Through our character education lessons and in our classroom we've learned the importance of being a Bucket Filler... not a Bucket Dipper. We have discussed ways we can fill other people's "invisible buckets". We learned that giving other people compliments not only fill their buckets, but ours get filled too! We discussed the difference between giving people inside compliments (Examples: You are a respectful friend, you are honest, you are a leader in our classroom) and outside compliments (Examples: I love your shirt, you have an awesome backpack, I like your haircut). We continued to spread the kindness and wrote compliments about each other on our "quilts". This is a token to remind everyone how truly special they are. We love our 2R school family!! :)
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Thanks again to everyone who brought in box tops to help us win the school wide competition! We loved our ice cream party. :) Shortly after this at our School Pride assembly we won a Demon dollar pizza party... What an exciting Friday this day was! For our second engineering science project the students created their own Mayflower boats. They used one milk carton, a rubber band, a straw, and a balloon. They had to figure out on their own how they can launch their boats using these materials. It took a lot of brain power and many different trials to see what worked and what did not! We had an excellent discussion at the very end. The students were talking about how you can't get frustrated if it didn't work at first... you have to keep trying and not give up! Everyone did a wonderful job trying their very best with this. :) I am so proud of them! To wrap up everything we have learned the last two weeks about the Pilgrims' voyage to the New World on the Mayflower, the hardships they faced once they arrived, and the three day harvest they had with the Indians, we had a feast of our own in the classroom! We said what we were thankful for and enjoyed each others company. It was a fun day! I'm blown away by the creativity shown in everyone's disguised turkeys! They are all so motivated to create the perfect "turkey in disguise" stories. We have just finished our rough drafts, and I am so impressed by their abilities to make their voices come through in their writing, the dialogue they include throughout, the onomatopoeias, catchy attention getters, and the clever closings! They read their stories to a partner in class and gave each other compliments and suggestions to improve their pieces. Great job everyone! We can't wait to admire everyone's final products and disguised turkeys :). In social studies this week we have been learning about the Pilgrims' voyage over to the New World. We took a virtual tour of the Mayflower ship, and we discussed the living conditions they had on their 66 day voyage on the Atlantic Ocean. We took part in a biscuit and beef jerky tasting to get a sample of how fresh the food was when they first began their trip. We learned that their fresh food didn't last long on the Mayflower! We then watched a virtual tour of one of the largest cruise ships in the world. It was amazing to see how different these two ships are! We had some great discussions about how much technology has evolved over the years, engineering of ships, etc. Tuesday was an thrilling day at Wilson Creek! We read Duck for President and Grace for President on Friday, so we were able to form our own opinions and decide who would be the best president. We were registered to vote with our cards, and we each got the chance to go into the voting booth and choose a president. Our class had 14 votes for Duck and 7 votes for Grace. Our class's electoral vote went to Duck. After all the electoral votes were counted up throughout the entire school, Grace ended up winning! It was a neat, exciting experience for all of us!
Today, everyone was able to read a friendly letter from their 3rd grade pen pals at Anna McDonald! They were so thrilled to receive a letter, and they were very anxious to write back! Just from reading their first letter, most students found something they had in common with their pen pal already. It will be great for the 2nd and 3rd graders to get to know more about each other :). We all had lots of fun on Friday wearing our pajamas, slippers, reading with partners, reading to ourselves, and getting read to by many people including Ms. Mary from the Manhattan-Elwood Public library, a few other 2nd grade teachers, and Mrs. Maher (she read Duck for President & Grace for President. The students are going to vote on election day for Duck or Grace for president!) Also, after learning about veterans all week, we also were able to listen to a veteran speaker from the Vietnam War. We were able to ask him questions, see some pictures, and see his uniform! Students have the opportunity to go to one or two math centers a day once our math lesson is completed. They include math with technology (practicing Xtra Math), math by myself, math with someone, math writing, and math fluency. They love this time to get to reinforce learned math skills. |
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June 2017
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