TCPS Second-Third Grades

Well, if any of you are still checking, in the hope that there might just be oooone, laaaasst, update to end the year, your optimism has paid off. I stated in my very first blog how challenging I believed this would be, and, well, as evidenced by the dearth of news since November, yes, November (!), I clearly fell down on the blog, er, job.

Not wanting to leave things hanging, I offer you a Letterman style summary of the second half of the year – lest you think nothing was going on in our classroom!  Indeed, it was the opposite. So many exciting things and curious students, that I kept pushing the blog lower on the to-do list. Mea Culpa, and enjoy.

Top Ten Moments from Ms. Barnes’ Class, 2010

10. DEAR Time – This reading time on Monday mornings is a universal favorite.  From curling up in cubbies, to holing up under the table, we all love this concentrated free choice book time.

9. Heart Birds – This art project was unique and lovely. From choosing the papers, to cutting all of the hearts, to assembling these dainty birds – we had so much fun and loved hanging them from real branches for display.

8. Idiom skits – Cat got your tongue?  Well, it certainly didn’t have ours when the class separated into small groups to write, rehearse, and perform skits which illustrated a variety of idioms. Special mention to Max and Jake for their hilarious dinner table scene!

7. Cabrillo mural – We were all excited to see the end result of the second grade collaborative mural featuring Spanish ships, explorers and Kumeyaay natives.  Coupled with the third grade first person narratives from the same groups, the depth of the history covered and on display was impressive!

6. Pen Pals – We had a wonderful time corresponding with our pen pals at Navenby School in England.  Every time we heard from them there were audible squeals and applause from the class.

5. Gifts – True to their generous hearts, when asked about highlights for this list, many students said that making presents was one of their favorite activities.  We hope you enjoy our cookbook for a long time!

4. Reports – It is almost impossible to describe the looks on faces when Big Reports and MiniReports are turned in – a real high point for all of us J

3. Storytime – Reading aloud is always fun, but we went extra crazy for The Last of the Really Great Whangdoodles, by Julie Edwards.  The kids hung on every word, made very creative predictions, and very special drawings and descriptions based on our reading.  We have no Swamp Gaboons, but lots of Whifflebirds getting ready to go home for summer!

2. Ms. Barnes’iPod – from singing Monday, Monday and Big Yellow Taxi, to ending our days with The Namaste Song, to screaming along with I’ve Got Better Manners Than You, my iPod was always greeted with smiling faces and enthusiastic voices.

1. Pajama Party – This day, right before Winter Break, figured prominently on our list of great memories. Everyone – including me! – wore pj’s to school. We shared treasured holiday stories from many cultures, drank hot cocoa, and ate yummy oatmeal, all while relaxing on blankets spread out in our room.  In the afternoon we tested our knowledge with holiday games, and read even more.  What a special celebration J

Thank you all for a memorable year. Your children are treasures, and we worked, played and grew together this year.  Have a summer holiday filled with at least ten more great moments!

No specific topic today, just some miscellany from the month. It was great to see everyone at Open House. The kids were beyond psyched to tour their families around and talk about all of the work they had on display. They are quite a group of writers and illustrators, aren’t they? If you are interested in adding any of our featured authors to your libraries, they were Todd Parr and Kate DiCamillo. The 2nd Grade Todd Parr illustrations were spectacular, and everyone shone with The Magician’s Elephant writing and collages.

I always love to see parents, and we had a roomful for the Coffee today! Thank you for your support and attentiveness. Any opportunity to take in the room and get to know curriculum ideas and philosophy is helpful as we work together toward a wonderful learning experience for every child.  Additionally, it is just a treat to hang out together for a little while and enjoy Mrs. Landt’s great coffee!

All of TCPS is eagerly getting ready for next week’s Feast, and boy, is the excitement palpable in our class.  Native American and Pilgrim names have been chosen, couture paper costumes have been tailored, and the cooking ingredients are beginning to appear. Mmmm, I can almost smell the stuffing already!  Second Graders have been hanging on every word of the story of the first Thanksgiving, and are quite proud of their proper pronunciation of the Wampanoag.  Third Graders are researching what might have been packed aboard the Mayflower as the Pilgrims looked towards the New World and a new life.  November is so full of fun fall lessons.

All of the students have been (bin) going a little crazy to (two, too) show their (there, they’re) burgeoning homonym knowledge. They flew (flu) in (inn) the door today with new pairs (pears, pares) for our (hour) lengthening list.  What fun!

Well, as Jake (Gr.2) said earlier today, “We should have Open House every time we learn something new!”.  There certainly would be no shortage of things to display and discuss

Our Beautiful Rangoli Patterns

Are you all reading that title and humming some Kool and the Gang?  We sang quite a bit of that song this morning, as “celebrate” is one of our spelling words this week!  No, I am not teaching disco lessons (yet), we are doing some celebrating of a different sort.

One of our writing projects this year is the creation of a Holiday Book.  Each of the students writes and illustrates a set of paragraphs (2nd) or essays (3rd) about holidays around the world.

We have learned about the Vietnamese observation of Trung Thu and the Hindu holiday, Diwali.  Our research on Trung Thu included tasting mooncakes (thanks, Angela!) and drawing festival masks.  The mooncakes drew many thumbs up from our culinary experts.  Our favorite Diwali experience was making lovely rangoli patterns out on the blacktop.  Surina’s mom and dad came to visit, and the three of them taught us about this creative and fun tradition.  It is now two days later and some of the kids still have a bindi sparkling on their foreheads

I am especially excited to teach about our next holiday, Dia de los Muertos, as it is a special time of celebration in my own family.  If any of you have a holiday you would like to share with our class, please email me so we can work it in to the holiday study.  It is always a wonderful opportunity for learning on so many levels when we know the observers.

