After reading the beautiful book, Wabi Sabi, this week, we wer inspired to create some haiku of our own. See what you think of our budding Basho’s!

Here we are, getting ready to take a couple of days off to celebrate Thanksgiving.  The last month was stuffed with a variety of classroom happenings!  Our class acquitted themselves admirably at the Autumn Recital. Group and solo performances wowed our standing room only audience. The season was thoroughly celebrated with poetry about Halloween, Dia de los Muertos and Thanksgiving.  The work the students did to memorize so many poems and practice their public speaking skills was truly impressive.  Our original song “The Twelve Days of Halloween” generated some real goosebumps amongst the Kinder and First grade audience members, as well as belly laughs from parents and teachers. I was quite proud of our students!

Open House was another great showcase of different skills.  After a couple of days of organizing, cleaning, and finishing touches on work, we were ready to greet “our adults” and do some showing off!  The journals were a big hit, as were the bright calaveras drawings, and the multitude of “Ghostie Feet” adorning our big bulletin board.  The Partnered Portrait Gallery was so meaningful and special, as was our board full of private, personal goals for the year.  Second Graders shared their Problem of the Day notebooks, and Third Graders impressed with their Social Studies binders.

We wrapped up before Thanksgiving with beautiful Grateful Hearts pastel placemats, which were the result of hard work in Art, and a great discussion about what we are truly grateful for in our lives. Wishing everyone a happy Thanksgiving!

So, there are a few kids this year who really like to draw pictures of me.  I mean, really  like to draw pictures of me. As I was contemplating the growing collage of teacher portraits on our whiteboard and behind my desk, I had a thought. Several actually.  I noted the changing outfits, variety of hair styles (straight vs. curly), glasses or no, etc. What detail, what care, had gone into each drawing.

I was laughing to myself and thinking how sweet these students are, how much I enjoy being with them, when I had a realization – these evolving little people care for me very much.  I paid renewed attention to the details and saw that almost all of the pictures were pretty accurate and carefully rendered. If only everyone could be so affirmed!  Hmmmm.

This reflection led to a lovely project in our Social-Emotional curriculum.  When the class was asked to look at the pictures, and imagine how I felt when I received them, their answers were  precious.  “Valued”, “Paid attention to”, “Seen”.  Wow! How insightful.

We proceeded to do a project in which the students were randomly partnered, and created pencil portraits of each other.  They took turns sitting still, being looked at and sketched oh-so-carefully.  Watching this exercise gave me goose bumps!  They were very deliberate, concentrating hard.  The drawings were,  in many respects, more accurate and carefully drawn than the self-portraits we did last month!

The students are still putting on the finishing touches, and we are quite eager to see the collected gallery when the drawings are complete.  What a gift they have given to each other with their complete attention and hard work.  Our class is full of friends who emotionally support each other, and this project was a wonderful way to figuratively and literally show that.  We are trying to remember to see each other every day in our classroom.

Here we are again, waving goodbye to summer and ushering in the fall with a new group of students.  Leaves are changing color, the air is brisk with that special autumn crispness…WAIT! No, it was the hottest day of the summer. 21 eager students and 1 eager teacher sweated their way through a simmering six hours, and somehow, we had a great day anyway

The morning began with a summary of Classroom Responsibilities, and then we quickly moved on to creating really cool little time capsules. It will be fun to mark the changes in June when we reopen them!  Second Grade rocked a pretty challenging Crossnumber Puzzle in Math, and Third Graders began learning about the Pacific and Northeast regions of the United States.

We ended the day with a big crowd for our annual Bubble Blowing Ceremony out on the playground.  This is a merry band of students, and I am looking forward to a “raucous caucus” (ask your Third Grader!) all year long.

I always love the return to school after Spring Break. It feels like September again – lots of new plans, excited kids, warmer weather. We all gear up for this last six weeks. It is exciting to see the kids looking forward; identifying themselves as “almost 3rd Graders and almost 4th Graders”. They begin looking at the calendar in a new way, eager to get on with this year’s lessons and prove themselves ready for next year.
We are looking at a fun and challenging few weeks of working on our America Books – always an interesting unit of study. We will also be writing our final poems of the year, bringing to a close the Poetry Journals we began in September.
Third Graders are entrenched in Big Reports. It has been demanding work, and they have really applied themselves with great energy and concentration. It will be such an accomplishment when they pen that final paragraph!
It promises to be a crazy, full, fun end of the year. We are going to be busy making memories as a “pack” together, and looking at all that has been achieved this year.

Here we are, Spring knocking at the classroom door.  Read on for a recap of January and February highlights.

Second and Third Grades came back from break eager and ready to go.  The first morning of school, we set the clocks to 11:59 and counted down to “midnight”.  We all danced around with our paper plate and black-eyed peas tambourines, shouted “Happy New Year!”and then discussed our resolutions.  It was a festive way to kick off our return to school and release some winter energy!

The class was receptive and excited to learn more about Dr. King, and embraced our month long study of this heroic American.  Facts were learned, books read and beautiful art created around the story of Martin’s Big Words.  Their pieces are on display upstairs outside Ms. Z’s room, until Big Event. Stop by and admire your philosophers!

Second graders wrote acrostic poems about MLK and third graders created posters about a real issue which they would like to work to change in the world.  This project requires research and some insight into what the students value in their world.  They were excited to share issues about conservation, clean water and community service.  What a diverse and passionate group of future leaders we have.

