Holiday Party

We are having a low key holiday party tomorrow, Wednesday, December 21st from 2:00 - 2:45 in Room 9.
Everyone is welcome to attend!  We will be eating yummy food and reading a holiday book.  If you can't make it to the party, I hope you and your family enjoy a restful vacation and a happy new year!!

Gingerbread Houses

I have learned over my 13 years of experience that foam houses work much better than actual graham cracker houses (at least for me!).  So last Friday, we made foam gingerbread houses and ate some candy on the side! This was a wonderful way to end our unit on comparing gingerbread stories!  The houses were amazing and you should be able to use them year after year! (If things start to fall off, just use a little bit of tacky or foam glue to stick it down!)  We listened to holiday music and just relaxed! This is one of my most favorite activities of the year!  Enjoy the pictures!

Gingerbread Fred

We have been busy reading various versions of the Gingerbread Man tale.  You wouldn't believe how mnay variations there are!!  One of the major educational objectives of this unit is to introduce a Venn diagram to compare two stories.  Have you seen these coming home?    We have talked about the difference between a big story component such as how the fox gets close to the Gingerbread Man.  In one story the fox pretends to be deaf to get close to the Gingerbread Man while in the other story the fox helps the Gingerbread Man cross a river.  A small story component is that one Gingerbread Man had lots of icing clothes while the other Gingerbread Man had only buttons and a face.  The big story components make a difference in our understanding of the story while the little story components add detail to make the story interesting.

We also have a loveable friend named Gingerbread Fred who has been busy traveling to different homes in Colchester every night.  He has enjoyed staying with each and everyone of you!  We are making an amazing book out of all of these tales.  We will end our gingerbread study this Friday with an amazing activity (which we are trying to earn with good behavior).  We are building foam gingerbread houses while we eat candy!  What more could a second grader ask for!!  Here is a picture of some of gingerbread books and our bulletin board!  I hope the holidays are filling your house with yummy smells!

Nutrition with Little D!

Our science theme the last three weeks has been all about nutrition.  We have been talking about the 5 food groups with a loveable character named Little D!  Little D is a dragon who has gotten sick and doesn't understand why he isn't feeling well.  We have talked all about the diary, meat, fruit, and veggie groups.  Tomorrow we are tackling the grain group!  Your child should be able to name all of the food groups as well as tell you how each group helps their body.  They should also remember to tell you that the magic "ingredient" in dairy foods is calcium and the all foods in the meat group contain protein (and not all food in this group comes from animals!).  Next week, we will talk about how exercise and sleep help our body as much as eating healthy food!  Here is a picture of Little D with scales that the students have cut out listing their favorite food in each group.

NED Assembly

We had a wonderful assembly to lead us into Thanksgiving week!  The NED assembly teaches kids all about doing their best, not giving up, and encouraging others.  Here are a few pictures from our assembly.  It was a really great, motivational, age appropriate show!  By the way, Ned is the boy in the poster, his friend is presenting and using a yo-yo to make his point!  Very cool!!

Burnham Memorial Library Visit

On Tuesday, November 8th, we walked with Mrs. Davis' class to the Burnham Library!  It was a beautiful day for a walk and we had a wonderful time.  We met with Hannah, the children's librarian, and she talked to us for an hour. We learned all about the history of the Burnham Library, how to look up books on the computer, we took a tour of the children's section, and then we had some time to just browse the books!!  Here are some pictures from our adventures!!

 We walked safely with our partners to the library.

All the second graders fit in the story nook to learn about the history of the library. 

 Hannah is telling us about all of the books that the library has!

Hannah asked, "What is your favorite book?" 

 Look at all of the polite listeners!

 Hannah showed us how to use the computer to look up book titles and authors.

Hannah read us a great book called "The Library". 

 After our tour, everyone found a book that they wanted to look at.

We decided to take a class picture to remember our field trip to the Burnham Memorial Library!

We had a great time!!!

Library Visit Tomorrow!

This is just a friendly reminder that we are walking to the Burnham Library tomorrow after lunch!  Please make sure your child has a jacket and appropriate footware!  We are going to meet Hannah (the children's librarian),  tour the library, and hear a few great stories!  Everyone is super excited!!