2H Class Blog!: Dec. 3rd News

Welcome to December! It's hard to believe there's only three weeks left before our holiday break!

Students go outside for recess everyday unless it is raining or dangerously cold. Please be sure your child has appropriate clothing to stay warm (we're hoping our cute little "welcome owls" remind us to wear hats and mittens before going outside!). As always, please make sure all clothing has your child’s name in it so we can help keep things from getting lost.

Highlights from our week:

*Reader's and Writer's Workshop: We had a FABULOUS time during both reader's and writer's workshop this week. Launching into our character unit, students did a great job analyzing the characters in their stories. We talked a lot about how we can describe our characters, using both their physical traits, as well as their personality traits.

We read a lot of great stories this week that gave us many opportunities to get to know different characters. This reading work naturally led the way into our writing work. We began looking closely at the author Kevin Henkes. With great books such as Chrysanthemum, Lilly's Purple Plastic Purse, and Julius: Baby of the World, there's one thing for certain: Kevin Henkes loves using mice characters! Attempting to write in the style of Kevin Henkes, each student created their own mouse character, brainstormed potential problems and solutions, and is in the drafting stages of writing their gripping story. Ask your child about the draft they created last week.

Find out more about our mentor author at: https://kevinhenkes.com/.

*Social Studies: We put the finishing touches on our Knuffle Owl book this week and received it hot off the press from the publisher on Friday afternoon! We'll enjoy reading our finished product tomorrow, but you can enjoy a sneak peak:

Our librarian, Mrs. O'Connor took a sneak peak and gave it her stamp of approval!

While we'll be switching from social studies to our next science unit next week, our work around our community will be ongoing. On Friday, you received a letter outlining a community service project. SMS 2nd Graders are holding a food drive, collecting non-perishable food items to be delivered to local food pantries. Items may be sent in until Tuesday, Dec. 19th. Thanks for your help in supporting a great cause!

*Fifth Grade Buddies: The weather was just so beautiful on Friday, we simply had to go outside with our buddies. While we didn't do our second hike of the year, we did take the time to practice making scientific sketches, remembering to draw detailed, accurate diagrams, so we'll be ready for our next hike (which will take place sometime before the holiday break). Each Owl was impressed by how much their sketches had improved since our last hike. We also had fun comparing the weather and temperature from our previous hike. It's certainly getting colder (although we all agreed, it was rather warm for the first day of December!).