Lots of Reading

In second grade, we are doing lots of reading!

On Friday, we visited our school library for the first time. It's a beautiful space full of great books, cozy reading nooks, and comfy chairs. We'll be visiting every Friday from 10:10-11:00. Once a student's library contract is returned, they will be able to check out books on a weekly basis.

We also read a lot in our classroom. We have read many books together as well as read independently during the reading workshop every day for two weeks. Our classroom library is being used a lot as we fill our book-baggies with just-right books, read picture books during our daily quiet time, or share stories with our reading buddies on Mondays.

During our reading workshops, we've been learning how to respond to what we've read. In second grade we will be practicing eight reading responses. We've learned about the first three already, and next week Jessica will be teaching us about the other five. Each student has a Reading Notebook that lives in our classroom. The notebook is divided into three sections: Read Aloud, Guided Reading, and SSR (Silent Sustained Reading). After reading in our classroom, students will be able to choose a response type and write about their reading, be it after a text is read aloud to the class, after a small group reads a text together, or after they read independently. Frequently, after guided reading, students will also have specific prompts to write about as well.  Our eight reading response choices are:

After listening to a story, we wrote a response together to learn about the different ways to respond to a text. These examples will be posted in the room near our Reading Response choice chart (see above) so that students can refer back to them as reminders. The typed list above is also attached to their Reading Notebooks. This week, we wrote about our favorite part of a book, made character webs, and used time-order words when retelling the plot of a story. After making class-wide examples, students tried it out on their own in their Reading Notebooks. We had a lot to say!

Students respond in their own notebooks

Our class-made responses to two great read alouds.

- Liz

Pocket Day!

Yesterday was an exciting day -- it was Pocket Day!

Pocket Day will happen every Thursday in second grade. We will be figuring out how many pockets we are wearing in our classroom all together. Each week we'll practice a different addition strategy to find the total accurately and quickly. We will also use this data to create bar graphs, tally charts, pictographs, and lots more.

Yesterday, because it was our first pocket day, we worked together as a class to find out how many pockets 18 kids were wearing.

First, we predicted. We had predictions from 15 pockets up to 50 pockets! We then came up with a plan. Our plan was to take a cube for every pocket we wore. Some of us took 6 cubes - and others of us took none!  We made a tally chart to keep track of how many students had that number of pockets.

After that, we put all of the cubes together into one long strip. It was too long to see how many cubes there were, and counting by ones seemed inaccurate and time-consuming. As mathematicians, we know we should solve a problem two different ways to make sure we had arrived at the correct answer. 

First, we counted by 10s. We made 3 full rows of ten and then we had 9 more cubes left over. We debated how to count. Some of us thought we should count, "ten, twenty, thirty, thirty-one, thirty-two, thirty-three..." and so on up to thirty-nine.  Others of us thought we should count "ten, twenty, thirty, forty" and then count backwards one since we were one short of a full row of ten. Both landed us at thirty-nine cubes when counting by 10s.  Next, we put the cubes all back together. We tried counting by 2s. We found this harder, but still arrived at 39 cubes in all. This means we had 39 pockets in our class! 

We will be keeping a chart of all of our Pocket Days in 2nd grade. We added our first Pocket Day totals to the chart.

Finally, we went to our seats to reflect on what we did. We do so much between Pocket Days, we don't want to forget our strategies and methods. We used words and pictures to record what we had done.

 

I wonder how many pockets we'll have next week!

12th Day of School

In second grade, we are working hard to learn all about numbers.  One routine we have is counting the days of school. We are keeping track by filling in a box for each day.

Today was the 12th day of school:

This shows us that today is 12 because we have 1 ten and 2 ones filled in.  Right now, we could still sit and count by ones to find the total number of days in school. But, as our numbers get bigger, naming them will necessitate no longer counting by ones - but rather seeing the groups of ten and then the ones.  We have a lot of days ahead of us to count - 168 more, in fact!

- Liz

Reading Buddies!

Today was a very exciting day in second grade - we met our reading buddies!

