Celebrations Galore: 100th Day and Valentine's Day!!

     Last week gave us so many reasons to celebrate here in 2AA! After making it through SIX snow days, we finally made it to our 100th day of school!! Wednesday, Feb. 11th, marked our 100th day together as a second grade class. At times we thought it may never come, but now that's it passed, it's hard to believe we have less than eighty days left together. Time sure flies when you're having fun!

     As a fun 100th day challenge, the owls worked together to complete these collaborative "100 Post-It Posters"! After calculating the math (each person would need to add 5 post-its to each poster in order to reach 100), they were sent off coming up with 100 ways to make 100, 100 places to visit, 100 compliments or acts of kindness, and 100 questions about the world. While some categories were easier than others, all worked very hard to get the job done! Everyone had a blast reading all the post-its when we were through!

                      

 

     As if the 100th day wasn't enough for one week, the all time highlight was definitely our celebration of Valentine's Day. We were reminded that Valentine's Day was about being with the people you love and showing kindness to others, and we certainly had another great day together. We were joined by our reading buddies from 5S to enjoy some crafty (& delicious) writing! Using conversation hearts, writers had to fit the words on the candies into sentences to make a letter! While this proved to be very challenging, the final pieces came out great (& of course everyone enjoyed eating the leftovers!!). 

    After a fun-filled day, the end of the day arrived and it was time for our holiday celebration. Every student exchanged Valentine's and everyone had a terrific time opening and reading their special cards. Our fabulous room mom, Lisa Anderson, provided some tasty strawberries and delicious popcorn to add to our festivity (THANK YOU!). She then played the role of BINGO master in a Valentine battle! We only had time for one round, but boy was it fun! Thank you, everyone, for helping send in Valentine's and making our day such a great one.

Enjoying some snacks and smiles together!

Valentine's BINGO!

          Hope everyone had a fabulous, snowy, Valentine's weekend!

Beautiful Valentine's heart filled with love! Thanks, Reece & Family!

Feb. 9th News

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Ms. Arnold’s Classroom News (2/9/15)

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What We've Been Up To:

Snow, snow, and more snow!

*Progress Reports: If you have not already, please sign and return the progress report envelope (the report itself is yours to keep!). If you have any questions or concerns, or would like to set up a conference, please do not hesitate to contact me.
*Valentine's Day: Our class will be having a small Valentine's celebration on Friday, Feb. 13th. Students are encouraged to exchange valentine’s with their peers. Homemade ones are best! Please be mindful of our classroom food allergies (nuts & eggs) and remind your child that if they are bringing in valentines, they must bring one for every member of our class.

Our class of 20 includes:

Alex Amelia Ben Clara

Destiny Drew Gina Grace

Hailey Jacqui Jonah Kyle

Lhana Lily Logan Pranavi

Reece Ryan Taylor Truman

*Social Studies: We've begun our community unit and students have been learning a lot about their "place in space". They were impressed to see the long list of places they could say they live: Stratham, New Hampshire, New England, USA, North America, Earth! After reading Joan Sweeny's Me on the Map, they were challenged to create sliding discs to show the many layers of their world!

After completing this project, we began looking at the world on a global level. It was important for them to color and label all seven continents (names of which they were very familiar with as they are also the names of our table groups!).

 

We then began our virtual trip around the globe. With all the snow delays and cancellations we've had, we've only "visited" North America and South America so far, but our journey will continue next week! Check out this cool video we used to start our travels:

                      
In connection with our writing unit, students will begin working on a travel brochure advertising a New England attraction. This assignment was sent home last week. With the snow day today, please send back the completed green sheet, by Tuesday, Feb. 10th.
*Scholastic Book Orders: February book flyers were sent home on Friday. Orders must be placed by Wednesday, Feb. 11th, if you'd like the books to arrive before February vacation. Orders can be placed online or sent into school

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Coming Up:

- Tuesday, Feb. 10: New England Attraction Homework Sheet Due
- Wednesday, Feb. 11th: Scholastic Book Order Due

- Friday, Feb. 13th: Valentine Celebration; Valentine's Due

-Monday, Feb. 23rd-Friday, Feb. 27th: No School: February Vacation

Rocketing our way to Math Fact Mastery!

     We have added an exciting new math fact component to our Everyday Math routine: ROCKET MATH! Rocket Math is a daily, paper and pencil, supplemental, math facts practice curriculum. Each student has an individual goal of how many problems they need to correctly complete in one minute. Each level reviews only two new facts and their inverses.

Rocket progress sheet

     After learning the routines and procdures, each Owl was given their very first, level A, timed assessment! Some passed the level today, while others will need continued practice, Any day your child does not meet their goal, he or she will have that day's practice sheet to bring home. In addition to their nightly homework, please have them review their fact sheet. 

Sample fact sheet

Learning all the facts is a lot of work, but future success in math is dependent upon knowing the facts so well that the answers come automatically without much thinking. Thank you very much for you support of this critical learning goal. If you have any questions or concerns, please don't hesitate to contact me.

     For some fun web-based fact practice sites, visit:

Math Fact Cafe

Fact Monster

Math Fact Shoot-Out