A December to Remember!

December started with not one but TWO snow days!

Between a total of three snow days and an early release day for professional development, it seemed like December flew by.  

Report cards went online on December 13th. Hopefully you have all had a chance to view your child’s grades. If you are having difficulty viewing the report card, please let the school know. One tip….you should view it on a computer instead of your mobile phone. If you have any concerns about your child’s grades, feel free to contact me.

We studied extended our social studies unit on Traditions and Customs by learning about Holiday Traditions and Customs Around the World. 

The children made holiday ornaments as a gift for their families. The children posed for photos as if they were “stuck in a snowglobe.” These photos were cut out and laminated in a snow globe template which the children signed. I hope you enjoyed this holiday keepsake of your child in second grade.

The children had a great time making “Ice Castles” on December 19th! Thank you to all the parents who sent in frosting and mini-marshmallows for the ice castles. Special thanks to everyone who sent in extra candy and other supplies to make our ice castles so interesting…and yummy. And a HUGE thank you to the mothers (Mrs. Alshihri, Mrs. Barrett, Mrs. Chavez, Mrs. Cunha, and Ms. Demers and my daughter Catie) who volunteered to help make the ice castle activity so successful! I have put the photos of the children proudly holding their ice castles on the 2019-2020 student work page.

We finished December with an all school assembly to watch the Kindergarten holiday show and our classroom holiday party. 

I want to take this opportunity to thank all the families for the special gifts you gave me for Christmas. It was very thoughtful of you to think of me and I truly appreciate it!

It was a December to remember for sure!

100+ Days of Second Grade – Part 2

Our students joined the other second grade classes in the cafeteria for the culminating activity for our Traditions and Customs unit which was a special feast on the early release day before Thanksgiving. They shared food made from recipes that reflected their family heritage. It was a tasty way to celebrate the diversity of our classroom. Thank you to all the families that sent in food for the feast and to our parent volunteer, Ms. Hibbard who assisted with the set up/clean up. Individual photos of the foods can be seen under the Student Work 18-19 tab.

Ann Biese demonstrating a breathing technique.

Johnny the K was very engaging and entertaining.

We were fortunate to attend two assemblies with special guests. The first was Ann Biese, an author who wrote the book “Worry Bee” and spoke to us about how to handle our worries and emotions. The second was the performer, Johnny the K who played his guitar and wore crazy hats to teach us how to be kind and to get along with each other.

Safety is important so we practiced our bus evacuation drill. The upper grade students assisted us.

We have also had fire drills and Alice drills this year.

We had a visit from Zero the Hero who left a treat of latkes for completing his challenge.

We also did some stations where the students worked on math and literacy skills with a holiday theme.

Gabriella and Devin working on building holiday themed compound words.

At this station the students were measuring holiday images with inch and centimeter rulers.

Before we headed off for the December holiday break, we made Ice Castles out of mini-marshmallows, frosting and lots of candy. Thank you to all the families who sent in the supplies and donated extra candy. Thank you to Ms. Allore, Ms. Hibbard and my daughter Catie for helping with the Ice Castle projects. Here is Sabella with her Ice Castle. More examples of their Ice Castle creations can be seen under the Student Work 18-19 tab.

We also made special snow globe ornaments that we sent home to share with their families. Here is a photo of some of these snow globes.

More to follow in Part 3!

Goodbye September…Hello October!

It’s hard to believe that we have finished our first month of school. I want to take this opportunity to thank all the parents who attended Thursday’s Curriculum Night. It was nice to be able to meet you and tell you about our second grade classroom, the curriculum, and the expectations. If you were unable to attend, I sent home a copy of my presentation as well as other important papers and my contact information  with your child on Friday.

I look forward to meeting all the parents at our Parent-Teacher conferences on November 14th. We had signups for the Parent-Teacher conferences at Curriculum Night. Those who weren’t present will be assigned an afternoon conference time as all the evening time slots have been filled.

I also want to thank all the parents who sent in supplies for our classroom. Special thanks to the parents who hand-delivered supplies on Thursday night. Please let me know if you need the bag that you brought the supplies in back and I’ll send it back with your child.

A quick reminder that I will be collecting the September Behavior/Responsibility charts from your children tomorrow so please leave it in their homework folder. Also I’d like to remind you to please return the volunteer form if you are able to volunteer in our classroom. Volunteers are so helpful for providing extra support to our classroom.

