Put a little kindness in your life....

Have you heard about this little guy?

He (or one of his friends) has been making a daily appearance in our classroom.  The elf hides somewhere (so far not good enough to stay hidden!) each day and brings a kindness challenge for use.  Last week saw challenges such as "Say hello to 4 adults in the hallway" and "Smile at 10 people."  (Friday's was "Do a chore at home without being asked."  - did it happen? :-)

We've been getting really good at meeting the challenges.  The goal of the Kindness Elf is to spread good cheer and just general "niceness" in our classroom and beyond.  It is important for kids to know that being nice can take many forms - and can be contagious!

If you notice your child doing or saying something nice in these next few weeks, point it out!  Those positive words can go a long way towards keeping the kindness going!

Put a little hamburger into your writing

 

Ask your child and they'll be able to tell you!

 

Writing an organized piece is a lot like putting together a hamburger.  The bun holds everything together and the "fix-ins" are the details.  We put this idea to work the past few weeks working on both narrative and expository (informational) writing.

 





Not only did we work on the basic structure, we also talked about how important it is to make each part the best it can be - juice, delicious and filled with either feelings, actions, dialogue (narrative writing) or important details and added information (informational writing).

And what better way to help us remember the parts of the hamburger as we work, but with a little help from SpongeBob!

That's right, Krabby Patties to the rescue!  As students worked independently on their own paragraphs about bats, they each had a Krabby Patty nearby to keep them focused on each part.
As they wrote each part, they got to eat that part of the Patty!

Our paragraphs came out great and we definitely know how to "think hamburger" when writing!
Coming up next week, we'll begin applying this idea to opinion writing.. stay tuned!


For my teacher friends - This idea comes from the wonderful Hope King at Elementary Shenanigans.  Click HERE to see more about it.

Spiders, spiders, spiders

Have you seen our spider board?  We spent the week researching spiders and created a fact board complete with nonfiction text features to showcase our work.  We worked on creating illustrations and captions, a table of contents, an index and a glossary.  When you read a nonfiction book with your child, talk about any of these features - and how they help the reader locate information.

Here's a great article about a GIANT spider!  We read the article in class and answered 5W questions (who, what, when, where, why - and how!) about the text.  Click on the image to read the article for yourself.

Nonfiction books are a fun way to introduce your child to different genres.  Kids of all ages love finding facts about things they enjoy.  Have you read any great nonfiction books lately?

Addition Strategies

It's hard to believe it's October already!  We spent this week reading fiction stories with a fall theme and focusing on the setting.  We also finished up our math unit on addition strategies.

It is important for second graders to know their math facts (addition and subtraction to and from 20) quickly - without having to count.  We talk about being able to "see it and say it" when doing math facts.  We also worked on many different strategies to help us "use what we know" when figuring out math facts.  Here is a picture of the anchor chart we created that hangs in our room.

This chart acts a reference for quickly solving math facts.  When practicing math facts with your child, see if they can tell you a quick strategy to use to find the answer - instead of counting on all the time.  The faster your child can master these facts, the easier math will be when we introduce new concepts and skills.

 

Looking for more practice?  Here are 3 fun sites to visit to make learning facts more fun! Click on the image to head to the game.

 

 

Have fun!



Character Traits and Clipping Up

Welcome to second grade!  We've been super busy since school started - getting to know each other, learning routines and getting started on the fun that is second grade!

We've spent time these past few weeks focusing on getting to know characters.  We read books with a theme of "It's Important to Be Yourself."  Here are a few books we have shared together.

We've been focusing on a character's traits:  outside traits are things you can see, while inside traits come from what the character says and does.  We listed a variety of character traits and then returned to the book to find support for our ideas.

I bet you've been hearing a lot about clipping up and reward owls!  Here's how all that works.  

Each student has their own personal clip chart with a clip with their number.  (No need for everyone to know how anyone is doing except themselves!)  Active learning (participating and thinking - not just sitting there!), whole body listening and following the Husky rules earn a "clip up" on the chart.  Students who reach "Super Student" or "Excellent Effort" by the end of the day get their owl card punched - 10 holes means you can choose a special reward card.  EVERYONE who clips up earns a husky paw, as well.  After all, if you clip up, then you've definitely been showing respect, responsibility, honesty and safety!