Christmas Behavior Raffle

That time of year is upon us once again and it's the time of year to promote positivity.  In an effort to really push for positive behavior and rewarding it, our class is having a raffle.  For each day that a student is on blue or purple they will receive entries into the raffle.  Blue days receive one entry and purple receive two entries.  There will be no entries taken away for yellow or red days (it's better to be a bucket filler than a bucket dipper!).  There are two prizes available - one for a boy and one for a girl. 

The boys prize:

 

The girls prize:

 

Anyone who has at least one entry has a chance at winning one of these Christmas prizes!  It's really open to everyone in our class!  

Starting in January, we will be starting a positive behavior system that provides students with punch cards.  Each punch card is worth a point and students will be able to purchase items with these punches in our classroom store.  It's very exciting because the students basically gave me all of the ideas for the things that they could want!

Another exciting moment, and a true blessing of the holiday season, is the opportunity for the entire 2nd grade class to attend a field trip at Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn on December 12!  This is one of my very favorite places to go (I'm a history fan!).  I can only hope our students will enjoy it as much as I do.  There are amazing opportunities for learning in this remarkable museum.

Last but not least, our classroom hallway has become a little festive this holiday season!  Make sure to ask your 2nd grader about it.

Thanksgiving already...?

It seems like we just started the school year (or 2013 all together) and it's already time for Thanksgiving!  Where does the time go?  When I was in 2nd grade, time seemed to drag by soooo sloooow!  Christmas and summer vacation could never come fast enough.  Things changed when I grew up.  Now the days go by very fast.  We've already been in school for 46 days and we have accomplished so much as a class!  Here's another peak at what we've been up to...

 

Enjoying center time with Even & Odd math games.

 NaKayla was the first to win in addition Bingo!

Dontravion & Alonzo enjoyed the fall themed Place Value cards

 

It's almost time to take these down, but our class worked hard on writing and editing their stories about their pumpkin or Frankenstein.

APPLE ORCHARD FUN!!!

Today was the field trip to Blake's Orchard for all of my wonderful second graders who worked hard and earned their field trip.  I am so proud of my students for how well they behaved for myself and the chaperones that attended.  A huge thank you to Alvin's dad for tagging along - I hope you had as much fun as I did!  I promised that I would post pictures as soon as possible, so I didn't want to let any kids down, because they always remind me when I forget.  (Thank you, Kyra!)

 

My wonderful 2nd graders that worked so hard to be a part of this trip!

But this is how you can usually find them.... 

 
My small group that hung out with me all day.

Time for the hay ride!

 Mrs. Hall's group for the day.

Alvin's dad with his boys.

Emanii picking her first apple!!

After we picked apples and pumpkins.

Fun by the....hay man?

Just another day on the farm.

 We got to pet the ponies!

Some kids even climbed the mountain of hay with Ms. Harper!

October's Virtual Window!

We had a few last minute changes in our classroom this week for our virtual window.  I had originally planned to use a webcam located in one of our national parks, but because of the government shutdown, the cams were shut down as well.  So I went to plan b and I think it turned out very nicely.  All of the students were really excited about the animals at the San Diego Zoo, so we kept the theme going for one more month and now our virtual window is...

The Vancouver Aquarium

 There are a lot of really great webcams that the students can watch on their site and a ton of educational resources to learn about aquatic animals.  If you happen to look at the site at home, let me know what you think by leaving a comment on our blog!  What webcam is your favorite?  I think I like the jellyfish the most!

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!