Pictures from Ellen

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Latkes

Thanks to Amy and Leslie for coming in to make latkes with the students--everyone enjoyed making them and eating them!!!

Photos from the Week 11/29-12/3

Here are some photos from Reading Buddies and from our math work in class. In math, we have been learning about different types of story problems, and we have been sharing strategies about how to solve them. So far we have discussed 3 types: Part-Part-Total, Join, and Separate.

November Highlights!

Here are some of the things we've been working on this past month:
-Making Connections when we read. The students are practicing making text-to-self, text-to-text, and text-to-world connections during reading. We are sharing a book called, It's Heaven to be Seven to introduce this skill
-Completing our Autobiographies on a Box and writing our autobiographies to go with them
-Identifying story problem types and figuring out where the missing number is. We've been solving many story problems and writing our own. So far we've worked on Part-Part-Total problems and Join problems. We've also been discussing different strategies that can be used to solve problems and how to show strategies on paper.

Comp U Kids Demo

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Mission Trails Field Trip

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Autobiography on a Box

Highlights from October!

Here's what we've been working on in class:
-Visualizing as we read independently
-Planning, organizing, and writing an October story
-Recognizing and practicing words with different phonics sounds: short vowels, ow, consonant digraphs (ch, th, sh)
-Looking at and using different kinds of maps
-Making Autobiographies on a Box using Google Images
-Strengthening our knowledge of math facts
-Playing math games like Gridlock, Countdown, and Missing Number Tic Tac Toe

Today we had a special visitor--Elan's dad came to read Henry Bada-Bada to us and we made our own Bada-Badas!

Community Meeting Video

Community Meeting, Part 3 from Ellen Gordon on Vimeo.

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Community Meeting Presentation

So along with the technical difficulties in the auditorium, I was having my own--my camera battery ran out about 1 minute into our presentation...
Here's a photo of the painting process and, thanks to Stephanie, a photo of our class on stage!

Reading Buddies

Our Reading Buddies are in Lisa B.'s Pre-K class!

Autumn Fires Poem

Highlights from the week 9/20-9/24!

We are solidifying our classroom routines! We continued doing our Morning Exploration Geography and Spelling activities, as well as Math Problems of the Day.
Here are some other things we did this week:
-Practiced visualizing the pictures when reading books without illustrations
-Learned about Math Mountains and the Fact Families that go with them
-Played a new math game called Missing Number Tic Tac Toe
-Started homework, which seemed to go really well!

Mad Science Presentation

Mad Science came to visit us this past Friday! The students got to watch and participate in a lesson about sound. Some of our classmates were called up to help:

Highlights from the week 9/13-9/17!

-Wrote our first Weekend Story of the school year
-Participated in the Green Machine program
-Started group spelling activities: Find It, Fix It, Finish It, Stretch It, Add It, Sort It
-Wrote 2 versions of "My Summer Vacation" story
-Watched a Mad Science presentation about sound
-Continued playing math games and working on representing numbers in different ways

Green Machine

The Green Machine crew came today to teach us about the process of food growing on farms to getting into our homes. Students participated in one of three groups to learn about the water cycle, soil and plant nourishment, and pest control on farms.

Highlights of our first week! 9/7-9/10

It was a short but busy week in Room 9. Here are some of the things we did together:
-Saw our friends from last year and welcomed 2 new friends, Mia and Paris
-Started our Morning Meeting routines
-Came up with a list of ideas that will help us have fun and be safe in school
-Read the books How I Spent My Summer Vacation, by Mark Teague, and Listen to the Wind, by Greg Mortenson
-Brainstormed ideas for a summer story and made a pre-writing plan
-Solved some math Problems of the Day and practiced math drawings using squares, sticks, and dots
-Learned and played 3 math games--Poison Apple, Gridlock, and Countdown

First Day Smiles!!!

Our first day together in Room 9 was a success!!!

La Jolla Jr. Olympics

It looks like the students had a great time at the La Jolla Jr. Olympics this past weekend!

Ellen & Kate's Baby Shower

Thank you so much for putting together such a fun baby shower for us! We really enjoyed celebrating with all the second graders and their families, and we know our little ones are going to love all the goodies :)

Scavenger Hunt at Torrey Pines

Highlights from the Week 4/12-4/16

Welcome back from the break! We got right back to work in second grade and here are some of the things we've been doing this week:
-Dressing up for Spirit Week!!!
-Continuing to unravel the mystery of The Calder Game
-Exploring biographies (look for more information about this in next week's homework)
-Sharing some short stories and working on answering comprehension questions and summarizing
-Practicing adding and subtracting multi-digit numbers
-Finding the perimeter of shapes using 2-digit numbers
-Brainstorming names for our 2nd grade store and items to be sold there!

