A Very Busy Day!

We started our day a little mixed up! First, we went to our second grade buddies and did our writing time on the computer. We practiced opening a word document, wrote one fact and one opinion about pumpkins, changed the font and the size, and printed it. We will try to use the computer without our buddy tomorrow at writing time! After recess, we came back for a guest math lesson. Mrs. Mumme, our math coach, came to our classroom to teach us a reasoning lesson. We worked in groups to solve reasoning problems. It was fun. She will be visiting our classroom again soon! After lunch and recess, we came back to the classroom and had word of the day. Our word today was "when". It was a rule follower. It was so popular. We recorded the word family on the "pen of -en". We have to work really hard to spell this word in adult writing, because the "wh" is tricky! Next, it was time for our afternoon story. Mrs. Lauber read the story, Patty's Pumpkin Patch. After the story, we made a personal connection to the story. We could connect it to another story, a movie, or our own lives. We circle the connection on both sides of the paper. We had a short reading workshop. Then, we listened to a pumpkin story, just for fun. It was called Pumpkin Town. It was really funny and had great pictures. At centertime, we went to our fourth center. In the art center, we made the stem and teh leaf on our three dimensional pumpkin project. They are looking great! The last step is tomorrow. We also made a book about how pumpkins grow. Ask me to read it to you when it comes home. At the end of the day, we had art! Remember, tomorrow is Roundtown's Fall Day. Dress in Roundtown clothing or fall attire. We are excited to have our fall party and hear Steven Courtney!

Pumpkins, Pumpkins, Pumpkins

We started our day visiting Our word of the day today was "your". It was a pronoun. The word "your" is a rule breaker, because the "u" does not below with the "or" to say or. It was a popular word family, but there was six different ways to write it. WOW - that is confusing! In math today, we went to three math centers. We finished our packet, and you can see it in our mail tonight. After lunch and recess, Mrs. Myers read the story, The Vanishing Pumpkin. It was a fantasy story. We liked it a lot. After the story, we drew or wrote the story elements - characters, setting -when and where, problem, and solution on a story map. We are working very hard to do neat and careful work. We can earn lots of bean for taking our time! (but not too much :) Then, it was time for reading workshop. After reading workshop, Mrs. Myers read the story, The Pumpkin Patch. It was a great nonfiction story about how a pumpkin grows. The story was full of photographs from a real farm. We learned lots of new facts and saw the steps of how a pumpkin grows. Tomorrow morning, we are going to make our own book about it, to share with you. The day was going by so fast. We went to music and recess and then back to class. Mrs. Myers introduced the new art center. We are making a three dimensional pumpkin. Today we did the first step. We made round, orange balls! We finished our centers for the third day. At the end of the day, Ryan Fahs and Jordan Winkler read a new Junie B. Jones book to us. We finished the day with a "pumpkin hug" from Mrs. Myers!

Pumpkins Everywhere

Our word of the day today was "can". It was a rule follower with a twist. The "a" said a funny sound when it went with the "n". It was a popular word family. We wrote lots of words on the "can of -an". Today's word was a CVC word. After word of the day, we heard the story Apples and Pumpkins. We compared the things that were the same and different about apples and pumpkins on a venn diagram. We will finish this activity tomorrow for morning work. After recess, many of us went to the Book Fair to buy our books. We can still bring our money tonight or tomorrow morning, if we are going to buy books. In math today, we had math centers. We made growing patterns using candy corn and pumpkins. We used math mats and practiced adding using candy pumpkins. Then, we wrote and drew the math the math sentence. In the domino math center, we practiced the commutative property using dominos. The last center group met with Mrs. Myers to do guided math practice. We will continue these center tomorrow. After lunch and recess, Mrs. Myers read the story, Runaway Pumpkin. It was one of her favorites!!! We liked it, too. After the story, we worked in groups to retell the story on a GO map at our seats. We practiced telling the "when-who-where" from the green shape of the GO map. Ask us to retell the story to you. At reading workshop time, we continued to work on our packet. Many of us are finishing, so check our mail to see what we have been working on this month. Mrs. Myers met with two reading groups. Then, it was centertime. We went to our second language arts center. Finally, it was writing time. We were so excited to learn more about "grab the reader" beginnings. Mrs. Myers read us six more story beginnings. We learned that great authors use - great settings, ask a questions, use an onomatopoeia, tell something important, and use once upon a time to get a story started and excite the audience. We learned that you can combine these together to make a really good beginning. Once upon a time can only be used for fantasy, and we should always combine it with another kind of beginning. Then, we continued to write in our journals. Our stories are getting longer and longer. We were so excited about writing, we almost missed recess! Mrs. Myers is going to start our writing time tomorrow with sharing time, because she sees so many neat things in our journals! At the end of the day, we watched the movie, It's A Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown. We listened the beginning of the movie. It was different from the beginning in the story. The book was a "something important" beginning. The movie was just silly events. We ended the day with Shaelyn reading the class a story.

