Martin Luther King, Jr

We spent most of the month of February celebrating Black History and Martin Luther King, Jr. We wrote biography poems about him, and then created a hand portrait with oil pastels. Our artwork turned out beautiful!

We've been so busy lately... lots going on in room 115! This week we celebrated our 100th day of school! It's hard to believe that we're almost half-way through our school year. Some 100 day activities we have planned throughout the week: counting 100 steps from our door to see where we'll end up, drawing pictures of ourselves at 100 years old, and predicting what we'll be doing with our lives.

Another celebration we're having is Dr. Duess' birthday. We're going to read several different Dr. Seuss books, watch The Cat in The Hat, and make Thing 1s and Thing 2s. It's going to be a busy, but FUN week.

At this time of year, we find that we're running out of supplies. Please check with your child to see if they need anything. (It seems to me mostly glue sticks and watercolors). As far as the classroom supplies, we can use baby wipes and/or Clorox wipes. Thank you!

Artist in Residence

We had the opportunity to work with P.K. - our artist in residence - for a week. She taught us all kinds of movements and forms.

We made letters out of our body shapes:

Then we worked with partners to make more letter shapes:

We worked with our partners to make new formations with high and low shapes, but we also had to fill in the negative space around us. We moved over, under, around, in between...

Then we got into bigger groups and did the same thing:

We also did a lot of moving around! We moved low, high, slow, fast, and sharp.

We really had to get creative! It was a great experience for us. =)

Friendship Party

Oh my word! Things have been crazy in our little corner of the world! With the snow and snow days, the Valentine's party, and another day off for President's Day... whew! We spent a good chunk of time last week reviewing procedures and rebuilding routines. With a 5-day week ahead of us, I'm hopeful that we'll be back to *normal*.

Our Friendship Party was SO much fun! We made the cutest Valentine holders out of milk jugs.

We ate lots of goodies... red raspberries, strawberries... and strawberry floats with a red licorice straw! We opened all of our Valentines....

Made a super cute Valentine flower craft....

Played a matching games with Hershey's Kisses....

....and enjoyed spending time with our friends.

It was a GREAT day!

Donations Needed...

This Friday is the STAFF vs 5TH GRADERS basketball game. The game, raffle, and concession stand is all a fundraiser for our school. The PTA is asking each grade level to bring in food and other supplies for the concession stand. 2nd grade has been asked to help with hot dogs and buns. Please send any donations in to the classroom this week.

We will be making our Valentine holders in the next couple of weeks, and we could use your help. Each child will need a clean, empty, plastic milk (or water) gallon jug. Please send extras if you have them.

Thank you for your support!

National Hat Day

Wednesday, January 15, 2014 was... National Hat Day!

We're Back!

We've spent the first couple of weeks back getting back into our groove. =) We talked about how we were used to staying up late and sleeping in… it made the first few days tricky! I know I was pretty exhausted by Friday!
We spent time reviewing routines and procedures... but I have to say, they didn't need too many reminders! They jumped back into it very quickly. :)
We have been talking about what makes good readers. Did you know the number #1 thing that good readers do (according to a recent scientific study) is to make connections? We are constantly being reminded of things from our own life as we read… and a lot of the time we don't even realize that we're doing this!
We read a couple of books The Relatives Came and Hazel's Amazing Mother, and Ira Sleeps Over. We talked about all of the things from our own lives that we were reminded of while we were reading.