Happy Birthday Ms. Pomeroy!

We have spent the day celebrating Ms. Pomeroy! Tomorrow is a big birthday for her and we have enjoyed showing her how much we love and appreciate her. 

Here she is showing off the Venus Flytrap that our friend G brought as a gift for her:

Science never tasted so good!!!!

Today we had a taste test in science....with dirt!!!! 

No, not real dirt, dessert dirt. We made dirt cups for students to observe. Right away they started describing it with their taste buds, but we quickly reminded them to think like scientists to make their observations. That's right, we made them stare at it for a long time before they could eat it (muaaaaa haaaaa haaaaa). Our students are so in the routine of science practices, that they quickly began to create a list of things we know and what we want to know. Our observations included things like, some parts look moist and some look rough, why is it brown, is all soil brown, is sand a kind of soil, I noticed there are layers, etc. Our little scientists surprised us with all of their questions and observations! 

Today, we looked at three different soil samples, however we did not eat these! Students were asked to make observations with their senses of sight and touch and record them in their soil journals. Tomorrow we will learn the names of the soils and understand each type, and where soil comes from. Do you know the three types of soil? 

Congrats A!

Congratulations to our friend A! A takes Taekwondo at the same school as my nieces, and I was excited to come watch him test for his orange belt this morning. A showed his strength and perseverance, and I am SO proud of him!

Way to go A!

It's Time for writing, in Writer's Workshop!

We have been working on our writing since the very first day of school! We are working on writing quality, personal narratives, that zoom in on one moment. 

Here is the list of lessons we've had so far on how to make our writing GRAB our reader's attention and how to go back and revise an edit our writing, using ARMS & CUPS. We've also added that personal narratives should end with a wrap-up summary and a feeling. We've used the works of Patricia Polacco to model these wonderful personal narrative qualities. On Friday, we looked at A Chair For My Mother by Vera B. Williams. This author writes a small moment narrative and uses a memory within her writing, almost like a flashback. Writers, will you try your hand at writing within a memory this week just like Vera? :)

Awake Reading

At this very moment, I am sitting with our amazingly, awesome 2nd graders. They have just moved me to tears and I had to share. 

We have been reading Patricia Polacco's Thank You, Mr. Falker. I am blown away by the thinking our class does while reading. They are deep thinkers and take care to reflect on both their words and feelings. So I challenge you to do some "Awake Reading" with your child this week. Here's what we've discussed so far:

Ask your child questions and discuss their mental images. I promise you won't regret it. 

Then leave us a comment to tell us what you read and how it went (don't forget to leave your name)!