Math Games and Story Problems

This Friday was a game day during math. We played Race Your to .50 cents again.

Here GB is using the tangrams to figure out this pattern.

LB is coloring in his graph for the game Spin and Subtract.

WG and DS are showing what they know about clocks on the computers.

After we play games for a little while, we work on problem solving. We are in the middle of making our pumpkin story problems. First we created a background where pumpkins might be.
LT drew a cornfield at night.

SS drew the front of a house.

JG also liked the house idea.

The students did some very careful coloring. SM is making sure she uses 5 or more colors.

Here is CT's finished background.

Our next step was to create the pumpkins. However many pumpkins they create is how many will be in their story problem. Some students made 10 and some students made more than 20.

WG chose the cemetery as his background and then he carefully placed his pumpkins. We will be writing our problems next week and I can't wait to see what they come up with!

This and That

What do these silly kids have in common?

They (and GB) all received an award at our assembly last Friday. I had to choose 6 respectful students and boy was it hard to only choose 6. There were at least 10 more who could have also received the award. Always listening, following directions, and showing respect in many other ways - these 6 did an awesome job and I really appreciate it!


Speaking of respect, the 2nd grade classes also received two other awards. We received The Golden Book which is awarded by the Reading Teacher Mrs. Monkman to the grade level that showed the most Respectful behavior in her classroom. We also won The Golden Spoon which is given to the grade level that has the most Respectful Behavior in the cafeteria during lunch time. Way to go 2nd Grade!


BT is our Star of the Week and I am looking forward to having lunch with him tomorrow. I really enjoy getting to know the children better and I love the stories they tell me during our lunch times. In the classroom it can be hard for me to really sit down one-on-one with each child and just talk with them without interruptions. During our lunches though, we get a lot of time to just visit and chat.

Next month we will be starting our At-Home reading program. Mrs. Monkman runs the "I Love To Read" program and all you have to do is simply record the minutes that your child spends reading or spends having someone read to them. Each grade level has a different goal and for 2nd grade our goal is 360 minutes for the month. If your student reaches that goal they earn charms that go on their 2nd grade necklaces. These reading logs will be coming home with this week's newsletter. Get ready to read!

Reading Time

In second grade we love to read. We have reading first thing in the morning for an hour and 15 minutes and we are busy doing reading related activities the whole time.

We meet in small groups and work on skills and strategies that will make us good readers. We practice doing what good readers do: reread for understanding, read with expression, ask questions about our story, make predictions and connections with the book and many more things.

During our small groups we sometimes meet at the carpet and use our Smart Board to help us with our learning.

We often meet at the reading table in the corner.

We also silent read stories at the carpet.

Another thing we do is listen to stories at the listening center. Students can also record themselves reading a chosen story.

We use the computers in our classroom as well. The students go to a website that is full of stories that they can listen to and then take a comprehension test on afterwards. It is raz-kids.com.

We also work on writing skills. The children love to read each other's writing so a lot of them work on stories to share with the class as well as create books about their favorite things. I will show some of those in a later blog post.

Students also work on other reading related projects.

All in all we focus a lot on reading and I hope that your students are reading at home as well and developing that life-long love of books. A good foundation in reading will help them in all subjects. Have them read to themselves, to you, to brothers and sisters, grandparents and cousins. You can even have them read to a family pet! As long as they are reading they will become better readers!

Pen Pal Letters

Before I talk about our pen pal letters, I want to introduce our new student - JP. We are so glad to have him join us! Welcome to Sherwood JP!

OK - now on to the pen pal letters. Mrs. Schimel's 2nd grade wrote us letters back already and when I told the students that they were here, I think the classroom 2 rooms down could hear our cheers.

Being the mean teacher that I am, I passed out the letters upside down and I told the students that they couldn't turn them over until everyone had their letter. Then I really tortured them by making them wait so I could take a picture.

Once the letters were turned over, it was absolutely quiet. The students were so into what their pen pals had written them, you could have heard a pin drop. I love how these pen pal letters get them excited about reading and writing.

Look at how RT is so into her letter she doesn't even acknowledge the fact that I am taking her picture. Pretty cool!

