We Love Our Volunteers!

Thank you so much for dedicating your time and talents to help in our classroom this year!  You have been a true “super hero” to all of us in room 8.  Not only have you lightened my load, but you have also helped our second graders learn and grow!  Please receive my most sincere thank you for being such an important part of our super special year.  It would not have been perfectly perfect without you!  Volunteers like you make our school the wonderful place that it is.  You are so very appreciated and loved.

With many thanks,

Mrs. Lara

Grab a box of tissue and get ready to see the sweetest pictures of our kiddos and their supermoms!

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Classroom Economy

Our study of economics is well underway and turning out beautifully!  To be completely truthful, this is a new unit for us in second grade and I was a little bit apprehensive about how it would all work out.  To my happy surprise it's a slamming success!  To kick off our study students learned a lot of important vocabulary words such as goods, services, consumers, producers, wants, needs, supply, demand, and opportunity cost.

Then to make the unit come to life we decided to make a classroom economy.  Students have been busy working in groups to develop a company name, a good, or a service to sell, a slogan, a logo, a commercial, a store front, and of course their product.  So much fun and learning!  I loved hearing what Lucas had to say after taking orders for The MATES School Supply Depot.  "I noticed that most of the consumers want bookmarks, so I think we should raise the price on bookmarks, and mark the name tags on sale." Supply and demand in action!  Love it!

The kiddos have been earning tickets for hard work and good behavior in class.  The tickets are then used to purchase products from classmate's stores.  I'm thinking of charging rent before our next store so they can get a little taste of how expenses play a role in spending and saving.

Here is a little flip of our first classroom economy and a few videos of the kids in action!

Sea Turtles

This week we studied all about sea turtles.  Students worked collaboratively to collect information about their habitat, diet, appearance, predators, and other generally interesting facts.  Then they wrote informational trifold brochures and created spectacular art.  Our room is turning into an under the sea beauty!

Teamwork.

Buddy research.

Lot's of learning.

Artists in action. 

masterpiece

masterpiece

Enjoying tea and working on writing. 

Am I a Princess?

Or a teacher?  

I would say I definitely felt like royalty this week!  

May 11, 2015

Dear room 8 students and families,

         Thank you from the bottom of my heart for making teacher appreciation week completely amazing from start to finish.  Each day was just so very special!  The morning coffee treats and scrumptious lunches made me feel completely pampered and spoiled!  I loved the sweet treasures that were brought in to represent all the letters in TEACH.  What a fun idea!  There were so many generous and thoughtful gifts brought in, my cup is truly running over.  At home, my refrigerator door is covered with beautiful pictures and cards, my bookshelf holds trinkets and treasures to make me laugh and smile, my pantry is brimming with all sorts of delicious treats, and my first aid / emergency kit is stocked with necessary and important items (I’ve always wanted to have a personal size hairspray bottle on hand at school!).  Also, thank you for the wonderful shelving unit.  What a perfect home for our math games!  You guys thought of every little thing and my heart is overflowing with thanksgiving!  I know I am leaving out many special touches about my week because I would seriously need to write a book to share them all, but let’s take a minute to talk about my door!  It is absolutely above and beyond special!  To see each one of those 21 precious faces makes me get teary even thinking about it now.  Words can’t begin to explain how blessed I am to teach each one of the students in room 8.  Teaching is definitely a work of the heart and I LOVE what I do.  This year’s class has been beyond special for me.  I love working with the students in room 8 every day.  It is my joy and honor to be their teacher.  Thank you parents for raising such remarkably kind, thoughtful, curious, and hard-working children.  The apple doesn’t fall for from the tree, as they are reflections of all that is wonderful about each of YOU!  From the bottom of my heart ~ thank you!

With great joy,

Mrs. Lara

My goodies for "T"

One of my yummy lunches. 

Some of my court.

At our class tea party. :)

Amazing door!

Sensational Sea Stars

This week one of our main focuses (foci???) was on the stars of the sea!  The others were economics and math, more to come on those later! We have had a blast learning about these amazing creatures.  To kick off our learning I created a game called Sea Stars Fact or Fib.  This made our learning and research extremely engaging and interactive.  First we read through several sea star cards and sorted them into categories of fact, fib, or unknown.  Then students worked in partnerships to read informational text on sea stars.  Every time they came to something that was on one of our sea star cards they were up out of their seat to check and make sure we sorted it in the correct place.  What a great way to keep those active bodies moving and engaged!  Next students took notes on their favorite sea star facts, wrote informational paragraphs, and created scientific diagrams.

To round out our study and tie in what we have been learning with figurative language, students wrote sea star similes.

Our highlight was when Mrs. Denis brought in actual live sea stars for our second graders to touch and examine!  Thank you for making our learning come to life!  Those tubed feet are even more amazing in person.

Keep the Lights Burning, Abbie

Well we have officially left the world of geology and are beginning our adventures with the sea!  To kick off this unit we read a wonderful book called, Keep the Lights Burning, Abbie.  This is true story of courage.  It tells all about how a young girl kept the lighthouse lights burning all by herself during a tremendous storm.  If you like books about bravery, then this is the book for you.  But you don't have to take my word for it...

As we read the book we really focused on deep thinking comprehension skills.  Students determined the main idea, wrote down interesting words, discussed the story parts, determined Abbie's character traits, sequenced the story, shared their favorite part, and wrote a letter to the main character.  Wow!  We have been busy!

 

We also tied in math to create these neat lighthouses using coordinate graphing.

I absolutely love all the fantastic art that accompanies our ocean unit.  Here is our first piece -lighthouses.  Students designed their lighthouse then outlined it in black Sharpie.  Next they used crayons to color it in.  We pressed super hard so they look like pastels minus all the smudging.  Last they watercolored the background.  Two cool things about this watercolor process were that they used salt to make it look like was raining, and the resist of the crayon shows the light shining brightly.