Last week, we had another great week, in and out of the classroom! We started the week with our Fire Safety lesson, thanks to the New Boston Fire Department! We are so lucky to have such devoted members of our community, that are willing to share such important information with our children! Then children started the day in the fire trailer. The children talked about fire safety, and prevention. Then, the children had a mock fire, where they practiced calling 911, and crawling out of the “smoke” filled trailer. We then learned all about the tools the Fire Department uses, and had a tour of both a fire engine and an ambulance. The children had a wonderful experience! What a fun way to start the week!
In Wonders, we have had some great conversations about animal adaptations, and started to have conversations about how climate and landforms are different, in different parts of the world. We are finally into a full schedule with reading groups and literacy. The children have been working VERY hard! They have been working on being detectives, searching for text evidence. This is hard work, because it means that we need to slow down, and look back at the text. We have also been working on writing responses to our reading. We’ve been using graphic organizers to help us organize our thinking.
In math, we have continued to work on sums to ten and doubler facts. We will continue to work on these throughout the year, in hopes of developing full automaticity with these facts! Some of you may have seen some post-its come home, with sums to ten on them. This is a strategy that I have been using in my own home, and the children got excited about it. I told the kids that we put post its with sight words, and math facts around our house. For example, on the backs of the stairs, so they say a fact for each step. They could put them on their bedroom or bathroom door, and they have to touch each fact and say them before entering the room. I’ve had kids say that they use nerf guns to “shoot” each word, or tossing a ball at each word. It’s a fun way of practicing their facts or words, without feeling like “homework”. Some of you may also have seen two-sided counters come home. This is a quick way to practice sums to ten, as well. They shake up the counters, either with their hands or in a cup and dump them. The hopes is that they will start to be able to recognize groups, without having to count each individual chip. For example, they would be able to look at the pile and see three yellow chips, and then know that there are seven red chips, without having to count them. The children can eventually send the chips back to school, but feel free to keep them home and practice a few times each day. The more exposure the children can have, the quicker they with gain automaticity. Thanks for your help with this!
We also learned of some pretty exciting news this week, too! Mrs Wright’s daughter, Brittney (a NBCS alumni), will be traveling to Nepal, to hike to the base camp of Mount Everest! She is leading a team of 16 individuals, raising money for Multiple Myeloma research. The children were pretty excited to learn about this! We will be following her journey, as she hikes 62 miles, and nearly 18,000 feet of elevation, while experiencing different cultures, climate, landforms and terrain. This will integrate perfectly with our second grade learning, and, it is super exciting, to follow her journey! Stay tuned, for some updates!
Our walking field trip is this upcoming Monday! We are super excited for a fun day! Unfortunately, the weather looks less than ideal, right now! Our fingers, (and toes) are crossed that we find a little break in the rain on Monday. I will be sure to post here, if we decide to postpone the field trip.
This week, we will be having all sorts of Halloween fun! We’ll be exploring pumpkins, and getting messy on Halloween morning! We’ll be playing halloween math games, and reading all sorts of Halloween stories! I’m excited for a fun week! We will be participating in the Halloween parade on Wednesday, at 1pm. We will start to get into costume, around 12:30. We should be back to the classroom around 1:25-1:30. We will have a quick party, before packing up to head home! Thank you for such quick sign-ups for our party! The children will be excited! You are welcome to join us to help your second grader get prepared, or find a great spot along the route. You are also welcome to join us in the classroom, after the parade!
My apologies for the delay with pictures. I am switching over to a new camera, so there has been a little learning curve, for me. I hope to have some more pictures up later this weekend! I hope you all stay dry, (and we keep power), this weekend!