And the Oscar Goes To.....

Room 15!!  Check out our movie that we made about polygons.  We looked at the art of Rob Gonsalves and searched for different polygons.  We practiced speaking our lines until we were ready for recording.  The kids needed to identify a polygon and then explain how they knew what it was. 

Happy Viewing!

CALLING ALL READERS!!!

Next week is the first week of HES Loves to Read Month!  To get the month started off right, I am looking for guest readers to come in and read to our class next week.  You can bring in one of your favorites, or I will pick a book for you.  Just let me know what day works best for you (end of the day is usually better for our schedule) and we will pick out a time that works.  The kids LOVE to have guests come in, especially guests who share the love of reading!

Comment below (click on No Comment to get started), or email me at dmckenzie@rsd17.org to set up a time.  I look forward to hearing from you.

Dr. Seuss Day - March 1

This Friday is not only the kick off of HES Loves To Read Month, but it is also Dr. Seuss Day!  Help us celebrate by having your child wear red, black, and white to school.  We will have a kick-off assembly where we will learn about the theme and the different activities associated with HES Loves to Read Month.  Stay tuned for more information about all the fun events and activities coming our way!

Kangaroos, Scorpions, Skinks, Oh My!

We had a special visit today from some interesting Australian animals.  The kids loved learning about a snake necked turtle, sugar glider, bearded dragon, carpet python (appropriately named Julius Squeezer), blue tongued skink and a scorpion.  The highlight of the assembly was the two-year-old red kangaroo.  He put on quite a show hopping around the gym with the handler hanging on tight to his tail.  Check out some of the links (click on the animal name in blue above) to learn more about these amazing animals.

Boys and Girls:  Which animal was your favorite?  Why did you like it? What was an interesting fact you learned from the assembly?  Post your answers below in the comment section!

Here are some pictures from our assembly:

Bearded Dragon

Carpet Python

Red Kangaroo

Sugar Glider

Thank you Mrs. Thompson!

We had a great time today learning about the stages of matter with Mrs. Thompson.  The kids enjoyed acting like molecules and pretending to be a solid, liquid, and gas.  The fun continued with a demonstration of how a gas fills a container (dry ice placed in a water bottle with a balloon over the top of the bottle).  We finished off making goop (cornstarch and water).  Is it a liquid or solid?  Ask your child to explain what makes goop change from liquid form to solid form.

See You Tomorrow!

Wow - I can't believe we only have three days this week and then another week off!  It will be a very busy three days.

Tomorrow (Wednesday) is the 100th day of school finally.  Please have your child bring in their 100 collection if they haven't done so already.

Thursday is Valentine's Day.  Please have your child bring in the affirmations that they have been working on.  We will have a small celebration in the afternoon and pass out the affirmations and any cards that are brought in. Don't forget to send in your parent letter too!

I hope that everyone survived the snow.  Even though the kids had a blast playing in the snow, it will be nice to get back on a normal schedule!

Grace (pink thing in the snow) and Jake having some fun.

Triangle? Quadrilateral? Pentagon? Hexagon?

Ask your child to tell you about triangles, quadrilaterals, pentagons, and hexagons. We learned about the number of sides and angles each has. Today in math we sorted shapes and played different shape games.

Your Kids Are Bloggers Too!

Second graders blogging???  Yes, they are!  We visited the computer lab today to post our first blogs on Kid Blog.  We will post and comment back and forth with Mrs. Glidden's second grade class from a school in West Hartford.  Today's post was an "All About Me" post where the kids shared an interesting fact, something they are good at, and what they like to do after school.  We are waiting for Mrs. Glidden's class to comment on our posts and share their information with us. 

Math Games

Here are some links to online math games.

http://www.nebo.edu/resources/math/pages/fastfacts/fastfacts.htm
http://www.scholastic.com/teachers/article/7-games-practicing-math-facts
http://teacher.scholastic.com/lessonrepro/lessonplans/grmagam.htm
http://everydaymath.uchicago.edu/about/understanding-em/games/addition-top-it.html
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/everyday-mathematics-addition/id413312885?mt=8
What are some of your child's favorites to play at home?

Readers' Workshop

The students continue to read books from different series.  Nate the Great, Cam Jansen, Junie B. Jones, Magic Tree House, and A-Z Mysteries are some of our favorites so far. While reading fiction books the reader will often come across something that they want to learn more about.  We have been paying attention to these things while reading our series books.  I am reading the Eve of the Emperor Penguin to the class.  For homework last week the kids researched Emperor Penguins.  This week we will take our facts and compile them into a class chart.  We will reference this chart while we read aloud The Eve  of the Emperor Penguin to see how the author, Mary Pope Osborne, uses this information.  Does she use the facts correctly or stray a little?

New math unit on Shapes

We will start a new unit on Shapes this week.  We will recognize and draw triangles, quadrilaterals, pentagons, and hexagons.  The focus will be on identifying the shapes by the number of sides and angles.  In this unit we will also learn to partition circles and rectangles into two, three, or four equal shares, describe the shares using the words halves, thirds, half of, a third of, etc., and describe the whole as two halves, three thirds, four fourths.

Some questions we will answer during this unit are:
1.  How are geometric shapes classified?
2.  What atributes are important in defining a category of shapes?
3.  What are equal shares?  Why must they be equal?

Here is an Animoto I will show the kids to introduce the shapes in isolation and in the real world.

Welcome to our blog!

I am very excited to get a classroom blog started! This is my first try at a blog, so I will be experimenting and learning as I go.  The purpose of this blog is to share ideas and to keep you updated with what is going on in room 15.  I would love your comments, suggestions, and feedback so please post comments when you can.  Happy Blogging!