2nd Grade with Ms. Kristie

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This is an old picture from step up day.  They have grown so much! We have had a great short, but first week back.  We are pleased with the new classroom arrangement, which allows for small group reading as well as more movement and flexible seating during the day.  Here's our start to the new year: We continue to build our understanding of language mechanics through the mentor sentence program.  This past week, students worked on sorting winter words that were either nouns or adjectives.  Because students are growing this parts of speech foundation, I can give them very specific feedback on the mechanics of their own writing.  And then, by partnering this work with our "Would You Rather" project, a series of short writing tasks, I hope that students will gain a deeper understanding of what makes great writing.  We tried out our first question this week:  Would you rather only have heat or only have air conditioning?  In this weather, you can imagine that many stu

My New Year's Resolution is to continue my work on communication, sharing all the great work that your students are doing in 2nd grade.  The picture to the left is of our Holiday door.  You should notice that it is NOT GSB but GBS (Ginger Bread School).  These are original Ginger Bread Designs and the "brick" is handmade.  The right picture is the huge Thank You card we made for Lincoln Academy's International students.  To either side, I hung up our international posters.  I hope you had a chance to see your student's international poster come home in their folder.  I hope you are staying warm! 

Click to Donate to the Headset Project Please consider a small tax deductible donation to our headset project.  I am excited about going wireless with our ipads.  I like the idea of making a smooth transition to skill building time or more importantly, for them to start their careers as researchers. If you do choose to donate, then please use the promo code: Tell donors to double donations up to  $50  by adding the promo code  LIFTOFF  at checkout for the next  6 days . Our big goal right now is to make posters about different countries as we try to "travel" around the world during the holidays.  This means that we have to gather facts and summarize what we learn!  We also have to keep track of our research materials so that we can refer back to them.  For a first big adventure in research, things are going GREAT.  We'll share the results of our efforts as soon as possible. Thanks for your great kids!

We have just completed our first non-fiction magazine.  Students gained an understanding of: Reading for information. Using text features to help them understand their reading, like bold print, maps, headings and pictures and captions. Weaving facts into a non-fiction story or an article. I am working on the most efficient way to "publish the magazine."  I have just 4 copies this time.  In seeing the results, I have some ideas about how students can learn from this first experience.  This is an exciting way for us to work together to create a project as well as gain more writing experience.  You can see the "magazine" below by following this link.  Students will take home their piece of the magazine and they will take turns bringing the 4 copies home to share after the break.   Wonderopolis - Edition 1

Today we took a visit to the Planetarium.  The second grade curriculum involves talking about eclipses, constellations and "faces" or phases in the moon.  Most students chose to write about the eclipse, but 1 student remembered the moon witch that some cultures see in the moon.  Here are just a few of the entries from our notebooks.