Pumpkin Time

Our theme this week is pumpkins! We are excited that Halloween is right around the corner! Our word of the day today was "we". It was a pronoun. It was also a homonym to the words "wee" and "wii". This word was half a rule breaker and a rule follower. The "e" in "we" says his name, but there is no magic vowel. It does happen in these words - we, be, he, she, me. This morning, we browsed at the Book Fair. Please check my mail today to see the books I might like to purchase. Tomorrow will be buying day. We can also buy books tomorrow evening! In math today, we practiced addition dominos. We read the story, Domino Addition, too. Mrs. Myers taught us how to write our addition sentences across and up and down. On the up and down sentence, we don't use a equal's sign. It 's called an equal's line. We also learned that you can change the order of the numbers in an addition sentence and still get the same sum. It 's called the commutative property. After lunch and recess, we went to Mrs. Lauber's room. Mrs. Myers read the story The Stubborn Pumpkin. It was like the story The Enormous Watermelon, we read during watermelon week. We acted out a retelling of the story in groups. It was funny! We had character cards and narrators for each group. Then, it was time for new pumpkin centers. In games center, we sorted short and long u pictures on pumpkins. In the writing center, we drew a jack-o-lantern. Then, we described it so Mrs. Myers could guess what it looked like, without looking at our picture first! In the poetry center, we read the poem, The Pumpkin on the Vine. We practiced reading it. Then we made a personal connection to the poem. In the listening center, we heard the story, Too Many Pumpkins. We drew and wrote about our favorite part. Art center opens tomorrow! In writing workshop today, we learned to start our story with a "grab the reader" beginning. We listened to the beginning of three stories. We learned to use a descriptive setting or tell something important to get our reader excited about the story. Then, we tried it out! We will continue to learn new ways to start our stories tomorrow.

A Scare-crowy Day

Our word of the day today was "all". It was a rule breaker, because the "a" said the sound of "short o". It was a very popular word family. We recorded the words on the "ball of -all". We learned that "-aw" also says the same sound. In math today, we practiced estimating in our jar. It's when you make a smart guess by comparing something you know to something you don't know. Today we estimated tiny pinecones. There were 55 in the jar. No one had it perfect, but lots of us had between 40 and 60 as a guess. YEAH! We went to music, lunch, and recess. In music we practiced singing our class song. Ask me to sing it for you tonight. After recess, we read the story, Jeb Scarecrow's Pumpkin Patch. After the story, we practiced retelling the story on mini GO maps at our tables. We retold the story using the pattern - when, who, where, first, next, then, next, then, last. We learned that it is very important to start a retelling with our when, who, and where. The who is the character we meet only at the beginning. Ask me to tell you the story of Jeb Scarecrow tonight! Then, we had reading workshop and guided reading. We are checking our packets to make sure we are following directions. Then, we played scarecrow BINGO to practice our word of the day words. Then, it was time for writing workshop. It was computer day. We each got a computer and took it into the big, first grade area. We had a partner from Mrs. Lauber's class. We wrote a class story, each building a part around our circle. We had an exciting beginning, told the when, who, where, and then added lots of events, problems, and a solution. We will be making our story into a book. We had a little bit of a computer problem, but it all worked out. We had our extra recess finally for September. Last, we had a tiny centertime and Ms. Anderson came to our classroom for guidance. She taught us about the stop light for problem solving. We practiced using the steps of the stoplight when we have a problem with a friend. She also taught us to stop and take a few deep breaths before we try to solve a problem, so we don't feel so frustrated. We hope we don't have any problems, but now we know what to do! Don't forget, we have an assembly tomorrow morning. Wear Roundtown PROUD!

Scarecrow Week

Our theme this week is scarecrows. Mrs. Myers is back today, but she is still not healthy. Our word of the day today was "said". It was a rule breaker. It was important, because it tells when someone is talking is a sentence. It is also a clue word that we might see quotation marks or talking marks in our sentence. For health today, we had a fire safety lesson with Mrs. Lauber's class. We brainstorm what we already knew about fire safety, fire prevention, and fire preparation. Then, we watched a video of the story, Stop, Drop, and Roll. We listened for new fire rules. At the end, we worked in groups and sorted cards with fire tips into the three groups. Last, we watched a new fire safety video and share a rule with our neighbor. Remember our fire safety homework is due on Friday. After lunch, we read the story, Little Scarecrow Boy. He had lots of different feelings in the story. After the story, we made personal connections to the feelings the character had in the story. We used a connection paper to write and draw. We circle the feelings that were the same. We had reading workshop, and Mrs. Myers read with boys and girls one at a time. Then, it was centertime. We only have three centers this week, and an art center. In the writing center, you have to write a story using the characters, setting, and problem that Mrs. Myers gives us about a scarecrow. We have to write a solution. In the games center, we are building three scarecrows out of parts for the -ar, -ad, -all word families. We are recording the words we make. In the sentence strips center, we have word of the day words on scarecrow cards. We have to practice spelling the words using mixed up letters and record them by their word shape. In the art center, we are making a giant scarecrow using color patterns. After centers, we read the story, The Scarecrow's Hat. We learned many new vocabulary words. The words we learned, by listening to the story were - swap, trustworthy, benefit, grateful, relief, delighted. Ask me what these words mean. Then, it was time for a quick math lesson. Mrs. Myers put a giant numberline on the floor. We used the numberline on our desk. We had scarecrow puppets to jump adding sentences on the numberline. We found the sum. We will practice more numberline addition for morning work tomorrow. At the end of the day, we went to art!

Half Day of Fall Fun!

Friday was such a busy day. Our word of the day today was "but". It was a CVC pattern word, and it was a rule follower. It was a homonym for the word "butt". We giggled a little bit about this. We learned that there are three meanings of the words "but" and "butt". One is a verb. One is a noun. One is a sentence connecter. We listed the -ut family words on the "nut of -ut". We had an early recess at 10AM. When we got back, we played a game guess the answers to the focused fall riddles we wrote yesterday in writing workshop. Then, it was time for lunch! After lunch and recess, we visited the last two math centers. Then, we had language arts centertime. In the art center, we used marbles covered in paint and rolled them around a tray to created a zig-zag pattern on our leaf. It was so much fun! Soon, it was time to head home. It was such a fast half day. Our theme next week will continue with fall. It's scarecrows! We are excited. Please remember to check our mail today for the newsletter and our fire safety packet that needs to be returned next week! GO PENN STATE!