Artist Bren Bataclan

In December NMES will be visited by Boston based artist Bren Bataclan.  On December 15th students in grades K-2 and then 3-5 will attend assemblies to learn about Mr. Bataclan's art and process.  Mr. Bataclan will be working with the older students to create a mural in our school.  Younger students will be involved in brainstorming ideas to be included in our mural.

You can see some of Mr. Bataclan's street-art inspired work on his website.  He has worked with many schools to create both smiles and art!  One of Mr. Bataclan's  initiatives is to spread hope with art.  His story was featured on CBS news.   You can check it out here.

Until next time...

CREW Star Rewards

Throughout NMES children have the opportunity to earn CREW tickets when they show CREW expected behavior.  The expected behaviors for different areas in our school have been identified and shared with students.  Our student council posted signs throughout our building to remind students of expected behavior.  CREW stands for Cooperative, Respectful, (Excellent) Effort and Welcoming (Friends).  In our class we have been using tally marks to keep track of the tickets earned by each student.   Each child has earned a bookmark and for every five CREW tickets  he or she earns a star for the bookmark.  We worked together to come up with a list of rewards from which the children can choose. Today the children chose from our Crew Star Menu.  Some children spent all of their stars while other spent some and saved a few.  A small number of students are saving up their stars for a big prize.

Until next time...

Time

Part of our next math unit involves telling time.  Learning how to tell time is challenging for children.  The common core requires children in second grade to be able to tell and write time to the nearest five minutes from both an analog and digital clock .   I am always on the lookout for helpful strategies to teach children how to remember the difference between the minute hand and the hour hand.  I found this idea on a blog through Pinterest.  I think it will be helpful!

Students are also expected to know the relationships of time, including seconds in a minute, minutes in an hour, days in a week/month/year, and weeks in a month and year!   

Until next time...

Half Day Happenings - Author Study

 On, Wednesday, November 19th we spent the day reading, talking, watching and writing about a variety of Ezra Jack Keats's books.  We read Hi, Cat!, Whistle for Willie, Peter's Chair, A Letter to Amy, Goggles and The Snowy Day.  The children noticed that many of the stories revolved around the same characters and took place in the city.  They learned about the themes of friendship and perseverance.  You can find some of the stories we read online here. 

Here is a peak into our Author Study.

This slideshow generated with Smilebox

In the future students will visit the other second grade teachers to learn about a variety of other children's authors.  

Until next time...

American Education Week

On Monday November 17th we welcomed our families into our classroom to celebrate American Education Week.  During the last hour of the school day the children taught their families how to play some of the math games we use to practice skills we are working on in second grade.  The turnout to our event was fabulous.  The children were so excited to have guests in our classroom.  The anticipation was palpable in our classroom all morning.  After math children read to family members or a partner.  Reading together was a calm way to end a very exciting afternoon.

Enjoy this slideshow of our time together.

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Until next time....

Our First Field Trip

In October we kicked off our cranberry unit with a field trip to Flax Pond Cranberry Bog.  

The children learned quite a bit about the dry harvesting of cranberries as well as Flax Pong Bog.  My favorite pictures from our field trip are the last several pictures above where many students are trying raw cranberries for the very first time.  The expressions on their faces are priceless!  

Until next time...

Welcome!

It has taken me some time to begin this second grade blog.  I am looking forward to sharing a bit of our days in school with families and friends of my students.

Here is a look back to some of our first days together.

Until next time...