November Recap

November was such a quick and busy month, we never had a chance to post our learning in room 119.  Check out all of the great things we accomplished!

Haiku Poetry

Our November read aloud, The Year of Billy Miller, the main character, who is also a second grader, was learning how to write Haiku poems.  Since we weren't sure what this type of poem was, we decided to do a little investigating!  We checked out several different haiku poetry books from the library and worked in groups to read them. 

 After we had a better idea of what Haiku poems are, we gave them a try ourselves.  And...they turned out great!

Veteran's Day

We also had an outstanding assembly on Veteran's Day.  It started with a flag raising ceremony, followed by an assembly put on by the fourth graders.  They sang beautiful songs in honor of the special day.  Several local veterans were in attendance.  It was a wonderful day celebrating all of the men and women who serve for our country.

Our three boyscouts that helped with the flag raising ceremony.

Special Guest Reader

We were very lucky to have Mrs. DeGaetano come in and read to us.  She even picked a classroom favorite, The Day the Crayons Quit!

Proper Nouns

While we are experts at common nouns, we learned all about proper nouns in November.  First, we made a proper noun list as a class, and then we searched through magazines to find more for our charts.

Thanksgiving Writing

We used our creative sides in writing and became chefs!  To get our wheels turning, we read A Plump and Perky Turkey.  It was a funny book and helped us start thinking about Thanksgiving dinner.  While none of us have ever cooked a turkey before, many of us had cooking schema.  We put all of our ideas together on a chart...

Then, we started planning our writing for "How to Cook a Turkey".  After using an organizer to get our writing started, everyone wrote fantastic directions for cooking a delicious Thanksgiving turkey!

Halloween Fun

While we may have been dressed up as witches, robots, super heroes, flamingos, athletes, storm troopers, and more, we still had learning take place on Halloween!  

We started off our day by doing a noun sorting activity, but Halloween-themed of course!

For writer's workshop, every table received two different Halloween pictures to write about.  Some pictures were spooky while others were funny.  Either way, imaginations turned on and writing began!  We even listened to spooky music to help our creativity!

At the end, we read our spooky stories to the class!

We wrapped up Reader's Workshop for the week by having classroom researchers share their learning from the week.  Check out this awesome presentation...

These boys researched rhinos and shared some pretty interesting facts!

Then finally....PARTY TIME!  We had such a great time and thank you to the parents who made it such a success!

Celebration Time: Tech Day!

We did it again, our links touched the floor!  After a class vote, Tech Day was the winner.  With parent permission, everyone was able to bring a device from home to play on or use a classroom device.  You can see from the big smiles how much fun everyone had!  Way to go second graders! 

Wondering About Wasps' Nests

Thanks to Mrs. Schieber, our Observation Table had a very interesting object for us to observe, wonder, and learn about - a paper wasps' nest!  This nest led us to many different wonders and questions about wasps.  Our wonder board was filled with sticky notes.  Throughout the week, we asked questions and then began to research.  Here are a few of our questions:

1.  How many wasps live in a nest?

2.  How long does it take to make the nest?

3.  What is the nest made out of?

4.   What are paper wasps?

5.  Where do they build their nests?

 When Friday comes, it is time to share!  Everyone has a chance to share questions or facts on their sticky notes from the week.   This week, we learned SO MUCH!  Here are a few of the interesting facts we know now about paper wasps and their nests:

1.  There can be thousands of wasps living inside a nest.

2.  It takes about all summer for a nest to be built.

3.  The nests are made out of paper and bark from trees.

4.  Paper wasps get their name from the nests they make.

5.  Wasps build their nests all over the world, except Antarctica.

Another week of observing, wondering, and learning accomplished!

Walk to School Day = SUCCESS!

We had the perfect weather to for National Walk to School Day!  Before heading inside to start our day, everyone did the Pledge of Allegiance outside together.  And to support our Chicago Cubs, we ended by cheering and chanting, "Go Cubs Go"!

Socktober at McDole

A Peek into Our Writer's Workshop

Writer's workshop has been a busy place these days!  While we learned how to write personal narratives in first grade, we are continuing to write them in second grade.  Adding detail, and details that are in the correct order, has kept us very busy lately.  We have been reading a variety of well-known personal narrative books to help guide us.  A few of the recent ones were, Fireflies and Saturdays and Teacakes.  These authors, Julie Brinkloe and Lester Laminack, did a great job with telling every detail, big or small, which helped us to visualize the stories. 

How the narrator is feeling is a very important detail of personal narratives.  We are all learning how to include details about our feeling in stories.  It was a little tricky at first, so we made a "Hand Map" to help us.  As a class, we made a list of feelings and then chose 5 to put on our map.  Volunteers shared examples when they experienced one of these feelings.  Each time someone shared, we wrote down the story by the feeling on our map.  By the time we were done, we had come up with 10 incredible stories from our classmates!

The next day, everyone received their own "Hand Map" to fill in.  Each person was able to pick out the feelings he/she wanted and then had to write two different stories about that feeling.  It took two days to complete, but now everyone has a great tool to use for personal narrative topics.