SEEF GRANT Scientist

Yeah! We recieved a SEEF Grant in second grade this year. We were so excited to have a real scientist come talk to our class about weather. The children enjoyed this acitivity. We learned about air temperature, weather patterns, rain, and wind. We got to do hands on experiments and even make our own anemometer.
Check out some pics:

February is here and almost gone

First, I want to thank all the parents who came to conferences. All of the children have grown so much this year and loved sharing all their progress and growth with each and everyone of you. We had a great time last week getting to celebrate Valentines Day and 100th day of school on Tuesday. We had a blast doing all the fun activities and of coarse Mrs. McMorrow forgot her camera that day to capture all the fun.                    
      We are finishing up our determining importance unit in reading. The students have been enjoying may genres of books during this unit. The have explored fiction and non-fiction books and the many important parts of each genre. We have looked at many folktale, fables, tall tales, legends to explore fiction reading. 
       In writing workshop, we just finished up our unit on Informational writing. The students created an ABC book as a class on Winter. Each student got a letter of the alphabet and had to create a page with vocabulary about winter. The students then began work on an All About writing project. Each child go to vote on a winter/Arctic animal that they would like to write about. Then, the students had to brainstorm all the schema that they already had about the animal. Next, the students checked out books about their animal and began researching their animal. The students enjoyed finding facts about their animal and sharing them. Last, the students had to take their schema and research and write about their animal. They worked really hard on these and will be bringing them home soon. Please ask your child to share their All About with you.
       Once again, I want to stress how important it is for your child to be reading every night. I ask that each child is reading or being read to for at least 20 min. a day. The student then is to record their reading on their reading log.
      
          Chill Out and Read! Please help your child record their reading minutes on their calendar each night and sign at the end of the week! This will help our class win a ice cream party for the class that reads the most in each grade level.

      If you would like to come in and read to the class or have time to work in the classroom, please feel free to call or email me about a time that works for you.

January/Conferences

Well we are at the end of second quarter and half way through the year! We will be having conferences the next two weeks. Please make sure you come to your child's conference and bring them with you if you would like. We have been working hard on reading and have taken the MAP reading test and AIMES Web Fluency test. Also, I am in the middle of testing all of the students for their reading level. They have been making great progress and are having lots of fun reading. They love to talk about the books they are reading.
I have found a new website that your child can check out each week to practice their spelling words on and play games.
http://www.spellingcity.com/lmcmorro/

*Next week we will be taking our Geography test. They will need to identify on a world map: 7 continents, 5 oceans, Shakopee, Equator, North Pole, and South Pole. Please help them study this!

Mrs. McMorrow

Busy

We had a great week last week learning about turkeys and the first Thanksgiving. The students enjoyed making a turkey trap and writing about how they would catch a turkey. We also, wrote about things that we are thankful for.
This week we are hard at work starting a new unit on visualizing. We found out that visualizing can help us understand the words that we read by making a picture or movie in our head. We are practicing using our 5 senses to include details in our visualizing. All the students have been working hard in small groups and reading lots of "just right books" during Read to Self. Please continue to read and work with your child to find books that are just right for them. They should be able to read the book with less then 5 errors per page. They should also be reading out loud everyday. We are also finishing up our Narrative unit in Writing Workshop. We are working through the writing process to write a personal narrative. The students will then creat a published piece to share. They have been working really hard on writing narratives the past couple weeks. It will be fun to read what they wrote! I keep forgetting my camera to take pictures of the turkey projects, but will try over the next couple days to post pictures of the projects.

1st Quarter Has Come to an End!

WOW! First quarter is over. The weeks fly by and we are so busy learning lots of new things. Report cards are on there way home. Please make sure that you sign them and return them back to school! We have been working hard on being responsible second graders. It is important that the students are practicing what we are learning in school. I have really been teaching and getting the students to start from the moment they come in the room. The have to turn in their homework and notes, take lunch count, and read the morning message to know what their job is to do each morning. It is the students responsibility to give me any notes or homework. They are starting to realize that I mean business with homework. They have time to turn it in the next day, but then there is a consequence for not turning in homework. They usually come up with the consequence and if not then I give them one.
         I hope that those of you that have done the turkey project have enjoyed working on them at home. They are great to look at and I will be posting pictures of them soon!
*Don't forget with these chilly months to check out:
Study Island
Think Central Mega Math
Raz-Kids
         If you are looking for a great Christmas presents I would recommend ordering books from the book order. The books are a great deal and are wonderful books for your children. Just let me know if you are giving them as a present and I will send them home in an envelope or you can pick them up in the office.

         Remember that you are always welcome to come in and volunteer in the classroom. We are always looking for help reading with the kids and working on special projects. Please let me know, if you have time to come help our class!

Week 3

We are nearing the end of the first month of school. We have been working so hard learning all of the second grade routines. We have started reading workshop. Here are some strategies that we have learned that  good readers use:
*good readers check for understanding
*good readers reread
*good readers cross check: Does it look right? Does it sound right? Does it make sense?
*good readers use pictures
*good readers retell

We have also started writing in our reading notebook. We have learned different ways to record our thinking from our brain when we are reading. It is great to see all the wonderful reading by looking at our notebooks.

We have also started writing workshop this month. We are busy learning about the writing process: prewriting(brainstorming), drafing(rough draft), editing/revising, and publishing. We have started to create our first big writing piece based on the book The Teacher From the Black Lagoon. We will be finishing these up next week.

The class has been busy learning about scientists and doing experiments. We have found out how to remove a shell from an egg, how to make raisins dance, and how to make a rainbow. The students have really enjoyed learning about science and doing all the fun experiments.

Just a few reminders:
*I will be sending home homework each week in the red folder. The homework will be a reading/language sheet and book log. The students are to read each night for 20min and record their reading on their book log.
*The students also will bring home their book bag on Mondays and keep them all week and return them on Friday. The students may read these books and practice them during the week. It is important that your student is reading out loud each night. The students may read these books, library books, books from home, etc. Just as long as they are reading aloud each day. It is important that to become a better reader they must continue to practice using the skills we learn at school.
*The spelling will be sent home each week in their BBE binder and kept their all week. The student is responsible to practice these words at home for their buddy test on Friday.                                        

*Conference notes will be coming home in RED FOLDERS this Monday.*

Happy New School Year!

Happy First Day of Second Grade! We enjoyed cupcakes with the principal and cheered for a great school year.

All the second grade students celebrating the new school year.

Mrs. Bergen(principal) wishing us all a happy new school year.

We had a great first day of second grade.