I Love to Read Month

We have enjoyed the first couple weeks of I Love to Read Month!  On the first Friday we did buddy reading with the 5th grade class.  Half of the 2nd graders stayed in our classroom and some 5th graders joined us upstairs, and the other half went to the 5th grade class to meet their buddies there.  It's always fun to share good books with a new friend!

On the second Friday of the month, we had a teacher swap.  Mrs. Ruen came into the 2nd grade classroom to read a few of her favorite books that she wrote when she was younger.  I went down to 5th grade to share a few of our favorites from the Top 20 books we are reading right now.

Venn Diagrams

I love when we have the chance during math class to get up and moving and practice our new skills.  Throughout the year the students have been learning about Venn Diagrams.  They recently had the chance to make their own.  The students chose their own topics and went around to ask classmates about the topic of their diagrams.  After collecting their data, the students came up with 4 true facts about the information they collected.

Polygon Robots

We've learned in math that polygons are closed shapes with straight sides.  We had some fun with this skill and made polygon robots.  The trickiest part was making sure that our shapes had straight sides. The students were very creative with their ideas and had a lot of fun with this project!

Holiday Party and Authors' Celebration

Friday was such a fun day in 2nd grade!  We started our morning with our holiday party and gift exchange.  I love to see how excited the kids are to give a gift to a friend and to open their gifts.  We ended our morning with our Authors' Celebration.  Thanks to all the family members who were able to join us.  It means a lot to your children to share their writing with you!

Letter Writing Unit

Throughout the month of December we wrote letters, sent them out in our mailbox, and received letters into our mailbox.  The students learned about the parts of the letter: date, greeting, body, closing, and signature.  Our letters needed to include all parts of a letter with at least 4 sentences in the body.  Each day 2 students would deliver mail around our school that we had written.  Letters were delivered around our classroom as well. This is one of my favorite writing units because the students are so excited to get their writing out, and they can't wait to get mail!  They are very motivated to work on their spelling and conventions because they want the recipients of their letters to understand their writing.

Holiday Spirit in 2nd Grade

December with elementary children is truly a magical time.  A highlight of each day is writing letters while listening to Christmas music at writing time (another post to come on this).  The Christmas concert at the beginning of the month was wonderful! Everyone did a fantastic job! We've enjoyed a few holiday art projects to hang around our room.   We've also been preparing and practicing for our Authors' Celebration planned for Friday, December 23rd.

Piggie and Elephant Day

During the month of November the students practiced reading Piggie and Elephant books by Mo Willems.  This is a series that the students grow to love in their early reading years.  As 2nd graders we dive into getting to know them as characters.  How are their personalities similar and different?  We practice reading with expression, thinking about how these characters are thinking and feeling.  We also wrote our own Piggie and Elephant books trying to capture their personalities while also creating a story that connects with each individual 2nd grader.  We celebrated by inviting the 1st graders into our room to share our stories.