Week of May 9th, 2011

We may be getting close to the end of the year, but we certainly have not slowed down on our projects. We planted pumpkin seeds donated by Daniel in cups and decided it was time to get them in the garden. So one morning, we loaded up our gardening tools and planted our garden. As you can see, we had lots of good workers getting our pumpkins planted.

We also continue to work hard on our reading skills. Mrs. C has been in our room helping us make good choices for our fluency boxes and listening to us read when we are not in groups. In math, we are doing a good job practicing three digit addition, and this next week, we will be doing three digit subtraction. We are really getting smart for Mrs. Flaherty next year. We have also started our MAP computer testing. So far, we are doing a really good job! We have made a lot of progress this year!

Finally, one of the most fun things we did this week was go to Living History Farms. We loved the animals we saw, and we really enjoyed the tractor ride out to the farms. Most of us decided we would like to live in the log cabin farm. Mrs. Miller thought she might miss electricity and bathrooms, though!

We have less than two weeks of school left, but we have many fun and exciting things to do in those few days, which we will share with you on our last blogs of the year!

Week of April 25th

What an exciting week it was in Second Grade! We have been practicing three digit addition, and we are ready to learn regrouping with three digit addition. We have also been reading and writing poetry in honor of poetry month.

An added treat was having Miss Iowa come to our school and read to us. We all decided she was really tall!

Probably the most exciting thing that happened was our poetry cafe. We practiced poems we picked out and worked on our expression and fluency. Each one of us also picked out a poem that we had written. We then created a cafe in our classroom with black table cloths, candles, and special treats. We all had berets to wear, thanks to Chase Werner's grandmothers' sewing talent, and many of us wore our shades to complete the look. We had a great time, and even a few parents were brave enough to share a little poetry during our open mic time. In true fashion of the coffee shops, we snapped our fingers to show our appreciation instead of clapping. It was a wonderful experience, and we had close to forty adults that came to support their children. Thank you so much for taking the time to come and share that special afternoon with us.

Check out the second grade website under poetry cafe at http://www.murraycsd.org/ for many more pictures!

April, 2011

Wow! It has been a long time since second grade has blogged and thought it was about time. We have had many exciting things going on in second grade we needed to share. Probably the most exciting thing that happened in our room this month was hatching eggs. We are the proud parents(?) of 7 little chicks! What an exciting time in our room to come in last Monday to find two little chicks running around in our incubator. The rest waited until we were there to share in their birth! They left on Thursday to join other little chicks at a nearby farm. Thank you to the Lecy's for sharing their eggs with us! Check out our website for MANY more pictures (http://www.murraycsd.org/ and click on the second grade link).



We have also set up our greenhouse --BUT it has been SOOOO cold we have not put our plants in it. Hopefully the weather will straighten up and our marigolds we planted will be outside enjoying the warm sunshine. We have also planted a few pumpkin seeds to transfer to our outside garden before school is out These are not just any ordinary pumpkin seeds... they are Big Max pumpkins, so we are hoping for a GREAT BIG PUMPKIN in the fall.

We also experimented with growing carrots from a carrot, not just a seed! Most of them grew cute little green leaves from the top of the carrot.

We continue with our Daily 5 in reading and working on our comprehension and fluency skills. In math, we have finished with measurement and are now moving on to place value and we will soon be adding and subtracting with 3 digit numbers and bigger! We are getting so smart!!!

One last exciting thing we wanted to share is our poetry. This is poetry month, and we have been reading and writing poems. On Friday, we are hosting a coffee shop in our room to share our poetry with family. We can't wait to put on our shades and berets, and share our poems like the "beatniks" in the New York City coffee shops. We are hoping many family members will share during our open mic time.

Thanks for visiting our blog and sharing all our exciting news!

Week of March 7th

We have a had a very busy two weeks. We have been busy counting money in math and now we are practicing telling time. In reading groups, we continue to work on our comprehension skills, and we are now doing research on farm animals. We even made "mini hamburgers" and traced them back from their journey on the hamburger to the farm.


Last week, we enjoyed "partying" for Dr. Seuss' birthday with the first graders. We had Cat in the Hat cake and watched Horton Hears a Who.

In science, we have studied plant parts and can now find the embryo in a seed. We know what it takes to grow a plant and can't wait to get our greenhouse out after spring break. We will also start incubating chicken eggs shortly after we return.


One of our highlights this week was a visit from Joel, the Warren County Naturalist. We talked about reptiles, and he brought his snakes for us to see and feel. Snakes are really cool animals, and we all were brave and touched at least one of the snakes.

We finished reading Charlie and the Chocolate Factory this week and celebrated by watching the movie (the first one) and, of course, eating chocolate. We really liked finding all the similarities and differences between the movie and the book.

Spring is on the way, and we are excited about what it holds for us in Second Grade!

Another full week of school. Yeah! It would be nice to think spring has finally arrived, but this is Iowa, and so we better not hold our breath! In reading, we have been working on asking questions to help us understand our stories better. Wow! Second graders can ask really good questions about what they read!

In math, we have started our unit on counting money and my second graders have amazed me again. They are doing a super job counting money, deciding whether they have enough money, and figuring out change.

We finished up Friday by reading Scrambled Eggs Super by Dr. Seuss. We made scrambled eggs, and even the kids that didn't think they liked scrambled eggs tried them! Way to try new things, Second Graders!

Next week will be a busy one. We will be celebrating Dr Seuss' birthday on Wednesday, and we are making pillows on Tuesday for kids in our hospitals. If you have sewing skills, we could sure your help. Even if you don't, we could use parents to help cut, tie, and generally supervise kids. Our project begins at 1:00, so come and join the fun!

Lastly, conferences are happening soon. We will be sending notes home, but we generally keep the times and days the same as your fall time, unless you let us know differently. Please give us a call, or send a note if you need any changes.

Week of February 7, 2011

Well, we finally had a full week of school, and we are getting back in the swing. We have been learning how to talk to our book with sticky notes in reading. We have done an excellent job writing questions, making predictions and writing about what we think.

In Math we are getting ready to finish up regrouping with addition and subtraction, and we will be moving on to money and time. Parents, whenever you can, have your child count the change in your pocket or bill fold. It is great practice.

One of our highlights this week, was the trip to the Civic Center in Des Moines. We saw puppeteers preform three book from the author Leo Lionni. We really enjoy seeing the performances there and want to especially thank the generous gifts we received to be able to do this.

Kids, don't forget your Valentine's boxes tomorrow - it's party time!

Week of January 24th and 31st

Well, another snowy week is keeping us off track in our learning. We have missed over two days this week because of the snow. But, we are doing a very good job in our math with regrouping when we subtract. Hopefully, if we can keep the snowstorms away, we will be finishing up this unit very soon.

In reading, we have done very well in our MAP computer testing. We continue to work on comprehension and reading skills.

We did have time for some fun last week. It was our 100th day of school. We went around in small groups to several centers. We built with 100 Lego's, we played 100 bingo, had a hundreds race on the overhead, and many other activities. Our celebration would not be complete without our annual 100 balloon stomp. Second grade was the winner among first and third grade in stomping our balloons in the shortest amount of time.