Week of November 22nd

This might have been a short week, but it was a full week. We practiced our bartering skills as we used popcorn as our "money," and we bought and sold all sorts of things-from candy, to toys, to Christmas silverware, and even Emu eggs shells. It was so much fun.

On Tuesday, we invited the "Indians" (the first graders) to our village (the second grade room) and celebrated our nontraditional Thanksgiving feast. We had LOTS of good food to share. We made pots to give the Indians, and the Indians gave us Pilgrims dream catchers. It was a wonderful time of sharing.

On Wednesday, we had "turkey" day, where we read about turkeys, watched a video about turkey production in Iowa, and even made turkey snacks to eat.

We also sent out our Flat Stanleys around to all parts of the United States. We began getting our Christmas cards ready for our Christmas card exchange. We send cards as far as Germany and British Columbia this year. We are so excited! We are also working on cards to send to our epals in Australia. So even though our week was short, it was packed with activities and learning!

Week of November 15, 2010

What a week we have had. We are just beginning to learn how to regroup (all you oldies probably called it carrying) and will be adding using regrouping the week after Thanksgiving. We have begun our Flat Stanley projects. We read a story called Flat Stanley by Jeff Brown. Poor Stanley has a bulletin board fall on him and makes him flat as a piece of paper. He has many adventures, but our favorite one is where he goes to visit friends in California in an envelope. SO we mail our own Stanleys to friends and relatives across the United States (and to our epals in Australia). We can't wait to see what kind of adventures he runs into. We have also started a Flat Me project which we are making ourselves and writing biographies.

We had two cooking projects this week. We wanted to taste what it was like to be a Pilgrim coming across the ocean, so we made hard tack. We liked it okay, but decided it might not be so good weeks from now - especially if it had bugs in it. We also made deviled eggs after reading Chicken Sunday and watching Rechenka's Eggs by Patricia Polacco. We are pretty good egg peelers!

We will be creating our gingerbread houses later this month and could sure use your help. Our school no longer uses the little half pint milk cartons and this is what we use for our house. If you use those (whipping cream, half and half, buttermilk, etc. ), please rinse them out and send them to school. We could also use the pint and quart containers as they are the same size around, and we can cut them down. You are welcome to drop them off at the office and tell them it is for second grade. I did notice that buttermilk is only 33 cents.
Another thing we could use your help is with is our store. We have a store every other week where the kids are paid for the jobs they do in our room. They cash in their checks and total their credits. After making purchased, they complete their credit and debit sheet in order to keep track of their money. We could use any donations of items for our store - anything you think second graders would like to "purchase" - from candy bars, little cars, little notebooks, anything a second grader would like. It it a wonderful and fun way of teaching twenty-first century life skills. Finally, we wanted to remind you of a couple activities coming up this week. The kids are bartering on Monday and could use anything they can "sell" to their classmates. Secondly, our Thanksgiving Feast with the "Indians" (first grade) is Tuesday, and kids need a snack to share during our feast. Thank you, parents, for all you do. We could not do many of our projects without your help and donations! It helps to make learning fun!

Our weeks just keep flying by! Thanksgiving will be here before you know it. As usual we had a very busy week. We finished up our unit about data and graphs this week and will begin to learn how to regroup when we add very soon. In reading, we are studying about communities; rural, urban and suburban communities. We decided we are definitely a rural area. We began our year long project of composting this week. We put red worms in our compost container and began feeding them. Their first meal was old lettuce and cabbage. We can't wait to use their castings for our greenhouse plants next spring.

We were so glad to be invited to the gym by the high schoolers as they honored our veterans this week. We are so thankful for what they have done for our country.

We also had a cooking project this week. After reading Thundercake Patricia Polacco we made our own (it was even a rainy day when we made it - although we didn't have any thunder). It had a secret ingredient in it (tomatoes) that made it look a little gross when we were making it , but it turned into a nice chocolate cake when we were done. MOST of us really liked it.

We do want to get a "shout out" to our epals in Australia. We have enjoyed getting our emails and look forward to corresponding throughout the year. We hope our blog will let you get to know us just a little bit more.

Week of November 1, 2010

What a great week we have had. We are reading a historical fiction book (and we know what that is:) called, Where's Kitty. It is a great story about a much earlier time in our country. We really liked the part where one of the characters tells a man stuck in the mud with his automobile to "get a horse!" and that "automobiles will never replace horses." In math, we are still working on gathering and showing data with graphs. Friday, though, we took time out to open our classroom bank and store. Trayvon was our banker, and what a great time we have shopping. We are looking forward to November and studying the beginnings of the United States - with the pilgrims. We also want to especially thank Bob Fisher, one of our bus drivers, for making us a bench for one our book nooks. It was made from an old church pew.