Swimming

Today we began our swimming lessons!  I wanted to first say thank you to all of the parents who came and helped with the locker rooms!  We couldn't have done it without you!

Today we were introduced to our swimming instructors and were tested to see how we felt and acted in the water.  We blew bubbles, kicked our legs, floated on our backs, and moved our arms in the water before we were put into 4 groups.  Now that we have our groups, we'll be able to get right into the water and start swimming next time!

Parents, please send your child's swimming clothes in a separate bag from their book bag - this allows their wet clothes to be put into the bag after swimming without getting our papers and books soggy on the way home.  Please also remember that if you signed up for bringing home lunch on swimming days to bring one - the cafeteria is closed when we return from swimming, so only those students who requested school lunch a week in advance will receive one.  Thanks!

Chess

Today we began chess classes with Bradley!  We learned all about the board, how to name the squares, ranks, and files.  We then studied the pawn.  We learned that there are 8 pawns in the game of chess.  We learned how they can move and how they can both defend and capture other pieces.  We first played a class game against Bradley.  We quickly saw that keeping track of our defense and our offense was harder than we thought!  After that, we played a game on the chess board using only the pawns.  Our goal was to get a pawn from one side of the board to the other.  We had a great time!

Some of us are already skilled chess players, others of us have limited experience with the game, and even more of us have never played before.  By learning each piece one at a time, all of us are strengthening our chess skills to be strategic in our playing.  We will practice each Friday.  This afternoon, during choice time, some of us used what we learned to either keep playing with just pawns or to play full games of chess.  What fun!

Updates

Sorry for the silence on the blog!  We are back in the swing of things at second grade!  I wanted to make sure that everyone knew what is coming up:

- Half day next Friday!  Pick-up is at 11:30 on January 17th.
- Our schedule of prep classes has changed.  We now have:

• Art on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays
• Dance on Mondays and Wednesday

- Swimming lessons start on Monday!  We will be leaving at 11:10 this week and 11:20 the following Mondays to swim.  We will return around 1:45 to eat lunch in the classroom.  Please pack accordingly.

- We will be switching back to library on Fridays for the next 10 weeks to accomodate swimming on Mondays.

- We will begin chess class on Fridays as well!  Bradley will be teaching chess to us each week to learn this strategic game.

- In February we will be having our music share based on our recorder and percussion work with S'cool Sounds.  Stay tuned for the date and time!

- This Monday we have our next Town Meeting.  Join us in the auditorium from 8:30 until 9:10 on Monday morning.  

I think that's all for now.  Please let me know if you have any questions or concerns!

- Liz

Sharing our Books

We are sharing our books all over EVCS!  On Wednesday we shared them with family in the morning. In the afternoon we shared our books with Leslie and Lenore's second grade class.  Today we read them to our Reading Buddies in Georga's Pre-K.  Lots of people are learning from us!

Dioramas and Published Nonfiction Books

It was wonderful to see so many families this week!  Our publishing share was packed with parents and siblings in the morning and then with other second graders in the afternoon.  It was a great time to take pride in our work and share what we've learned.

We will be sharing our books with our reading buddies today and then with more EVCS friends during January - but dioramas have already been sent home.  The students worked so hard on these amazing additions to their writing projects.  We have been having 1-on-1 conferences following this unit to talk about what we learned, what we liked, what we didn't like, and how we want to grow as writers.  Wow, did we learn a lot!

The Natural History Museum

Barclay's Center

The Statue of Liberty and the Staten Island Ferry

The Met

The New York Science Center

The Statue of Liberty

Four Freedoms Park

Coney Island

Union Square

The Statue of Liberty

The Empire State Building

The Empire State Building

The Statue of Liberty

The Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island

The Statue of Liberty

Yankee Stadium

The Intrepid

Coney Island

The Met

Times Square

Publishing Share and the Festival of Lights

Next Wednesday (December 18th) is a very exciting day in our class!

From 8:30-9:15 we will be having a publishing share of our published research books and our dioramas!  Please come check out the great work our students have been doing over the past few weeks.

Then, follow us downstairs to the auditorium for the 9:30 start time of the Festival of Lights!  The whole school will be performing, singing, and gathering together for a wonderful EVCS tradition.

Hope to see you then!

This Machine Kills Fascists

We finished our great study of Woody Guthrie today with Bradley!  We made songbooks throughout the semester with the songs we've been studying.  Check them out!  You can sing along at home using the books, since we also received CDs of Woody Guthrie songs today.  We also recorded ourselves singing "This Land is Your Land" today.  Once it's ready, I'll certainly share it.  Enjoy the music at home!

A student illustrates the dust bowl

We had to put our songs in order

We made table of contents

We wrote and drew covers for our books