results are beautiful. :)  First they drew the bridge.  Then created the buildings showing an urban community (perfect reinforcement to last week's lessons on types of communities).  Next each child made a picture and we cut it up into little pieces for the quilt-like boarder.  Last they made themselves flying among the stars.  As you can see, I sure have a room full of talented little artists!

 

As an extension we read Aunt Harriet's Underground Railroad in the Sky.  Another great read by Faith Ringgold.  If you haven't had a chance to read these thought provoking children's books, run on down to your local library!  You'll be in for a treat! 

Having Fun with Math Centers!

Today we had a great afternoon working hard and sharpening our math skills.  I was able to snap a couple of photos so I thought I would share what we were up to!

Here is a small group working together counting coins.  We have been working hard on this skill and this little group rocked it today!  Yaaay team! :)

These girls were working so hard on a game involving time.  We have just started telling time by 5 minutes intervals so this was excellent practice and a fun challenge.

Check out our new iPads!  They are awesome!  We now have enough for an entire center group to work on ixl.  We sure love practicing on ixl! 

Rural, Urban, and Suburban

This week we have been learning about different types of communities.  Rural, urban, and suburban were new vocabulary words for all of the students.  Early in the week when we began our lessons I asked the students if they have ever heard of any of these words.  Only one courageous kid raised his hand and said, "I think they are all types of cars."  This sure made me grin, :) and boy have we learned a lot since then!

After I gave an introduction on the topic we watched a BrainPop Jr. lesson all about different types of communities.  Then we sorted out traits and made our own flap books that tell about the traits of rural communities, suburban communities, and urban communities.





The following day we searched through magazines to find pictures that illustrated each community.  This turned out to be harder than it sounds!  Just as I was about to pull my hair out at the next picture of a living room, bedroom, or kitchen that was presented to me, they got it!  We had a great discussion about which picture belonged where and WHY.  Success!   Phew!

After we had a clear picture of what each community might look like the kiddos drew their own depiction on their flap books.  Finally, we each selected our favorite type of community and wrote an opinion piece telling why we prefer it.

I am so proud of everyone's hard work!  We have learned so much in one week!

Fun with Friends!

It's funny how every year something really catches on within the group. Each week there is a show and tell coupon up for grabs in our treasure chest.  Ever since Sydney used it to share her giant and oh so lovable rabbits bringing pets in for show and tell has been a big hit! Here are a couple of cute shots of the kids with Ella's beautiful show and tell, Jasmine. 

For the LOVE of READING!

This is the time of year the kiddos really start zooming, especially in reading!  In second grade the students strengthen their decoding skills and become skilled fluent readers.  It is such a treat to watch them "bloom' and I am so thrilled with their progress!  Reading like any skill only gets better with practice, practice, practice.  I wanted to share this powerful chart with you that highlights the importance of daily reading.

Behavior Management

Well, we started a new clip chart system today, and wow did it work!  Yay! ;)  I think it was so quiet during math work time today you could have heard a pin drop!  Here is a picture of what our class chart looks like.

Each day everyone starts on green "Ready to Learn".  When the students are following our class rules and doing awesome they get to jump up a level.  When they are not following class rules they jump down to yellow "Warning" no matter where they were at.  I keep track of all positive and negative points throughout the day with my handy dandy Class Dojo app.  Please be on the lookout for daily emails from Class Dojo to tell you the details of your child's day.  I would love to hear your feedback on this new system. :)

Word Work

For the next two weeks we are working with what I like to call "interesting digraphs".  Digraphs are two letters that when combined together make one completely new sound.  We are studying gh and ph, which both make the /f/ sound as in graph and tough; wr, which makes the /r/ sound as in wrap; and kn, which makes the /n/ sound as in knuckles.   This is the perfect opportunity for us to learn about homophones as well.  Homophones are two words that sound the same, however, they have different spellings and different meanings.  Some examples are knew, new; knot, not; night, knight; and know, no.  Please remember to practice your spelling words on Spelling City throughout the next two weeks.  I have added a quick link to spellingcity.com on the top right of this blog. 

