Mardi Gras

Today was Mardi Gras! 

We celebrated with a King Cake! One of our fantastic parents ordered and delivered a delicious king cake to our classroom to share the tradition. Kings cakes and Mardi Gras go hand in hand! These cakes originated in Old World France and Spain. They are a sweet, circular pastry, cake, or bread that is the centerpiece of a historical tradition. Every king cake contains a trinket, often a small figurine - which plays a crucial part in the celebration of a holiday that inspired this pastry. Whoever finds the trinket in their slice of cake gets to be the "king" for a day and has a year of good fortune and good luck! We had a lot of fun with this and learned a new tradition to pass on!

Congrats to Cam for being our lucky "king!"

Homework & Spelling

A new week and a new unit. We have begun Unit 5 as of today! With a new unit, comes a new spelling unit as well. Each of the words ends with either ‘y’ or ‘ly’, where the ‘y’ represents the /ee/ sound.
In addition, they will learn to put words in alphabetical order. This means to start with the first letter, ‘a’, and continue in the same order of the alphabet. 
The back of the spelling words has four different sections for the students to alphabetize certain words. They also have a challenge of trying to alphabetize the entire spelling list. Whoa!

The students will also be coming with the remaining normal load of homework. Included with spelling lists is fluency/comprehension for Owning a Pet, leveled math and their weekly word ladder. Please help your child to return all homework by Friday, March 3rd. Thank you!

Classroom & School Reminders

McNitt Amazon Wish List

There is a new link on the right side of our blog page labeled McNitt Amazon Wish List. This is our classroom wish list I have created that contains a large variety of wanted books for our classroom library. This list is continuously updated due to student requests, curriculum we are learning in the classroom, staff input, and also book recommendations for second grade. There are also plenty of books that connect to our CKLA Listening and Learning units in our classroom. This helps heighten student interest and also gives them a chance to further and continue learning during books choice time from our classroom library. Students have access to our classroom library throughout the day. They have chair pockets that house all books chosen that they read from each day, with a designated books choice time every morning from 10:30 - 11:00.
 If you are interested in making a classroom donation from our wishlist please click on the link below to view our wishlist and select the books you would like to donate. Or even if relatives or friends are looking to make a donation, this can be forwarded on. Please let me know if you have any further questions or concerns. Thanks so much!

Book Fair

The book fair will be open this Tuesday and Thursday evening of Parent-Teacher Conferences from 4:30-7:30. Students can also purchase books during their scheduled library time. Our classroom goes to library every Wednesday morning at 9:35. Families may also make Book Fair purchases online and have them shipped to the school for free.

Homework & Spelling
New homework packets came home today. However, you will still see we do not have spelling words this week. Students are still in the process of warpping up persuasive writing and end of Unit 4 assessments.
Students will have new spelling words starting next Monday, February 27th.

 

Please help your child to remember and plan to have all homework due by Friday. Thank you!

Westward Expansion

Today we began our next domain of the Westward Expansion.
This domain will introduce students to an important period in the history of the United States - the time of westward expansion during the 1800's. Students will learn why pioneers were willing and eager to endure hardships to move westward. We will learn about important innovations in both transportation and communication during that period, which greatly increased the movement of people westward. More specifically, students will learn about Fulton's steamboat, the Erie Canal, the transcontinental railroad, and the Pony Express. Students will also come to understand the hardships and tragedies that Native Americans endured because of the westward expansion.
This domain will build the foundation for learning about The U.S. Civil War and Immigration later in the year, as well as learning about other periods of American history in future grades.

Presidents Day

With today being Presidents Day, we celebrated in a few different ways.

First, we connected our current genre of writing, persuasive writing, to what we would do if we ran the country.

If I Were President...

The students are bringing these home today, full of GREAT ideas to better our country and a few ideas to put a little more fun into the nation :)

We also have a mini book that we read to learn more about how Presidents Day all began and why we celebrate it. Please sit down with your child to read through their text and to further discuss the importance of Presidents Day!

 

 

The Year of the Rooster

Chinese New Year is China's most important traditional festival. It is also the most important celebration for families. Although there are many interesting legends and stories explaining the start of the Chinese New Year festival, there are two main reasons why it is celebrated. 

To celebrate a year of hard work, have a good rest, and relax with family

To wish for a lucky and prosperous coming year. 

Chinese people believe that a good stat to the year will lead to a lucky year. Our classroom learned about this tradition in China through our CKLA Listening Domain on Ancient China awhile back. 2017 is a year of the Rooster according to the Chinese 12-year animal zodiac cycle. Each Chinese zodiac begins on Chinese New Year's Day.  

Because the Chinese New Year started on January 28th this year, we decided to pay attention to the celebration and make Roosters with our fourth grade learning buddies. You will see these coming home Friday. The Chinese characters mean The Year of the Rooster. 

The we added the tail feathers...

Valentines

Valentines Day was busy and full of fun, work and excitement! 

We had our normal morning, where we also learned the history of Valentines...then off to lunch. 

Afterwards our afternoon took a turn to celebrate...

We passed out our Valentines 

 

 

 

Then we checked out all we receieved. Very exciting!!

 

Then we decorated Valentines for the people of the Pavilions! The cards turned out awesome! They will put a smile on any face up at the Pavilions. I was the one who was able to deliver all cards to the elderly, they were beyond excited! Very proud of the second graders for wanting to donate their time and Valentines!