Welcome to our Class Blog

Dear Parents,
Welcome to our new class blog! I will be posting very frequently about our adventures in learning in 2nd grade! Check frequently.
Here are some updates:

UPCOMING EVENTS

• Math/Nutrition Night is this coming Wednesday, February 23 at 6:30pm. Families will go home with goody bags from Whole Foods, will get yummy kabobs for dinner and will participate in three sessions about healthy eating, living, and how math is relevant in meal planning!
• Our field trip to Imagination Stage in Bethesda will be Wednesday, March 9 to see Perseus Bayou, a Cajun folktale. We are so excited that we got grant money so tickets are free! The $5.50 pays for the bus transportation.
• Hands on Science registration forms went home, but I understand all were in Spanish. I am working to get the English version sent home. If you are able, please sign your child up for this great extracurricular opportunity!
• Please continue to send in loose/spare change for Pennies for Patients.

LITERACY UPDATES

• A week ago, students finished a genre study of "Cinderella Stories from Around the World." We studied Cinderella stories from Iran, Korea, France, USA (Native American Tribes) and Mexico. Students also researched these countries in the media center before we read the stories to build their background knowledge and created posters about the climate, foods, clothing and lifestyle in each country. Students were able to compare the similarities and differences between each Cinderella story (all include good vs. evil, a godmother figure, a missing "something", helpers in the form of animals, magic, 3's, etc.). Last, students wrote their OWN Cinderella stories. They chose the country, the characters, the problem, the solution. Then published them using Power Point. We will be working on their Cinderella Power Point presentations and may invite parents in for an informal presentation.
• This past week, Room 9 was filled with EXAGGERATIONS!!!!! Why? Because we read American Tall Tales, including the stories of Paul Bunyan, John Henry, Johnny Appleseed and Pecos Bill. Students really enjoyed identifying the characteristics of Tall Tales like exaggerations (who ever heard of a 156 pound baby born with a hammer in his hand?) Tall Tales are a great way to learn how our country was settled during the Westward Expansion in the 1800's. Students were able to create their own Tall Tale Heroes based on all the stories we read in the classroom. They also wrote letters to their favorite Tall Tale Hero. This made them think about themselves in the context of a historical figure. A great higher order thinking task!
• This coming week, we will be reading an old version of Jack and the Beanstalk with some tough vocabulary as part of the Junior Great Books series. We will be analyzing the characters and looking at good vs. evil and asking some tough questions like, "What does "desperation" mean?  Is Jack really a good character in this story? Why is the giant/ogre the bad guy, wasn't Jack stealing from him? It will be an interesting week of questioning! I'm looking forward to it.

MATH UPDATES

• Because the third graders will be taking MSA and we are doing third grade math, we have been revisiting some math concepts that may seem out of order! (We don't take MSA, don't worry!) This past week we learned fractions, then we'll be moving onto probability, then time, then measurement. It seems very disjointed and I apologize!!!
• The middle of March, we will go back to our Unit Curriculum to start a more indepth study of fractions.
• Please continue to practice basic multiplication and division flashcards with your child. (The dollar store has some great flashcards for cheap!)

SOCIAL STUDIES UPDATES

• We're starting our study of economics. This week, students will be making collages from magazine images to understand "needs versus wants" and "goods versus services." We'll read "If you give a mouse a cookie" to understand that our wants are unlimited and that's what drives the market. Later on in the unit we'll be studying how our world is related by trading by identifying key products that come from countries around the world. (Oil, agricultural products, factory goods, etc)

SCIENCE UPDATES

• Mrs. Henderson has been teaching Science in her weekly special. The kids have learned about the properties of liquids by doing many hands on experiments. 
• In mid-April we start the best Science unit of the year, the Life Cycle of the Butterfly...the kids will get their very own egg and observe it through its amazing metamorphosis...but more about that later!

OTHER UPDATES

• Our classroom was chosen as the proud recipient of a SMART board (we won the raffle!) This is an interactive white board. I am still learning the technology, but we have been using it to identify our place of the day on an interactive world atlas, doing some research using Pebblego and using it for math. I plan to continue learning how the thing works to best teach the kids.
• I have some exciting news...I was offered a 2nd grade position at Academia Cotopaxi an American International School in Quito, Ecuador for the 2011-12 school year. I've accepted the position, but with mixed emotions. I'm very excited for this great professional opportunity (the school follows the IB program (International Baccalaureate), has SMART boards in many classrooms, state of the art technology, beautiful campus) and Ecuador is a country I've lived in, worked in and visited many times. However, Gaithersburg ES is such a wonderful place to work and your children are such wonderful little people. I will greatly miss them! But, my plan is to do some technology projects like penpals through blogs and emails, Skype phone interviews and other ways to connect my new students with students at GES. So, even though I'll be thousands of miles away, technology is an amazing connector!