Last Day Blues

This year has absolutely flown by!  The end of the year is always bittersweet for me.  I am so proud of my li'l second graders, and ready to see them fly, but I also want to hold on to them.  I truly love what I do, and the kids make me laugh everyday.  We can learn so much from them!

They have been helping me organize and clean.   And I mean enthusiastically!  They get VERY excited about helping and organizing.  I literally handed several of them some tubs, drawers, cupboards, and said "go for it!"  They organized it quicker and better than I could have!  Where else can you find people with such joy and zeal for cleaning?  Second grade, that's where!  If only they were that enthusiastic at home - they already told me that it doesn't happen at home!  

I apologize for them lugging tons of "giveaways" home.  They get SO excited for freebies - it is quite funny!  

As some of you know, I do photography on the side.  I saw this idea on pinterest, and I had to do it with my kiddos.  Each of the kids told me what they wanted to be, and I wrote it down.  I changed their photos to black and white and made a collage in Photoshop.  

I love it because it captures who they are at this moment.  Breleigh couldn't decide - so I wrote all three; because that's Breleigh.  I love their cute dreams, and I want them to know they can achieve anything if they hold on to their enthusiasm for learning.  Here are their individual pics: 

You can go to this dropbox link and download the collage if you'd like.  I will send each parent the link to your child's picture.  collagephoto

Thanks for sharing your children with me.  If there are any words of advice I could give it is this:  Look for the good, and praise it.  Children become what we expect them to be.  If we expect them to be irresponsible, they will be irresponsible.  So let's expect the best from them, and encourage them to find their gifts.  They're worth it.

Have a great summer!  

A review of the past months

Thank you to everyone who came to Author's Tea yesterday!  It was great to celebrate the kids' growth and progress as writers!  They were shocked to see the difference between their "friendship" books at the beginning of the year and their biographies by the end of the year.

On another note, I totally fell behind on my goal of posting once a month.  Life happens and gets in the way sometimes!  However, I still managed to take lots of pictures.  Enjoy!



Below are pictures from our reading and science unit on nature.  For our science portion, the kids got to create "critters" that would be camouflaged in our environment.  We started by taking a nature walk and observing our environment.  We noted the colors and textures.  Then we came back and created our "critters" to hide in the environment.  After our critters were made, we measured them and named them.  Finally, we "hid" them in the environment to see if Mrs. West's class could find them.  Then we switched and looked for her class's critters.  Hopefully they learned a lot, and had a good time! 

Cinco De Mayo!

We had a wonderful time yesterday celebrating Cinco De Mayo!  Our focus in reading right now is on beliefs and how they impact our lives.  Cinco De Mayo fit right in with learning about other cultures' celebrations.  We did a close read yesterday on an article about Cinco De Mayo and kids highlighted the most important themes.

Thank you soooo much for working so hard and donating all of the wonderful food!  We had burritos, tacos, homemade churros, salsa, 7 layer bean dip, lots of chips, and much more!  We also got to go into the other second grade classrooms and sample their food!  Here are some pics!

Much thanks to Donna Quinton for helping with the mini food court!  She said she could never work at Chipotle, but I disagree!

Here's a photo of the kids getting ready to sell some lemonade! They get to make change, and count all the money after the sale each day.  Real world math!  They got short changed once also, which is a good lesson - someone handed them a nickel instead of a quarter.

Anthony just had to finish his chips and salsa!

More Public Service Announcements and February News!

Hello!  I hope everyone enjoyed their three days off this week!  I know I did, and I am sure ready for spring!  We will be working very hard next week, finishing up projects for our unit on nature.  We will be making our critters for a hide and seek science activity, we will be finishing up our things I love . . . writing, publishing our animal books, and making Valentine holders.  Today I sent home a Valentine list and a sign up sheet to donate things for our party.  We will be having strawberry floats and playing a minute to win it game with candy!  Should be lots of fun!  Our party will be on Friday, Feb. 14 from 2:00-2:30, since the kids will be in specials at the end of the day.  Please remember to email me and let me know what you can bring for our party. 