 

More December celebrations!

We made ice castles with marshmallows, frosting, and lots and lots of candy. Here are some photos of the students having fun making their creations .

Thank you to Mrs. Cowan and my daughters Catie and Molly who were finished college for helping prepare the candy and wrap the final masterpieces. Thank you also to all the families that donated candy to make this holiday activity so successful.

 If you would like to see the individual ice castles, head over to the student work page.

We were proud to have another student, Carter, become an Xtramath Superstar by completing his addition facts and moving on to subtraction!

Carter is a whiz at math!

We also celebrated good behavior with our lunch bunch!

“Tasting Day”

The Brookside Second Graders celebrated our diversity on the half day before Thanksgiving by having a ” Tasting Day!”  Most of the students brought in ethnic dishes from home that came from the countries of their ancestors. They got to taste many foods that they may not be familiar with eating. This hands-on experience was a delicious culminating activity for our social studies Traditions and Customs unit. Thank you to all the families that contributed food to make our Tasting Day such a success!

Amber and Kaylee discuss what they are eating.

Some of the C8 boys couldn’t wait to fill their plates with all the yummy food.

The girls were exciting to try some new dishes too!

Zachary tries something new while Sam checks out the box filled with cannoli.

Elizabeth brought in an entire taco making station. She’s not from Mexico but she does love tacos! So do the other second graders!

Please head over to the student work page labeled “Student Work 17-18” of this blog to see closeup photos of the students’ dishes that are labeled with the name and country!

 

Important Information and Reminders!

This note was sent home today but in case it didn’t make it home, I am posting the information here as well.

Due to the recent school closures from the storm, the second grade team has decided to make the following changes :

The Unit 4 Fundations packet will be due on Thursday, November 9, 2017.

We are sending home the spelling words today but the spelling test on these words will also be on Thursday, November 9, 2017.

We would also like to remind you that the Halloween Party and Parade will now be held tomorrow, November 2, 2017.  If you signed up to send in treats for the Halloween Party, please send them in tomorrow.

Celebrating Special C8 Students and Zero the Hero!

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Dracut Library Summer Readers!!

I can’t believe we’ve been in school for 40 days already! The first two months have seemed to fly by so fast! I want to share with you some of the students that have been recognized for their reading and math achievements. First, we had three students, Emma, Jesse and Mia, that received special certificates for their participation in the Dracut Library’s summer reading program! Great job to our three summer library readers!

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Dracut Public Schools Summer Reading!

Next, I’d like to recognize the five students who passed in their Dracut Public Schools summer reading logs. They were Sampson, Aubrey, Jesse, Shamus, and Emma! Summer reading is so important! Awesome job to you all!

Finally, three of our students have completed the addition level of Xtramath in record time! To do this, they had to be able successfully answer all 100 addition facts within 3 seconds for each fact! They are Kayden, Aubrey, and Jesse! They are officially Xtramath superstars and have moved to subtraction. Remember that the students can do Xtramath at home too if they have access to the Internet.  I wonder who will be our next Xtramath superstar?

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This year, a special math superhero called “Zero the Hero” has been visiting our classroom every tenth day of school. We’re not sure if Zero is a boy or girl superhero so I’ll just use the pronoun “he”.  He gives the students a note with math challenges and leaves them treats if they complete the challenge. The first time he came, he asked them to draw what they thought he looked like. Another time he came, there was a math book about Zero that he asked them to have me read. A third time he came, the students were challenged to write as many sentences as they could that had the answer of zero. On Friday, Day 40, he challenged them to estimate the number of eyeballs in the jar! The children love when Zero visits.

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Here is one of Zero’s notes with the book and treat he left!

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They had to estimate the number of Life Savors that Zero left as a treat. Cameron and Anthony were the best estimators that day!

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One of Zero’s treats were clementines because they were “round like a zero and looked like a fall pumpkin!”

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Some of our students working hard packing the food drive donations for the Dracut Food Pantry.

Before I end this post, I want to thank all the families that donated to the Great Penny Race and the Food Drive. The second grade students donated the most nonperishable food to our food drive. Our class helped to box up all the food and carry it out to the volunteers from the food pantry that came to collect it. This is teaching our students to not only think about and care about others but to DO for others!  Stay tuned for additional posts about our field trip, our dinosaur & fossils studies and more!

