Week #9 October 21-25

We have many things to share this week!  Pictures are included throughout this post.  You'll see highlights from our celebration where we painted rocks & shells, our first PTO Maker Time session focusing on balance, and our CRAZY CLOTHES ensemble.

This week we learned:

• how to use a Read/Write Google feature for speech-to-text.  We'll use this when we publish our narratives next week.
• what maps have that help us read them, different types of maps, and steps to make our own maps as cartographers.
• how to write comparisons in our narratives to add detail and interesting imagery, and to try new leads based on dialogue, setting or questions.

This week we experienced:

• our 4th Marky Mark Celebration where we painted rocks and shells.  Thank you Mrs. Donoughue for sharing some of your treasures.

• our first PTO Maker Time with Vicki, Shane, Aili and Courtney.  They led us through exploratory activities using balance scales with different objects, fitness items to test our physical balance, and a challenge to use 4 given items to create a balanced product.  Thank you for your time and energy to guide us in our discoveries!

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• reading groups with Mrs. Hock, and managing our work as independent students during our reading block.
• word study groups with either Mrs. Hock, Mrs. Ransom, Mrs. Belisle or Mrs. Blakely.

Other things to ask your child about this week:

*I have, who has

*Base 10 Riddles

*Crazy Like a Fox

*CRAZY CLOTHES DAY

Have a wonderful weekend!
Mrs. Hock

Week #8 October 14-18
This may have been a shorter week in school, but it was sure full of fun and learning.  We did say "good-bye" to our classmate, Javieno.  His family moved, and he will be a new school beginning Monday.  The students were very kind in making sure he had a positive departure knowing that he was leaving good friends who were nice to him.

Here are some highlights from our 4 days together:

This week we learned:

• how to stretch out our stories, use precise words and choose font carefully to add detail to our personal narratives.  We used Rain Stomper by Addie Boswell as our mentor text.
• two new word study activities to enhance our work as "word wizards": sound boxes and Think Pink.  The sound boxes help us isolate sounds in any length word to support spelling and syllabication, and Think Pink helps us not only with rhyming patterns, but word definitions as well.
• a structure for our reading block that includes independent reading, repeated reading, listening to reading, writing about reading, word work, and teacher station.  We are calling it "Reading Menu".  We will also have a whole-group mini lesson to begin our block and finish our time reading with partners.

This week we experienced:

• a unit post-assessment, counting 1330 beans and math menu work with high school volunteers during our math block.
• a scavenger hunt to practice using features of an Atlas
• a guidance lesson with Ms. Amblo to review what we can learn from a sloth and to make our visual reminder to slow down and breathe.
• an assembly lead by 3rd grade to begin our Penny Drive to support schools in Honduras.

Other things to ask your child about this week:

• Where's Blue Dude?
• Clementine
• Mindful movements: hip circle, frog, sky & ground

Thank you for sending in a white t-shirt for your child to tie-dye during Art class the week of October 28.

Thank you for donating change to the Penny Drive.  Our jar as a nice collection already!

Thank you for signing up to contribute items to our Harvest Party on October 31.

https://www.signupgenius.com/go/60b0c4caea92ca0f94-harvest

Enjoy the weekend!

Mrs. Hock

Week #7 October 7-11, 2019

It was great to see so many families at Open House Thursday evening.  The students were enthusiastic and independent as they shared their work with you.  They have been working hard, and it made me smile to see their pride as they showed the results of their efforts and toured our classroom.  Thank you for taking the time to visit our room!

This week we learned:

• about the end of the harvest season with Kayli for our Farm-to-School lesson. 
• to make an escape plan with our families with Firefighter Brad for Fire Safety Week (always in October in remembrance of the great Chicago fire of 1871).
• new activities at morning meeting including:  Elevens, The Dinosaur Dinner Chant and Birdie, Birdie.
• 3 mindful movements from Thich Nhat Hahn of Plum Village.

This week we experienced:

• our first lessons about keyboarding with Mrs. Courcelle and our district program, "Typing Quest".
• 2 engineering problem solving tasks about gravity & buoyancy and geometric shapes & architectural design.
• Reading independently, reading with a partner and writing about our reading.
• a guidance lesson with Ms. Amblo focusing on advice from a sloth to "slow down and breathe".

Other things to ask your child about this week:

*open and closed syllables

*our chapter book read aloud, Cuckoo Feathers.

*our 3rd class Marky Mark celebration of making stress balls, and a whole-school celebration--stuffy day.

*our brave, honest conversation during morning meeting to build our classroom community around being safe.

Thank you for all you do!

Mrs. Hock

Week #6 September 30-October 4, 2019

A Fun Week for All!

New games at morning meeting, rehearsing narrative stories, new readers' notebooks, solving math problems and completing Math Menu, creating google slides for Open House, The Fun Run...I don't think 2nd grade could be any more fun or productive!

We used our brainstormed list of personal narrative topics to tell our stories to each other, plan the first, next, then and last elements of our stories and began drafting.  We used our class model of our story about making slime and Mrs. Hock's story about her horse accident to frame our independent work as writers.