We will be partnering up with Georga's Pre-K class to read every-other Monday. Today we introduced ourselves and learned each other's names. Then we taught the Pre-K students a song and then they taught us a song. The song we taught was Aroostasha. It's a silly song that gets our bodies moving and our rhythm flowing.

Here's a link to this fun energizer being practiced by some teachers:

- Liz

Week 2

This past week was just as busy as the last! Throughout the year, I'll be blogging once or twice each week with highlights of large-scale projects or exciting events happening in our classroom. This week we practiced our routines and procedures in reading, writing, and math and continued to learn about one another.

This week's large project revolved around our social/emotional curriculum called the 4R's from The Morningside Center. The 4R's are Respect, Responsibility, Reading, and WRiting. We practiced all four this week!


On Monday, we read The Big Orange Splot by D. Manus Pinkwater. The book tells the story of Mr. Plumbean and his neighbors.  Mr. Plumbean lives on a "neat street" - one where all of the houses and lawns look the same. One night, a bird drops some orange paint on the roof of Mr. Plumbean's house.  Rather than washing it off, Mr. Plumbean designs a dream house for himself - complete with palm trees, and alligator in the front lawn, a clock tower, and bright colorful murals. His neighbors are not too happy. But after speaking to Mr. Plumbean about their own dreams, they decide to create their own dream homes. By the end the neighbors all agree that having different homes that reflect their individuality is better than all of the homes being all the same.

We talked a lot about this story. What is the author trying to say? Why did the author write this book? We will continue discussing this story this coming week as well as we create our classroom community.

We then created our own dream homes and wrote about them. Here are our dream homes:

It's Friday!

This week went by so quickly!  Today was another busy day in second grade.  We started with our morning meeting, during which we finished writing our classroom rules.  We have 8 rules that we all agreed upon based on all of the brainstorming we had done all week.

After that, we got into our Hopes and Dreams project.  We reviewed our plans and then created a reminder for the school year.  This reminder has both our hope and dream written out in words and in a picture.  Ask your child what his/her goal is for the year and how they plan to achieve it.  Here are our reminders above the classroom library:

 Then we went into the reading workshop.  We wrote about the book we are reading aloud together to keep track of the plot and the characters before going into our book baggies to read independently.  Book baggies may go home - but we use them every day at school, so please make sure they come back each morning as well.  After reading, we went back into our math books to continue our pattern block work from yesterday.

Then it was time for lunch and recess.  After that we had our first singing class with Bradley!  We have singing every Friday afternoon to learn songs for Town Meetings, learn about famous song-writers, and have fun!  Then we celebrated a class birthday together.  Finally, though, it was time for Choice Time!  Choice Time is every Friday (when clubs are not in session) and is a time for children to explore areas of interest as well as learn to independently problem-solve and interact socially with one another.  We built with blocks, drew beautiful pictures, wrote in our journals, read great books, and used pattern blocks to make patterns and designs today.  It was a lot of fun!  We ended the week with some reflective journal writing before packing up to go home.

Have a great weekend!

- Liz

Can you believe it's already Thursday?

Today was another great day in room 402.  We started with a morning meeting, led by our student teacher, Jessica.  She taught us a new greeting that used a bean bag toss to greet friends.  Then we added a new part to the morning meeting:  Sharing!  Jessica shared about a recent trip to the New York Public Library.  We listened well and then asked questions to learn more and shared comments to support Jessica.  After that, we headed to the dance studio with Ana.  We have dance class on Mondays and Thursdays.  On those days, students should wear gym clothes (sweat pants or mesh shorts, t-shirts, and shoes and socks that can be removed).  We don't wear shoes in the dance studio, so please don't wear stockings or tights on those days.

After dance class, we came back to the classroom and talked about our Hopes and Dreams again.  We brainstormed lots of ideas for things we can work towards achieving by the end of second grade.  From improving our reading to becoming a better swimmer, from achieving a higher rank in karate to making new friends, we have lots of goals!  After deciding on our own dream, we came up with a plan to achieve it.  We can't just sit and hope - we have to work this year to achieve our dream!  Tomorrow we'll be finishing our projects to display in the classroom for the year.