Calder

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Highlights from the Week 3/22-3/26

Here are some highlights of what the second graders have been up to
-Listening to a read-aloud of The Calder Game and practicing summarizing
-Building squares and rectangles using our pentominoes
-Solving Calder word problems using addition, subtraction, multiplication and division concepts
-Making Calder inspired aquariums and fish with Tracy and Aunt Robin
-Making mobile pieces for our large mobile project with Laure
-Creating a self portrait out of wire
-Recording facts about Alexander Calder and his art
-Writing paragraphs about Calder and the important facts about his life
-Finishing up the circus diaramas with Carrie and the simple machine circus toys with Kim

Highlights from the Week 3/15-3/19

Find out what happened this week in Room 3 and Room 9:
-Learning more about the life of our Great Artist, "Sandy" Calder,
-Making our quilt squares for our group painting project
-Listening to the story The Calder Game and working on summarizing and visualizing
-Playing with pentominoes and discovering how to make different shapes with the pieces
-Practicing solving story problems with too little information, too much information, and hidden information
-Developing our own strategies for adding and subtracting multi-digit numbers
-Continuing to work on our simple machine circus toys in Science with Kim
-Continuing to work on our circus diaramas with Carrie in Art
-Making wire art with Isabel and writing sentences in Spanish to describe it

The parent volunteers were life savers this week during our Great Artist project sessions. We couldn't have done it without you!

Highlights from the Week 3/8-3/12

Here's the latest from Room 3 and Room 9:
-Studying our Great Artist, Alexander Calder, and painting our canvases for our small group painting project
-Listening to the story The Calder Game and working on summarizing and visualizing
-Making pentominoes like Calder Pillay in the book The Calder Game
-Practicing solving story problems with too little information, too much information, and hidden information
-Developing our own strategies for adding and subtracting multi-digit numbers
-Presenting our Heritage Quilts at Community Meeting
-Learning about Simple Machines and exploring simple machine problem solving tasks with the Wee Family
-Creating our own simple machine circus toy in Science with Kim
-Creating our circus diaramas with Carrie in Art

Thank you to all the parent volunteers who helped us with Great Artist projects this week!

The Swing by Robert Louis Stevenson

Highlights from the Week 3/1-3/5

Here's the latest from Room 3 and Room 9:
-Studying our Great Artist, Alexander Calder, and doing some of our own artwork based on his style
-Listening to the story The Calder Game and working on summarizing and visualizing
-Enjoying pancakes, pajamas, and reading for Read Across America 2010!
-Practicing solving story problems with too little information, too much information, and hidden information
-Developing our own strategies for adding and subtracting multi-digit numbers
-Finding pictures from countries from our own heritage during Laptop Time
-Exploring fossils in Science

Studying John Williams in Music

Star Wars, Techno version from Ellen Gordon on Vimeo.

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Pictures from Ellen

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Field Trip to Torrey Pines

The second graders learned about native and non-native plants at the estuary at Torrey Pines:

Room 3 & Room 6 Making Care Kits

We made Care Kits to send to victims of the earthquake in Haiti with our kindergarten Reading Buddies:

Making Haiti Care Kits with Our Learning Buddies

Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening by Robert Frost

Highlights from the Week 1/25-1/29

-Making Connections after reading independently
-Working on reading biographies and note-taking skills through sharing a biography of Martin Luther King, Jr.
-Continuing to practice problem-solving skills in math
-Putting finishing touches on our math board games and continuing to test them out
-Illustrating our December/January poem, Walking Through the Woods on a Snowy Evening, by Robert Frost
-Creating covers for our Holiday Break stories
-Starting to discuss our personal histories/family heritage

Weekly Updates 1/11-1/22

We have been very busy in 2nd grade these past two weeks. For science we collected our trash for a few days and then weighed it to find the mass of our trash. We are publishing our winter vacation stories. There were so many fun holiday adventures that it was hard to choose just one to write about. We are also in the final stages of making our math board games. Some of the 2nd grade friends have already started playing their games to test them out.

Here are some other highlights from 2nd grade:
- Making our Problem Solving flip books
- Reading and taking notes on Martin Luther King, Jr.
- Working on making connections while reading independently

Warm Birthday Wishes for Kate

Thank you to everyone who sent me such warm birthday wishes for this weekend! The cards were amazing and the cake was delicious. It is so wonderful being part of such caring community. A special thank you to those who gave me Disneyland tips. I have a list of rides to go on thanks to my special friends in room 9. Wish me luck on the roller coasters!

Highlights from the Week 1/4-1/8

Welcome back to school and Happy New Year!
We are right back in the swing of things in second grade.
Here are some of the things we've been working on this week:
-Making connections as we read independently (text-self, text-text, text-world)
-Sharing Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle
-Starting to work on 5-finger stories about our Winter Break
-Discussing, practicing, and writing our own collection story problems
-Writing the rules for our board games and starting to make the actual boards

Playing Basketball in P.E.

Using Advanced Autoshapes