This picture is a little blurry but I love how it shows WG carefully reading through the words and using his finger to make sure he doesn't miss a thing. (By the way, it was our 60's day so a lot of the students are wearing headbands to show they are too cool for drugs).

After a few minutes, I let the students share their letters with others. They loved doing this and they laughed and oohed and aahed over pictures drawn by their pen pals. I had to listen to each and every letter. Twice.

Thank you pen pals for the letters and we will be

writing back to you soon!

Pajama Day

We have a new Star of the Week and it is AC. He brought in his poster and it was covered with great pictures and he told us a lot of things that helped us get to know him better.

Today we did reading, math, writing and all the usual things we do at school but the air was definitely charged with excitement. Today was pajama day and all of the kids were excited to be at school in their pajamas. I tried to get them to take a nap.

But they woke up after a few seconds.

The girls said they were ready for a slumber party.

I loved all the different kinds of pajamas that we had. They all had one thing in common though - they sure were comfy!

We had a few who dressed a little alike. I had the "sportsters" CT, LT and DS.

And I had the "Hannah Montana's" - BA and RT.

It was a lot of fun and while we did some silly moments, we still worked hard and learned a lot!

Spirit Week!

At Sherwood, this is our Red Ribbon Spirit Week. We are showing our spirit and commitment to a healthy drug-free life by participating in a theme each day. Today was "Turn Your Back On Drugs" and we got to wear wacky hair and have our clothes backwards or inside out. Here are some of the wacky hair kiddos:

I always love the back of the hair pictures because it really shows how crazy they are!

We had lots of kids wear their clothes inside out or backwards.

The rest of the themes for this week are:

Tuesday - "Lights Out On Drugs" (Pajama Day)

Wednesday - "Say Peace Out To Drugs" (60's/Hippie Day)

Thursday - "Team Up Against Drugs" (Favorite Sports Team)

Friday - "United We Stand Against Drugs" (Wear Red)

I hope to put up a lot more pictures so stay tuned to the happenings of Room 12!

Too Much Stuff!

Now that I am feeling well enough to sit in front of the computer again, I find that I have a ton of pictures to share with you! We have been doing some really fun things that your student might not have told you about.

Here is SM, LT, CT and WG holding their pen pal letters. We worked really hard on writing our first official letters to our pen pals at McKay. We made sure to include the date, a greeting, information about ourselves, questions for our pen pals to answer and a closing. I can't wait until they get them!

Here DS is holding our entire stack of letters right before we sent them off.

On Fridays that we don't quick checks, we focus on problem solving and reviewing skills through games. Here JJ is reviewing the names of coins on the Smart Board.

WG and NH are counting and comparing different amounts.

DS, BA, RT and LR are all playing a game called "Race You to 50c". It is a great partner game that teaches counting of money and trading in for bigger coins.

I have had two Star of the Week's since I last posted. My first was BK and her poster was very special! She put not only her own hand print on there - she added her foot as well!

Here's BK at one of her favorite birthday parties.

GB was our other Star of the Week and he had some great pictures that showed some really fun things he has done recently - like going to the Seattle Mariners game! He told us all about it and it sounded like a special time for he and his family!

We had our first official day of "Store" when the children could use their money that they've earned through good behaviour to buy things. The prices ranged from .05 cents on up to .25 cents and the students had a great time buying their treasures.

We earned our first classroom party that rewards whole class behavior and it was a popcorn party. I brought in the old popcorn maker and the children loved it!

I really hope that thing never breaks because it is so much fun to watch them watch the popcorn being popped. While they were eating their popcorn I told them they could quietly have choice time but most of them simply chose to keep watching the popcorn being made.

Last but not least, we had a awesome group of young adults come to our school and perform "The 6 Pillar Traits of Character" for us. This is a group that comes each year and while it is a different group of performers each time, I am always impressed with what a good job they do.
Our attention is on them the whole time.

They are funny. They talk about real issues. They make having good character a cool thing.

They sing and dance and make sure the children understand what each character trait means.

They also talk about how school is a Tease-Free Zone.

They change their outfits a lot...

and they even included a couple of kinders in their presentation.
We loved it!

I will try not to get the flu again so that I won't get so far behind! Stay tuned for more happenings in Room 12!