May Celebrations!

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Here are the book bags the second graders donated.

We certainly had a lot to celebrate in May! We celebrate that we are a Community of Caring when we shared the results of the second grade students Community of Caring Read-a-Thon! We invited Miss Penny from the Dracut Library and Dr. McNamara of the Dracut School Committee to come to our school in order to receive the five book bags that our students were able to fund through the Read-a-Thon. This provides not only the Dracut Library but the entire MVLC with much needed children’s book kits. One of the books we donated was written by Sherrie Ninteau, a Dracut Public School teacher.

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Thank you to Miss Penny, Dr. McNamara, and Ms. Smith for attending our presentation!

The Brookside second graders are learning that it is important to give to others. Another way they participated in giving to others was the way they and the rest of the school contributed to our PAWS for a Cause by donating for Rett Syndrome. As an added bonus they raised so much that they were able to see Miss Jen duct taped to the wall of the school. Miss Jen was such a good sport as it was very hot that morning.

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The Garden of Hope for a Cause!

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Hooray for Miss Jen!

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We are also celebrating academic achievement! Ms. Smith came to our classroom to present several students with third quarter honors certificates! Congratulations to Mary, Brad, Brian, Nicholas, Shiwaum, Mia and Britney!

Congratulations also go out to four new Xtramath Superstars this month! Hooray Ava, Gabriela, Mary and Emily!Version 2IMG_3636IMG_3706IMG_3709

We also celebrate Shiwaum for being the only student in our class to participate in the Six Flags Read to Succeed program.

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Finally we celebrated our mothers!

The C8 students wrote about their mothers and drew a special picture of themselves with their mother.

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The students enjoyed make a special m & m game to play with their moms.

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Paws for a Cause

Each year we choose a worthy organization to support with our school-wide Paws for a Cause donation. Today we had a special Community of Caring assembly to kick off our collection for Rett Syndrome. We have a wonderful third grader named Kendra at our school who has this syndrome. (She was in my second grade class last year!) IMG_3413

We had the assembly and Kendra rode her bike on the stage and then “spoke” to the gathered audience with her assistive technology device. I am attaching a link with the short video that the students saw to help you understand the condition. (Kendra is eating the ice cream!)

A flyer went home today with the children and we will be collecting monetary donations tomorrow and Monday. If you are making out a check, please make it out to the Brookside PTO. Please consider donating to this worthy cause that will help toward finding a cure for girls like our schoolmate Kendra.

We also wore purple today in honor of girls who have Rett Syndrome and those who are searching for a cure. If your child forgot to wear purple today, we will continue to encourage Brookside students and staff to wear purple on our collection days tomorrow and Monday!

Celebrating Special Children and Caring for Others in C-8!

We celebrate love and caring in the month of February. One of our classmates, Hannah, was recognized this quarter at the special PAWS recognition breakfast. Hannah was one of eleven children in the school to receive this recognition. She was nominated for her patience and kindness toward a fellow classmate when she helped him in their reading group. Hannah received her award from State Representative Colleen Garry. We are very proud of you Hannah!! You set a great example for the rest of the students!

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Hannah front and center after receiving her special PAWS recognition award.

 

We are also proud of two of our students who have completed the Addition level of Xtramath!

Way to go Brian and Victoria!

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Finally, as part of our Brookside Community of Caring, our class participated in the second grade Read-a-thon. They spent the entire day reading! This reading took the form of independent reading, buddy reading, listening to a book on CD or read aloud by a teacher. We even read math literature! The money we raised will enable us to create and donate book kits to the Dracut Library that can be used by the entire library system. Thank you to all the families and friends who generously donated to this special cause. What a great way to show that we care about reading and giving to others. I hope you enjoy looking at these photos of the Read-a-Thon.

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Comfy children reading on the rug!

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Snuggled up with their books!

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Gabriela and Alyssa….best buddies with their books!

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Reading is double the fun in C-8!

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Some of our boys took over the library!

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Gaige and Brian so deep into their stories they didn’t even see me capture this moment!

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Sharing a penguin book with a friend while istening to the CD at the listening center.

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Looks like a sleepover!