I can tell the kids are practicing more with their math facts, as they really seem to be progressing!  Great job!  In math right now, we are learning about geometry.  Today we classified a variety of shapes, and played "Guess My Rule."  Ask your child to tell you about this. 

And now for a word from our sponsors, Carly and Anthony:

                 Jake and Orion:

 

 

Have a great weekend!

 

 

 

 

 

Public Service Announcements!

Hi there! This week we read about protecting our natural resources.  The kids made Public Service Announcements to tell people how to care for our world.  They could choose to make a powerpoint, a paper slide video or a regular video with our flip video cameras.  Please enjoy the three videos below.  Paperslide videos and powerpoints will also be posted next week sometime!

 

Math, Math, and More Math!

Hello!  I wanted to touch base with everyone about how math is going.  All in all, the kids are making great progress.  We practice our facts each day, and kids take timed tests, and record their progress.  Knowing addition and subtraction facts FLUENTLY by the end of second grade is a huge standard.  It is basic in being able to effectively solve problems that get much more complex.  The Mastering Math Facts Program we are using only quizzes kids on two new facts per level.  The rest are review.  If your child is hesitating for a few seconds before answering, have the child repeat it at least 3 times out loud.  Each time he/she hesitates, she must stop and repeat that fact three times.  Much of it is memorization and practice!

I really want the kids to practice their facts each evening - this can be in the car, at the dinner table, five-ten minutes is all it would take.  A little bit each day will help them master this very quickly!

I would like to congratulate the following kiddos who have passed all of their addition facts and are now on subtraction:

Congratulations! 

Angela Davis!   Kamryn Myrick!   Kadie Shook! 

Aliyah Bridges!  

I am so proud of you!  Everyone can do this!

Lately, the kids have been a little relaxed about bringing back their math fact practice sheet.  This was an actual excuse I heard today:  "My mom won't let me."  I had a good laugh over that one!  These darlings make me smile!  Anyway, just wanted to give parents a heads up - if they bring back their practice sheet, I will recognize them for it - I want to encourage extra practice.

Thanks so much for your support!  You are the best!

MONEY MONEY MONEY- We have started our unit on money.  Basically, the kids need to be fluent in counting by 1,'s, 5's, 10's and 25's interchangeably.  You can help at home by counting pocket change, including bills and coins.

In addition, here are some good online games for practicing money:

www.everydaymathonline.com ( kids should have their login info taped to the inside of their binders)

http://www.sheppardsoftware.com/math.htm  (scroll down until you find money games)

http://www.gpb.org/countonit/games/second/money

http://internet4classrooms.com/skill_builders/counting_coins_math_second_2nd_grade.htm

However, in order to make sure your child is doing the problems correctly, you will need to monitor and check in on the game.  Otherwise, we can't be sure they are learning anything.

Again, thanks so much for your help with this!

Mrs. Stiffler

Happy New Year!

So far, our year has gotten off to a great start!  In language arts this week, we are learning to take notes while reading.  We will read about different animals, and compare and contrast how similarities and differences.  In addition, some new vocabulary words this week were preen, affectionate and crave.  Ask your child if he/she can give you an example of each word.  In spelling this week, we are learning to read and spell ar and or words.  Please make sure your child is doing spelling homework, reading log, and math homework each week.  All kids need to be studying math facts each night so that it becomes automatic!

I sent a note home today asking for spiral notebooks.  We use them for different subjects, and we are starting to have the kids paste weekly reading questions in their journals, so they can respond in a journal, and everything stays neat and tidy in one place.  Thank you so much!

Here are a few photos I took earlier in December.  We were working on cause and effect, and the kids were in groups playing Showdown.  During Showdown, one child reads a scenario and asks the group a question.  The group records the answer and then they check their answers.  If they all got it correct, they do a cheer.

Here are some pics from the WSU game we attended - better late than never!