Look What’s Happening in Room 102!

Watch our Voicethread and listen to what we might be like if we were pirates. What would you be like if you were a pirate?

We made treasure maps in class. Check out our movie and see what we needed to include. What do you think of them? We had fun making them. We ripped the edges and soaked them in tea to try to make them look old.

Treasure Maps from Mary Ellen Lynch on Vimeo.

Grade 2 started learning about pirates before the Christmas holidays. We have been finishing up some activities these past two weeks. We had fun making some pirate ships on Tux Paint and Pixie. Check out our Photo Peach slideshow.
Pirate Ships on PhotoPeach

We are very lucky to have a new student in our class. Her name is Laetitia and so now we have 9 girls and 11 boys. Welcome to our class and our school.

We started a situational problem in Math today. Mr. Giggles owns a toy store and has 3 boys making toys. Their names are Sam, Gustavo and Peter. Mr. Giggles wants to find out how many toys his workers can make in two weeks and who works the hardest and makes the most toys. To show this we will have to graph our answers. Today we counted how many toys each boy made.

We have a lot of snow outside. In the back of our school we have a parking lot and when it snows the plow pushes all the snow and it makes a mountain. The children love to play on the mountain. They climb up one side and then slide down the other. Today they came in from lunch recess full of snow, red faces and big smiles. It is fun to play in the snow.

Happy Holidays to all the parents of our class and all our friends around the globe. I want to apologize for the lack of posts lately. I’ve been sick with a bad cold. I am feeling much better now and hopefully you will see more of us in the new year.

We were busy learning about pirates these last few weeks. We decided to use this theme for our holiday family gifts. We made “tag books” with sensory things that we treasure. For example, I treasure the sound of my Dad singing in the shower, I treasure the smell of my Mom baking chocolate chip cookies. We also wrote poems of family memories that we treasure. This is a group picture of most of us with our poems.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to everyone! Here is a picture of all the cards we’ve gotten so far from the Holiday Card Project. It is so fun to open the cards and find out where they are from.

Our class is participating in a project with 24 other schools to create and send Holiday Greeting Cards. We found the project online on “Projects by Jen”. On Thursday, we looked at some of my old cards and identified key features of a greeting card. There is a picture on the front, a greeting message inside and then a personal message and a salutation. Each student created a card, decided on a greeting and included a personal message in their card. We also brainstormed a message together that would explain about us and a little about our community. We put this on the back of each card.

We hope our new friends will enjoy our cards. Everyone worked hard on them and had fun.

Grade 2 had a lot of fun learning about owls. Each student chose an owl and did some research at home to find out what their animal ate, where it lived, what it looked like and some interesting facts. For a project each student designed a pamphlet to display their owl. Students also used Tux Paint and Pixie which are drawing programs to make owls. Watch our slideshow to see some of our owls.

What We Learned About Owls on PhotoPeach

I’d like to introduce the newest member to our classroom. His name is Jake and he is a chocolate lab. We will take turns taking him home and playing with him. He will come home in a bag with a “Martha Speaks” story and an information book about dogs. Who knows maybe he is a dog like Martha and will speak to you at your house. Also included in the bag is a tangram game that you can play with Jake. Finally, there is a journal for you to write about what you did with Jake. I know Jake can’t wait to come to your house.

Where the Wild Things movie has been out for a few weeks now. Many of us saw the movie and give it a “thumbs up” review. We were busy in class last term with making our own wild things and describing them. I found this site that I would like to share with you. You can “Build Your Wild Self” at home on this site.
If you look to the right under “links” you can also find the site by clicking on “Build Your Wild Self”. Have fun!

Do you watch PBS Kids? This is a public television channel that has lots of great shows for kids. It is a great channel for all my students to tune into to help them with their English. One new addition to their programming is Martha Speaks. I fell in love with Susan Meddaugh stories a few years ago and have a collection. Martha is a talking dog and has many adventures with her ability to speak. Check out the Martha Speaks site on the internet. There are videos and games to play.

I added “Martha” to our list of links on the right.