Eight Exciting Events!

Here are the top 8 events from last week at school:

- We went to the 6th grade music concert.  We were impressed by their singing and will always remember the boys who were dressed up and acting out the song.

-  In music we learned a new song and got a chance to try acting it out!  We are very excited for OUR concert in May.

- It snowed last weekend and there was so much snow on the playground!  We loved building snow forts and snowmen.  We also are the first winners of the playground trophy for good behavior!

- We continued reading books by Mo Willems and read Knuffle Bunny Too and Knuffle Bunny Free.  We also watched the first Knuffle Bunny book on bookflix.

-  We got to have lunch in the classroom with Ms. Anderson.  We earned this because of our excellent behavior during Literacy Workshop.

-  We switched desks.  Some of us are very excited while others are learning to live with our new places.  : )

-  We started learning about our heart.  Click here for link to a video to learn more about the heart.

- We learned that we will be going to the Children's Theatre in January to see Pinocchio.

We are looking forward to a wonderful week with some special experiences along the way!

Geometry!

 We have had a busy week learning about Geometry!  

 One activity we did was to sort shapes by the number of sides, color, thickness etc.  Can you guess the rule?

 What's my Rule?

 Another activity we did was to make various shapes on our geoboards.  We found it was pretty easy to make a triangle and square, but it was more difficult to make a pentagon and hexagon.

 We had to record our shapes on our geoboard shapes recording sheet.

 SHAPES!  SHAPES!  SHAPES!

 We had to cut triangles and rectangles and then use them to make other shapes.  It was a challenge!

High SIX of the week

 We had a busy week!  Here are the top SIX events of the week:

6.  We started learning about healthy eating.  Here is a link to the My Plate guide for healthy eating.  Choose My Plate  We talked about making healthy food choices, the food groups and why we want to eat foods with nutrients.

5.  We continued to learn about air.  We did an experiment in which we made a water fountain.  Some of us got pretty wet!

4.  In the library this week Ms. Zbacnik read us Moonshot by Brian Floca.  If you would like to read more click here for a link to Ms. Zbacnik's blog post about this book.

3.  Ms. Anderson's mom came to meet us.  We had many questions for her.   She was on her way to volunteer with Ms. Tyrer's class.

 2.  We started learning about Geometry.  There is a lot of vocabulary!  Do you know what a nonagon is?

1.  A.'s dad came to give us an up close look at the gear firefighters wear.

He also reviewed fire safety.  Thanks for a great visit!

Read In !

Today we had our first Read In !  It was super fun.  We read for an hour!  Everyone brought special books to read from home.  We had a snack of goldfish, apples and bananas.  We listened to a story by Cynthia Rylant and watched Owl Moon by Jane Yolen on bookflix.  It was an awesome day!

Reminders

Here are a few important details for this week:

- Wednesday is an Early Release day.  We will be having lunch at school. 

- Wednesday is our Read In!  Please have your child bring something to drink as a special treat.  They may also bring a stuffed animal to school, as long as it fits in their backpack.  Lastly,  they may also bring a special book from home.  Thank you!

- I will be sending home the moon phases calendar.  Please find the moon as often as possible and record what it looks like.  Here is a link to the moon phases for November and December.
Moon Phases

Thank you and have a wonderful week!

Making Butter !

Here are the directions for making butter as told by our second grade class.

Materials:  Empty jar, heavy cream and salt

Step 1:  Pour the cream into the jar.  It should be about half full.

Step 2:  Put a little bit of salt in the jar.  Put the lid on tight.

Step 3:  Shake the jar up and down for about 10 minutes.

Step 4:  Keep checking on it.  There will be a little liquid around the butter when it is done.

Step 5:  Stop shaking.  Pour out the liquid.  Don't let the butter fall out.

Step 6:  Rinse the butter under cold water.

Step 7:  Pour out the water.  Don't let the butter fall out.

Step 8:  Eat the butter on bread or a muffin.


That's it!

We tried the butter this afternoon.  It was delicious!  It tasted homemade.  It did not taste like the butter you would buy in the store.

Next, we will begin to write our own "How to..." pieces!  We can hardly wait!

High Five for Wednesday!

The finished product

Today we had a BIG day!  Here are the top five events:

5.  We made butter!  We are learning about writing "How to..." pieces, so we read and followed the directions for how to make butter.  There was a lot of shaking involved.  Then, we wrote the directions in our own words.  It was very fun to make and we will try it on crackers tomorrow.

4.  We took the Math MAP test.  We did a great job, stayed focussed and did our very best.

3.  We had our special guest, C.'s grandmother, come and read with some kids this afternoon.

2.  We read Grace for President and learned about the electoral college.  We also learned there has never been a woman president.

1.  We got to play the xylophone in music.