Then we went back into our math books.  We are using pattern blocks to cover shapes and then record the different combinations of blocks used to do so.  It is fun work, but it's also challenging us to try things over and over.

Two students cover the same shape using pattern blocks -
but one is using lots of green triangles and the other is using
fewer red trapezoids to cover it.

Then we read another chapter in our book, The Twits, before heading to recess and lunch.  After that break, we had Quiet Time again.  We still have four options for things to do silently and independently: read, write, draw, or rest.  Next, we had a writing workshop period.  We wrote a journal entry about yesterday's math lesson together as a class.  We stopped and thought between each sentence about what we wanted to write, and even said it aloud a few times to make sure our word choices were perfect before recording it.  After we wrote the journal entry together, we went into our own journals and wrote on our own.  Lots of great writers are emerging in our classroom!  For the last period of the day, we reviewed the reading workshop rules we had created yesterday and then we read independently.  All of us focused on our own books for almost 20 minutes without talking to a friend or moving around the room.  Even in the heat we love to read!  Tomorrow is already Friday - can you believe it?

A Hot Day 3

Since it's Wednesday, we started with an art class with Maggie.  After art, we started our day together in room 402 for the third day of second grade!  We had a morning meeting that included a new game called Changes.  It was a lot of fun.  Then we reviewed the classroom rules we had brainstormed on Tuesday and added more to the list.  Tomorrow we will start finding the right words for these ideas to make a permanent list of classroom rules.  After our morning meeting, we opened up our classroom library for the first time.  We learned about the organization of the books, how to choose a just-right book, and where to keep our books between reading workshops.  We explored where we wanted to sit during the reading workshop and what the room should look like, sound like, and feel like during that time.  We all agreed that it should be quiet, calm, and full of still bodies focused on our own books.

After reading workshop, we started a discussion about our Hopes and Dreams for the school year.  Every class at EVCS is hard at work brainstorming hopes for the year, as well as an action plan to accomplish it.  We then read a great book, Big Al by Andrew Clements.  It tells the story of big, scary-looking fish who hopes and dreams to make friends.  He tries over and over to make friends, but it just never works. Finally, though, he achieves his goal by doing something great for the other fish.  We will be using this story throughout the next week to create our own Hopes and Dreams.  We will then hang them in the classroom to reflect on throughout the year.  After that, we read the next chapter from The Twits, our daily chapter book and then headed to recess and lunch.  Then came Quiet Time - but this time the library was open too!  Now we can read, write, draw or rest during Quiet Time.

Then we started our first math unit.  We use Terc Investigations as our main math curriculum.  This unit it about numbers 0-10 and the fluency of adding and subtracting numbers within 10.  We used a new math tool today: connecting cubes.  We first explored and built with the cubes to get used to them.  Then we used them to add numbers.  We saw that two towers of 4 cubes plus one tower of 2 cubes equaled ten - yet so did two towers of 5, and so did  three towers of 3 plus one tower of 1!  We wrote equations for the towers we built and for the towers other people built.

Here are 5 different ways to show the number 10
Red shows 7 + 3 = 10
Purple shows 9 + 1 = 10
Yellow shows 10 + 0 = 10
Orange shows 6 + 4 = 10
Green shows 8 + 2 = 10

Even in the heat, we kept on working.  We then moved back into our journals to either write something new or to add more to our writing from yesterday.  It was a calm and reflective way to end our day.

Last, we played a quick game together and then headed home.  What a busy, busy day!


FYI:  On Wednesdays we have art with Maggie first period.  This is the only day of the week that this occurs, but if your child is running late or we have a rainy-day arrival, please send them to the art studio with their things.

Day Two

Today was somehow busier than yesterday!  We began our day with another Morning Meeting.  We also introduced jobs to our classroom community.  We now have students helping pass out papers, hold the doors, and lots more.  We are really taking care of one another.  This conversation then led us to begin our rule-making process.  EVCS has three rules:

We take care of ourselves

We take care of each other

We take care of our environment

We began brainstorming rules that we think we need in our classroom community.  From keeping our hands to ourselves to being quiet in the halls to using materials safely, we came up with lots of rules.  This week we'll continue brainstorming, changing, and rewriting our rules.  By Friday, we will have an agreed-upon list of rules to help us take care of ourselves, each other, and our environment.

