Last week and this week, the students have been working hard on a new project, our class book! Last year we had an author come into the second grade classrooms and work with the kids on a Cat-in-the-Hat Type story.  This year our class decided to follow this same format and create our own Cat-in-the-Hat Type story.  We just finished the rough draft today!  Next, we will be editing it, writing our final draft, and then publishing it!  

Scholastic has a program is called "Student Treasures Publishing Program."  This program allows, me to purchase this classroom book.  You are also able to purchase a copy of our classroom book if you with to!   I sent home an order form today.  Please return it whether you want to buy one or not.  If I collect one from all parents, I earn a free copy for our classroom library.  I can't wait to share it with you!  The kids are really excited about it too!  Check out Scholastic's program here.....  http://www.scholastic.com/studentreasures/?eml=SMP/e/20140218////Nationwide//project/SL1_V1///&ym_MID=1518251&ym_rid=25192938

Our movie day was a success!  The kids started our activity with filling out an order form so I knew what to serve them.  Then, we started the movie.  After serving the kids round one, I called the kids back for 2nd's and 3rd's (sorry for the sugar high!).  They practiced buying things, counting out their money to pay, and figuring out how much change they should receive back.  I think they really enjoyed it!   Thanks to all who supported our movie day with donations.  

Today we had a couple high school students come into our classroom and read to the students.  They read us two stories, The Giving Tree and  Miss Spider's Tea Party.    

Below is a link to an app designed for the iPhone and iPad.  Many of you ask for suggestions for books at your child's reading level.  This app allows you to scan the bar code of a book and it gives you the reading level of the book.  I thought this might be helpful not only for this school year but for years to come.  

Literacy Leveler by FikesFarm, LLC
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/literacy-leveler/id739836039?mt=8

The kids had an exciting day today at the CT Science Center in Hartford.  It was a fun-filled day of exploring the many different exhibits and partaking in a class on plants.  We participated in this class because plants and soils in our next science unit this spring.  Take a look at some of the photos below.  Please note we split into two groups so I only have photos from my group.  They will give you a chance to see some of the activities the kids tried today.  

Let's hope the snow days are behind us and we can charge through March with little to no interruptions.  The month of March is packed with some great projects.  First, students will continue to write their autobiographies page by page.  Second, starting at the end of this month and through the rest of the year, is a Flat Stanley Project.  This project uses a host family in a different state to tell us about their state.  We hope to learn about the state symbols, state weather, state tourism, and what makes that state interesting.  This is different than Geo-Georgie when the focus was on geography and landforms.  Below you will find out what's going on in each subject area.

1.  Reading - We will be learning about books in a series.  Some series we will be looking at are Henry & Mudge, Frog & Toad, and Tacky the Penguin.  In this unit, students learn that in a series characters remain the same, consistently showing  the same character traits.  Also, students will learn that series have patterns within them.  For example, Curious George always doesn't listen to the man in the yellow hat, gets into trouble, and then is forgiven.  At home, try reading some series books and compare and contrast them.  What does your child notice that is the same and what is different about them?

2.  Writing - Our new unit we started this week is about letter writing.  In this unit, students will learn that there are different purposes for writing a letter.  The culminating activity involves writing a letter to an author and sending it via snail mail.  The exciting part is that we get letters back from the authors.  

3.  Math - The next couple of topics are addition and subtraction with and without regrouping.  This is a hard topic for some students and requires extra practice sometimes at home.  Please let me know if you would like some extra practice pages and I would be happy to give some to you.  

Happy March!      

Today we had a scientist come in from high touch high tech.  She taught a class called "What's the Matter?"  See some pictures below.