2H Celebrates "Holey" Pumpkin Day!

On Friday, we celebrated Halloween with our very special "Holey Pumpkin Day!"

Thank you all for sending in small pumpkins to make this day possible. The kids had a BLAST!! In the morning, we were joined by our 5L reading buddies. They were a huge help in completing our pumpkin investigation. Students had to draw and describe their pumpkins, estimate and count the number of seeds, compare the weight with seeds to the weight without seeds, and measure the height and circumference of their pumpkin. It was a lot of work, but everyone arrived at some great results!

After lunch, it was time to put the "holey" into Holey Pumpkin Day! After designing their holey pattern, it was off to the drills. A HUGE thank you to Tate's mom, Alyssa's mom, Gavin's mom, and Jacoby's mom for their drilling techniques! We couldn't have done it without you!

Once all were drilled, it was time to celebrate! A big thank you goes out to our fabulous room mom, Shayna LoPriore, for organizing our celebration. Another big thank you goes out to all the volunteers who sent in materials (from glow sticks for their pumpkins, to delicious snacks to eat and juice to drink--and of course for the festive paper goods to enjoy them on!), and to the many adults who were able to join us in our celebration. It was only through your help that any of this was possible. THANK YOU!

I hope everyone had a Happy Halloween weekend! 

Oct. 23rd News

Happy Halloween Week! Just a reminder that the Owls will be celebrating Halloween with "Holey" Pumpkin Day this Friday, October 28th. Please send your child in with one, small carving pumpkin by Thursday, Oct. 27th. Please have the top cut (around the stem) and the guts scraped loose (but still intact!). After a day of pumpkin fun, we'll be culminating with our pumpkin lantern lighting. If you'd like to join us on Friday at 1:30 for this special celebration, we'd love to have you!

Highlights from our week:

*Leaf Project: Thanks to everyone for collecting and preparing the beautiful fall leaves that made it into our classroom! With these leaves, each second grader was able to create their very own leaf animal. We have everything from fox, mice, and deer, to ponies, fish, and peacocks! Of course there were quite a few OWLS in the bunch! These fantastic creations now adorn our hallway---be sure to check them out whenever you're in the building!

*Gardening: On Wednesday, with the most beautiful weather, we headed out into our garden! Each second grader helped plant a daffodil bulb and we had a lot of fun harvesting some of the delicious vegetables that are growing! We are so fortunate to have this beautiful learning space at our school!

*Breakout Kit: Our Global Read Aloud took us on a VERY exciting adventure this week! Mr. Gagnon invited us into the Makerspace to use his brand new Breakout Kit! Breakout Kits are designed to teach critical thinking, teamwork, and problem solving. The puzzle we were challenged to solve involved our Global Read Aloud Author: Lauren Castillo! Searching high and low for clues, students had to work together to solve a series of puzzles in order to unlock a series of locks, to find out what was inside the mystery box. The catch? They only had 45 minutes! Would they be successful? We truly didn't know! Mr. G. and I were extremely impressed with the perseverance and determination displayed by the Owl Class! It was truly magical watching them problem solve and celebrate as they reached success! We look forward to trying additional Breakout Kits in the future!

Using a UV light to reveal invisible ink writing!

Trying a combination!

The key has been found!

Working together to solve a puzzle!

Success! Time to open the box!

Some new bookmarks and a letter from Lauren Castillo!!!

In addition to ALL this Global Read Aloud fun, we also worked on creating a slideshow to teach our Pennsylvania friends about our school. 2H went around photographing our school and worked in partners to write captions teaching others about SMS! Check out their finished product!

*Reading: We jumped right into our second unit of study this week: Becoming Experts! Students learned that to become "experts" on a topic they have to read lots and lots of nonfiction books. We reviewed nonfiction text features (table of contents, glossary, bold words, captions, photographs, diagrams) and shopped for new books. We learned that "just-right" nonfiction books are a little different than "just-right" fiction books, as we can obtain a lot of information from diagrams and photographs in nonfiction texts.

     Our focus for the week included: 

• Nonfiction Readers Grow Knowledge!
• Pay attention to key details
• Ask questions
• Think, what is this book (and this part) teaching me?

Practicing our nonficition skills by carefully studying a penny! Students used the language, "I'm noticing...", I'm learning..." and "I'm wondering..." as they noticed details and asked questions!

*Parent Conferences: With eight weeks of school under our belt, I am eager to meet with you to discuss your child’s progress thus far and develop individual goals for the remainder of the year. Reminder slips will be sent home on Monday. Please arrive on time for your conference as many of the conference slots run back-to-back. I look forward to seeing you and discussing your fabulous child!

Have a great, last week of October! This year is truly flying by!

************************************************************************************************************************

Important Dates (always available at the top of the blog page for convenience) :

Wednesday, Oct. 26th: Early Release (Parent Conferences)

Friday, Oct. 28th, 1:30-2pm: "Holey" Pumpkin Celebration (more information to come!)

Wednesday, Nov. 2nd: Early Release (Parent Conferences)