Jan. 30th News

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Mrs. Healey’s Classroom News (1/30/16)

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 *Half Day: On Monday of this week, SMS students celebrated Day 90---our halfway mark! It's hard to believe we have already flown through half of our year together. While we'll be celebrating Day 100 more extravagantly, we couldn't help but have a little fun with "Half Day" (which I had to quickly clarify, was not an early release "half day" from school :) )!

Honoring our half names, like "Mad" and "Hay" and "Mack"!

Creating designs out of shape halves.

 *Reading: We continued to do incredibly hard and powerful work this week during reader's workshop. Each reader was given an "Emergency Reading Tool Kit" equipped with a special mechanical pencil and lots and lots of post-it notes. One strategy readers can use when they're stuck at a confusing part, or if they want to hold on to important information, is to "stop & jot" their thinking on a sticky note. We had a lot of fun practicing using our tool kits during various shared reading experiences.

We've been reading Minnie & Moo Go Dancing at the start of each reader's workshop. We got to a pretty confusing part this week when Minnie & Moo (cows) thought they had eaten their friends as hamburgers! Uh Oh! All of a sudden they hear voices...is it a ghost? Their friends? Somebody else? It was time for a stop & jot...

 After practicing together, students went off to use their tool kits independently. They have a lot of powerful, deep thinking going on!

Later in the week, we reviewed all of the strategies we've learned this unit. It was then time to set individual reading goals. It's hard to find what you already do really well as a reader, and what you'd like to work on, but these Owls were up for the challenge. I was impressed by their honest reflections.

After sharing our goals, we found that many of us had similar reading goals. We grouped together and formed goal clubs!

After all that goal setting, we realized that in order to be successful, we needed a plan. Groups met together to define their goal, gather up tools, and write out specific steps. Take a look at some examples!!

This is INCREDIBLE work for any reader, let alone second graders!! I look forward to working with each club this week as they work toward their goal.

 *Engineering: We continued to develop our engineering skills this week by completing several design challenges. Our engineers quickly discovered that designing and creating was only half the battle. The real challenge often came in working together, taking turns, and sharing space, ideas, and materials.

We will continue the designing, building, collaborative fun over the next several weeks!

 *Valentine's Day: Last week you received a notice regarding our Valentine's Day celebration. Our class will be having a small Valentine’s Celebration at the end of the day on Friday, February 12th.

Students are encouraged to exchange valentines with their peers. Homemade ones are best! Please be mindful of our classroom food allergies (walnuts) and remind your child that if they are bringing in valentines, they must bring one for every member of our class.

Our class of 18 includes:

Caraden, Cate, Eli, Erik, Hayden, Hailey,

Leli, Lizzie, Lucas, Mackenzie, Madison, Michael,

Nicholas, Sara, Sebastian, Tanner, Trey, and Will

While it's not quite Valentine's Day (or Groundhog's Day for that matter) just yet, we enjoyed some crafty, addition fun with Mrs. Forest on Friday to get us in the spirit.

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Coming Up:
-100th Day Project: Due Friday, Feb. 5th

-100th Day (tentative): Monday, Feb. 8th
-Early Release: Wednesday, Feb. 10th

-Valentine's Day Celebration: Friday, Feb. 12th
-Winter Break, No School: Monday, Feb. 22nd-Friday, Feb. 26th.