First Days of School

I feel very lucky to learn alongside such a bright and energetic group of students this semester.  This past week we have been busy practicing classroom routines and procedures, creating a caring classroom climate and of course learning about each other along the way!

Welcome to our classroom! I'm so glad you are here!
I made you a bag of goodies, to help describe our year.

The eraser is to let you know it's ok to make mistakes.
We will correct and learn from them no matter what it takes!

The Smarties say I know you are smart and really special too.
The pencil represents the learning we will do.

The stick of gum is to remind you that our classroom is team.
We will stick together and support each other's dreams!

The Hershey Kiss represents our safe and caring room.
In this type of classroom, you'll be sure to grow and bloom!

Welcome to grade 2!
Ms. Cameron

The students were able to shed their first day jitters during our “Doh Be Shy” activity. Students created Play-Doh sculptures that represented something they wished to share about themselves. Some examples included favorite hobbies, interests, and summer pastimes. Whether it was a love for catching frogs, or enjoying S'mores over the campfire, it was great to see students making connections with one another while bonding over similar interests. Our theme for September is “All About Me” and we will continue to explore what makes us unique as individuals while celebrating our differences. 

 

Establishing Classroom Rules:
Students brainstormed a list of specific classroom rules, grouped them into categories, and created our final 5 general rules. Students voted on what rules they felt were most important to live by day to day. I was so proud of how well everyone worked together as a team throughout the process. After we finished creating our rules students began discussing how most of our classroom rules are similar to the expectations of us at home. The students enthusiastically came to the conclusion that “We are just like a family!”

Here are our new classroom rules:
1) Make good choices
2) Do your best!
3) Use kind words
4) Respect each other and the environment
5) Raise your hand to speak

The Daily 5:

This week we launched the Daily 5.  We have been working on building our reading stamina, the ability to read independently for a long period of time without being distracted or distracting others.  Together we created our behavior expectations for both students and teacher during the “Read to Self” component of daily 5.

Reading Strategies:
CAFE (Comprehension, Accuracy, Fluency, Expanding Vocabulary) 

1) The first strategy we have been practicing during read alouds and our daily 5 reading is a comprehension strategy called "Check for Understanding". Check for understanding means asking ourselves questions such as “Who is the story about?” and “What is happening in the story so far?”.  Depending on the length of the story you may want to check for understanding at the end of every page, or at the end of every other page for shorter stories. Encourage your child to back up and re-read if they feel unsure about what it is they have just read.

2) The second strategy we added to our CAFE board is an accuracy strategy called "Cross Checking". Cross checking involves using picture cues to support reading. When students come across a tricky word which they don't know, I encourage them to look at the first letters of the word and then at the picture cues. For example: If students were stuck on the word "vehicle", they would determine the first letters of the word are "ve". At first, students may cross check using the picture cues and try filling in the unknown word with "truck".  However, students will quickly realize that the word "truck" does not start with "ve". Students will try to come up with other words that make sense with both the picture cues, and the letters in the word.

Word Work Wizards! 
Students were very excited about the many words they were able to create by re-arranging the letters of a larger word. The biggest excitement of all came from finding many of our classmates names within the word "extraordinary". The students were so proud, they made sure I snapped a picture to share with you at home!

Home and School Connection: Practice using “Check for Understanding” and "Cross Checking" when reading with your child.

Have a fantastic weekend! 

Ms. Cameron