Read to Someone Else

Towards the end of the week, usually on Thursday's, students have the chance to read with a partner the story we've been reading all week long.  It gives them a little extra practice with reading out loud and allows students to work with each other on improving their fluency!

Back to School Ice Breakers

Part of our back-to-school fun was an ice breaker called "A Friend Like Me."  Students had to go around the room to fill out their sheet with students names who had similar qualities/interests/features as them.  Needless to say, they had a lot of fun!

We also created out own line of pennants to hang out in the hallway that told a little bit about us.  I even did one myself.

A Virtual What?

Being in a classroom all day presents its challenges for young children - especially after a long summer break!  You can't talk to your friends whenever you want to, you can't jump up and down to let off that energy that's building up inside, and you can't even look outside.  Wait...what?  That's right, our classroom is a windowless room at DAAS.  Instead of feeling down in the dumps about it, this 2nd grade class has a solution of its own!

Here is a picture of the bulletin-board-turned-window on the outside of our classroom.  It gives a little bit of information about what we're doing to create a window in our classroom.  Thanks to the eno board and a laptop computer, we are able to view webcams from around the world. 

This months virtual window focus is at the San Diego Zoo in San Diego, California.  Although the zoo has several cameras available, we are focusing on the polar bear, panda bear, and elephant cams.  Thanks to this amazing resource, we have been able to connect what we watch on the webcam to documentaries about these same animals eating habits on Netflix!  We are very fortunate to have this kind of technology right at our fingertips.

Here are a few of the shots we've been able to capture while watching our animals!