This week in reading, we read with assigned buddies, received our readers' notebooks and created our system for using our "comfy corner".  We have been practicing many jobs we have as readers including independent reading, partner reading, and writing about reading.  We'll add word work, listening to reading and speaking about reading in future lessons.

We braved the damp chill of Friday morning and did our best to run 2 laps in our sunny yellow t-shirts for the PTO Fun Run.  Thank you for your support in this fundraiser!

Other things to ask your child about this week:

• The Change Game, Four Corners, Heads Down/Thumbs Up
• Math Journals, Even Steven and Odd Todd, Counting Bags and Addition Fact Sort
• A guidance lesson with Ms. Amblo and the book she made (including a picture of Mrs. Hock when she was in 2nd grade)
• Scientists' tools used to protect, hold, gauge and magnify

Enjoy the weekend!

Mrs. Hock

Week #5 September 23-27, 2019

This week we learned:

• word study routines including sorting, writing, drawing, making words and syllable work.
• 3 new math games:  Count & Compare 2's, Battling Bugs and What's the Difference?.
• to use the scientific process and observe, question, hypothesize, test, analyze evidence and conclude to determine that our item (beads) changes color with exposure to ultraviolet light.

This week we experienced:

• a lesson on "fair versus equal" using band-aids.
• brainstorming topics for personal narratives about people, places, things, seasons and important memories with inspiration from Best Friends, Screaming Mean Machine, Jamaica's Find, Blueberries for Sal, and Ira Sleeps Over.
• "All About Me" share from Cristobal, Julia, Ian, Mrs. DeGrechie, Ms. K and Mrs. Donoughue.
• our 2nd Marky Mark celebration and Lina's birthday.
• a STEM challenge to create the longest paper chain possible with our table groups using 1 piece of paper.

Other things to ask your child about this week:

• making covers for our science notebooks.
• our morning meeting activities:  Mystery Doug, Pica/Ferme/Nada, Hickety Pickety
• labeling events in a day as happening in a.m. or p.m.
• academic choice and a "to do" list.

Thank you for all you do!

Have a wonderful weekend!

Mrs. Hock

Week #4:  September 16-20, 2019

The students were certainly excited this week!  They enjoy learning new tools, information and strategies.  What an eager group!  We are learning how much we can accomplish as a focused, collaborative group.  Here are some highlights from our newsletter this week.

We learned:

• tools related to creating Google Slides including formatting text boxes, backgrounds, and inserting images.
• to be mindful with smell by wafting scents from essential oils, herbs, and flowers from Mrs. Hock's garden.
• more strategies to help us shift our thinking to Growth Mindset using the books Bubblegum Brain, Not Yet, Flight School, Ricky the Rock that Couldn't Roll and The Girl Who Never Made Mistakes.

We experienced:

• Dot Day by reading The Dot and other books by Peter Reynolds and creating our own "mark".
• practicing our handwriting, and reviewing consonants & vowels.
• "All About Me" share from Evie, Kaja, Lina, Cooper and Lukas.
• reading mini-lessons related to reading stamina and stopping to think while reading.
• a guidance lesson with Ms. Amble about The Buddy Bench.
• the district-wide fall 2nd grade Math Standards Assessment.

Other things to ask your child about:

• making covers for our science notebooks.
• our morning meeting activities: Mystery Doug, Class Picture and the Name Card greeting.
• writing equations for odd and even numbers.
• palindromes.

Enjoy the warm temperatures this weekend!

Mrs. Hock

Week #3 September 9-13, 2019

We had a fun week of "firsts" starting with this being our first full five-day week of school.  We enjoyed both our first class celebration AND our first whole-school celebration, and saw our first Monarch caterpillar hatch.  Here are some more highlights:

We learned:

• all about our Chromebooks including the topics of digital citizenship, usernames & passwords, Google Classroom, bookmarking, changing settings, Bookflix and Dreambox.
• to be mindful with touch by feeling a mystery item in a bag (pinecone), handling an item behind our back (seashell), holding ice, and using thumb circles to pay attention to our wrist, hand and fingers.
• two structures we'll use during our math block this year--
1. independent practice (regular maintenance of skills & concepts)
2. choice (use of tools, fluency practice and technology)

We experienced:

• leading a whole-school assembly about Mindfulness.
• "All About Me" share from Siena, Harper, Dagny, Elliot and Sora.
• reading mini-lessons related to deciding HOW to read text, taking a Sneak Peek before reading text and using our "Repeated Reading" folders to reread familiar text to build fluency.
• our first Marky Mark celebration and 2 birthdays where we made slime, played wiffle ball and crafted rain sticks.
• the district-wide fall 2nd grade paragraph dictation and online aMath assessments.

Other things to ask your child about:

• The Golden Rule
• My Magic Breath, I am Peace
• Our morning meeting activities:  Mystery Doug, Coseeki, Down by the Banks, Brave

Enjoy the weekend!

DOT DAY is September 15--may you make your mark on the world!  

http://www.thedotclub.org/dotday/

Who knows, I may wear DOTS on Monday, September 16.

Mrs. Hock

Collaborative Art with Mrs. Lewis