If you stay in room 8 for spelling here are our words:
1.  knot               9. phone
2. wrong           10. laugh
3. know             11. not
4. wreck            12. knew
5. graph             13. no
6. wrap              14. new
7. knife              15. enough
8. tough

States of Matter

For a mini science unit this week we studied the 3 states of matter -solid, liquid, and gas.  We read books from the library and watched BrainPop Jr. videos to learn about the concept.  Next we did some experiments of our own.  We went on a scavenger hunt around our classroom to find examples of solids, liquids, and gas.  Gas of course was the trickiest one to show...that's why I was prepared with a balloon in my pocket to show a visible example of gas as I blew up the balloon.  Next we discussed chemical and physical reactions and had some fun with a few on our own.  We discovered we could create gas when mixing baking soda (solid) with vinegar (liquid).  Then we put water into my electric tea kettle and watched as it turned into steam and escaped into the air.  This was a favorite for the kiddos because it seemed we made our water disappear!  The following day we watched our snowman Frosty change before our eyes as we observed The Lifecycle of a Snowman.  I froze three balloons full of water so we could build our Frosty in the morning.  This represented the solid form, ice.  By the afternoon Frosty was in his liquid form, water.  Last into the tea kettle Frosty went so we could represent him as a gas, steam.  We drew and wrote about each stage of our snowman's lifecycle.  Science is such fun!

Valentine's Day!

Phew!  Today was jam packed with learning and love, and I am officially exhausted!  This morning we  took our spelling test on those tricky r-conrolled vowel spellings, ir, er, ur, and ear.  I was so impressed with the student's understanding of the concept.  A few things we have been working on within the last two weeks are:  Sound spelling word mapping (By Kathrine Grace LOVE this!)  Going on a "Bossy R" word hunt (see below for a cute pic).  Word sorts.  Playing Sparkle.  Which is totally a student fav!  I switched things up a bit and found it super successful.  If their turn landed on the /er/ sound they needed to tell all the letters that spell the sound (ir, er, ur, ear).  And of course lots of reading to transfer and apply the skill.  I'm a big believer in the value of decodable text, and we also met Mr. Putter and Tabby this week as well.

Next we moved on to our study of The Mighty Mississippi River.  My teacher heart was bursting during our writing block today because the kiddos were completely immersed in their research and were writing fantastic paragraphs with little support from me.  Success!

During reading centers the students finished up these adorable Valentine bags.  I just love the way they turned out!

For math today it was all about Sweetheart math!  The students estimated, counted, sorted, solved equations, compared numbers, and found fractional parts -all with a box a Sweethearts!

I just have to share these super cute cupcakes our room mom made.  Aren't they just the cutest ever!

Happy LOVE Day! 

100th Day of School!

Woohoo! We made it to 100 days! That means 80 days to go till sunny carefree summertime livin'!  I just had to, summer is my hands down favorite season. Back to classroom happenings... We celebrated being 100 days smarter today!  I am so proud if each one of my little loves growth so far and this time of year they really shoot up!  We figured out how many more years we all had before we will be 100 years old. Then we charted all our hopes and dreams we want to accomplish by then. Let me just say it was a fantastic bucket list! We had everything from become president to learn how to roller skate. Out of the mouths of babes right!  During reading centers the students wrote using the sentence starter "In ___ years I will be 100 years old. There are several things I would like to accomplish by then..." Here's how they turned out. Guaranteed to make you smile!

We also timed and graphed things we could do in 100 seconds. The hardest one was sit-ups. Whew! What a workout! 

Honoring Two Significant Americans

This week we were all about George Washington and Abraham Lincoln! You can see from the title I am pulling in academic vocabulary whenever possible. While studying these two important presidents we completed a graphic organizer to keep track of their similarities and differences. Next the students created a Washington and Lincoln Venn diagram to present their findings. Later in the week the students worked collaboratively in writing groups. One student wrote about Washington, one student wrote about Lincoln, and one student wrote about what the two had in common. The following day the students helped each other edit and revise before writing final drafts. I would have to give this project two thumbs up! Tons of  meaningful learning!