We marked the 100th day of school with paper clip chains, pipe cleaner hearts, and various 100-second contests.  It was a fun-filled day, and we laughed heartily at least 100 times

We are currently working on a fun and challenging writing unit centered around fables, as well as staring down some serious challenges in Second Grade math with problem solving and geometry.  The interjection – Wow! – has been greeted enthusiastically by all, and we are eagerly awaiting the adverb’s arrival.  So, things continue to progress here, with our happy little wolf pack jumping right in to each day’s lessons.

Our class is excitedly gearing up for Big Event in two weeks.  They are particularly excited about transforming our classroom into the ……well, the Something Surprising Room.  We are all looking forward to seeing you there!

January? Already? Hard to believe. The first few months of the year really did fly by, and here we are looking at the end of the first semester.  I am looking forward to spending time with you, fabulous 2nd and 3rd grade parents, in just a couple of weeks. Yes, it is almost conference time.  Here a few high points we hit as 2010 wound down.

The Feast was a fun – and tasty! – success.  I can say without any bias whatsoever that the fiercest natives and cutest pilgrims hailed from our class.  They cooked up a storm, enthusiastically practiced saying Wampanoag correctly, and sang Give Thanks with just the right mix of spirit and sweetness.  What a memorable day!

Everyone tackled the challenge of learning about winter holidays with open hearts and curious minds.  We were lucky to have a treasure trove of books from our library – so many beautifully told and illustrated stories from around the world to share. Shout out to Ms. Belk!

Our last art project proved…challenging.  Who says 2nd graders can’t perfectly execute a Martha Stewart project?  Well, maybe not perfectly, but those family trees are pretty cute, aren’t they?  By the way, Martha doesn’t do the “family” part. That is a TCPS exclusive

Our December culminated in the now traditional Holiday Pajama Party.  What a great time!  We were treated to stories from 8th grade, and also one from special guest reader, Ms. Risch.  We drank cocoa, ate coffee cake, lolled around in soft blankets and cozy slippers, and ended the day with a rousing, and challenging, Holiday Whip Around tournament. It was impressive and satisfying to hear how much information had been absorbed by the class.

I am looking forward to ushering in 2011 with this merry band of classmates. Happy New Year!

So, a couple of weeks ago we had our Fall Recital, a combination play and open mic “night”, here in 2nd and 3rd grades.  We adapted a Halloween book, Oh, No! Not Ghosts! (thank you Ms. Belk), into a play, and performed a round of original Halloween jokes.  “What’s a vampire’s favorite fruit? Blood Orange!” The kids were beside themselves with excitement, and did a fabulous job.  Our audience laughed, gasped and chuckled in all the right places, confirming the impeccable timing of the players   We all howled at the surprise cameo that ended our play, the irreplaceable and hilarious Mrs. Howard, complete with bathrobe and curlers.  Thank you all for coming, we are looking forward to our next chance to be onstage!

Meanwhile, our room got spookier by the day, with spiders cropping up in unexpected places, and the textured Haunted House art lending some creepy atmosphere.  We worked hard piping those house outlines out, using specially mixed ghoul blood as our paint!  We practiced word webs, on spiderweb shapes, and learned a chilling poem by Lewis Carroll called Horrors. There was also some challenging Halloween math to be done, as we continue to practice place value and number sense skills.  All in all, October was a chillingly busy month!

“Writing is a struggle against silence.”  ~Carlos Fuentes

…and that sums up the challenge of beginning to write poetry with children.  They are overflowing with pictures to describe, feelings to relate, jokes to tell, but the act of writing in verse is alien to them.  Don’t puncuate unless you feel like it? Capitalization is a choice?  Write anywhere on the paper, even diagonally or down? Has Ms. Barnes gone crazy on Friday mornings?

When I introduce a new type of verse, I am greeted with strangely quiet children. However, their eyes are wide, and once we begin brainstorming, well, the silence of puzzlement is replaced by the silence of anticipation.  Heads bent, pencils scratching, pausing, scratching…the sound of writers at work.

This year we are spending every Friday morning having Poetry Friday.  It is a combination of listening to great poetry and writing great poetry.  Today we tried writing Haiku, inspired by a wonderful video of dolphins playing. Click on the link to view the video, and here are some samples from your budding poets.

Dolphins are funny

awesome, having fun, graceful

extraordinary           (Mason, 3)

dolphins make bubbles

extraordinary creatures

graceful, beautiful         (Nikkala, 3)

dolphins, slippery!

fun  playful  smooth  cute  dolphins

fun slippery  smooth        (Zac, 2)

dolphins are cute , fun

smooth  playful  nice  slippery

blowing bubbles, fun       (Sahil, 2)

Has it really been two weeks?  Well, the days are flying by (except for that time right after lunch and recess when I have to stand on my head to break through the food/play stupor) and we are having a great time.  Every year has its own unique personality, and this one is already shaping up as the class that cracks me up.  They are super funny, both unwittingly and purposefully.  It makes for fun, quick days of learning.

Ask your student about our Humdingers ,  Pack Pledge, or DEAR Time, and you should get an idea of the flavor of our classroom.  Second Graders have been wide-eyed and eager to learn new routines and expectations, and Third Graders are wearing seriously their new cloaks of big kid responsibility and role-modeling.

Thanks to those of you who have stopped in or sent emails about your child’s adjustment.  It is nice to hear, from your side, how it seems to be going. I am enjoying getting to know the Second Graders and all of my new parents.  A shout-out to Tiffany (Paul) and Hillary (Livvy) for stepping in to be our Room Parents, and advance thanks to Julia (Kyle) for what will be a fun year of Scholastic Books.

Drop in any time to see what’s going on with our energetic wolf Pack!