We then started the writing workshop.  Today we talked about our daily journals and came up with a list of things to write about.  We had lots of ideas!  Then we got right to it.  Our journal is a great place to write any kind of writing we want and to get our thoughts out of our heads and onto paper.  We worked really hard this morning.

After that, we went to the art studio with Maggie.  It was our first day there and we had a great time!  Then we started a new chapter book together: The Twits by Roald Dahl.  It's a really funny book and our student teacher, Jessica, had us giggling in our seats.  We can't wait to keep reading it tomorrow!  Next, we headed downstairs for recess and lunch with all of the students in grades 2, 3, 4, and 5.  After lunch was Quiet Time again.  We now have the option of writing more in our journals during Quiet Time, in addition to resting, drawing, or writing a letter.  I wonder what we'll add tomorrow...  We then had a practice Fire Drill.  We practiced lining up quickly and quietly, and walking in one long line out of our classroom, down the correct stairwell, out the front doors, and across the street to our waiting spot.  We will be really prepared for our first all-school fire drill later this month.  

Then we did a new art project.  This project had us using lots of scraps of paper to create beautiful window decorations for our classroom.  We discussed the importance of using scraps to save paper and use our classroom resources wisely.  We practiced sharing group materials, using scissors safely, talking to one another at a work-appropriate volume, and of course cleaning up.  We did excellently and our windows look fantastic!

After that, we played a new game and then celebrated a class birthday before heading home.  Another great day in second grade!

- Liz

First Day

Wow!  The first day always goes by so quickly, and today was no exception!
At EVCS, we follow the Responsive Classroom First Six Weeks of School.  It's a great way of thinking about how students best thrive in a learning environment and how to set clear expectations for all of the many procedures and routines that will soon become second-nature to our second graders.

Today we did a lot.  We had a Morning Meeting first, where we greeted one another and read our daily schedule.  Next, we went to the new dance studio with Ana.  After our first dance class, we took a tour of the school.  We saw the office, the bathrooms, the water fountains, the art studio, and the other EVCS classrooms.  After our tour, it was time to explore our crayons, markers, and colored pencils.  We experienced how we share them in our classroom and how we take care of them too.  Every marker had its cap back on its top before our next transition!  We then headed down to recess and lunch.  This year, as second graders, we get to play before we eat.

We then had Quiet Time.  Quiet Time is a 10-15 minute period of time right after lunch that allows students to work independently or rest in silence.  After that, we read a story together and had our first chance to talk to one another about a book.  We read First Day Jitters, a book about a nervous morning before the first day of school - with a twist ending!  After that, we got into math.  In our first math unit, we will be using pattern blocks to explore equivalence, geometry, and area.  Today we got a chance to simply explore these math tools - we charted lots of noticings at the end of our exploration time.  Some were thick, some thin.  Some were hard, others made of foam.  We notice right away that when we ran out of a yellow hexagon shape, we could make the same shape using rhombuses, triangles, or trapezoids.  We also made some beautiful works of art!  We practiced our sharing strategies some more during this time, learned our clean-up procedures for math tools, and had some fun too.  After math, we played a new game together, sang a new song, and packed up for home!

 The time flew by!  I can't wait for tomorrow!

- Liz

Getting ready

The teachers at EVCS have been busy for the past two weeks getting the classrooms ready for Monday.  Many students came by to see the classroom after the New Student Breakfast this week, and it was great to meet so many eager second graders! I wanted to share some pictures of the classroom with families before the start of the school year so that students will know what to expect before coming in on the first day.

 

This week I also met the student teacher who will be spending the fall semester with us.  Her name is Jessica and she is studying to become an elementary school teacher at Columbia's Teachers College.  Previously, she taught oversees and is now excited to teach in New York City. We are both looking forward to a great year in Room 402!

Enjoy your weekend!  See you Monday!

- Liz