Thank you for your inquisitive and fun little people!

Stardate: October 16, 2009

Captain’s Log: 10:55 p.m.

Subject: Packet Delay

Yes, today is Friday.  Time to cozy up to your child and browse through their week’s work, celebrating new or mastered skills, or sympathizing over a particularly tough challenge.  You check the backpack, maybe take a look under the seats in the car.  Where is that packet of work? Sitting in the sea of unmarked papers on the table in the back of the classroom, empty.

Today was a day full of meetings and discussions – some to the whole, some to single or paired players.  Everyone had a piece of the day to work through, parse, discuss and solve their own issue or conflict.  There were conversations about the playground, story time and what could be found in desks and pockets. Analysis of hygiene, body language and the principle of personal responsibility.

These are all things that are a part of any given day here in 2nd and 3rd Grades.  Admittedly, some days more than others.  These are the things which too often fall by the wayside, unaddressed, unexplored, or misunderstood in many schools.

It is a unique gift of our program and philosophy that today I knew it was okay to leave those packets unattended and empty, because other things needed to be the priority.  Priorities which required Ms. Jenkins (thank you, Vickie!) to take over and leave me free to talk with kids, unhurried. Priorities which found Ms. Price (yea, Maggie!) sitting on the floor in the hallway facilitating meaningful discussions with wide-eyed, eagerly participating students.  Priorities which recognize the importance of thorough and timely communication and conversations with parents.

So, the week ends.

We are all familiar with the axiom, “Life happens.” Well, the messy table will still be there on Monday, and new work will be waiting to fill those packets, but today, kids happened.

So here we are,  Week 2.  The kids are excited and engaged and I am excited and engaged right back.  They are eager to finish beginning of the year assessing and reviewing, organizing and labeling, and jump in to a new level of learning.  There is one hitch.  They are also eagerly chatting, visiting, checking in, and generally catching up with each other at any given moment.  It is a reminder that so much of what is necessary to learn, and yet absent from just about any curriculum, are the basic social classroom skills which open the door to effective and enjoyable experiential learning.

At 7 and 8 years old , the issue isn’t that the idea of waiting until recess to share your every thought with the other 5 people in your group would be excruciating, the issue is that the thought to delay your conversation just doesn’t occur to you!  It is a gift of the basic philosophy of our school that we recognize and value the basic need to teach our children what they need to do in order to be taught.  Tucked into our social emotional curriculum – our Keys – is the belief that acting with integrity and responsibility in all situations is important.

In the elementary classroom (okay, sticklers, in my classroom) what that means is treating each other respectfully.  And what a long list of behaviors that encompasses!  Listening which includes eye contact, silent mouths and (relatively) silent hands, privacy which includes staying out of others’ desks, work and personal space, and being proud of yourself by yourself, which means staying away from loud verbal comparisons of your work to a friend’s work – “That is so easy, I finished mine way before you!”.  Wow, is that last one tough.  We all love recognition, it’s just important to be able to get it without sacrificing the feelings of others.

So when your little ones come home and say that “Ms. Barnes keeps talking about manners” for the umpteenth time, these are the things they are referring to.  Feel free to pop in and see the poster that 2nd grade is working on of “what listening looks  like”.  I should have it up by next week. They did a super job brainstorming ideas for it

It does feel like we are stopping pretty frequently to remember why these things are important.  Second Grade, especially, is a year which is full of  social lessons.  It is a lucky fact of being a TCPS teacher that I get to indulge my inner Emily Post and see your children blossom as they take these ideas to heart. We’ll first conquer our classroom with kindness and respect…then the world!

At the end of the day today (only day 2? Really?) I looked around the room and commented “Wow.  We’ve been here all of two days and it looks like March.”  Even with my propensity for clutter I have to say that the room has an air of excitement and productivity. The stacks of lessons embarked upon and library books scattered about say “Look what is happening in here!”  The kids are flying from activity to activity, eager to get settled in and comfortable.  Today we began the day with me playing dead on the floor, all four limbs stiffly pointing skyward (just a lesson on nouns, no cause for concern ) and ended the day happily munching away on birthday cookies.  Looking forward to making many more messes with this darling group!

What a great way to head into the last few days of summer!  It was fun to see my returning 3rd Graders, welcome the incoming 2nd Graders, and be introduced to our new students.  The time went quickly and I took advantage of this initial opportunity to observe the group as they greeted each other and worked together.

Mr. Price came down to visit and commented that he “enjoys that 2nd and 3rd grade are always hard at work, even on Visiting Day”.  And, yes, they were!  Their excitement and willingness to jump right in certainly bode well for a very special year.

I am looking forward to seeing their smiling faces on Wednesday morning.

…what spell would you cast? Our 2nd and 3rd grade students responded to this prompt and entered their answers along with original artwork in the Del Mar Fair “Kids’ Best” competition this summer. They used a mixed-medium including pastels, markers, paper, and glitter. Some of their artwork and responses are displayed below:

Max

“My spell is that everyone will have a house to live in. It is very sad that some people don’t have houses in the world. That is my wizard spell.” – Max, gr. 2

Ian

“If I could cast a spell I would make the war stop. I would like to do that because there would be peace on earth. That would also be good because nobody would be killed so we could be a community. That is why I don’t want the war.” – Ian, gr. 2

Hannah

“If I were a wizard I would cast this spell: A spell that would let people always love their life. Everyone deserves happiness.” – Hannah, gr. 2

Whitley

“If I were a wizard, I would cast the spell that everyone would save the earth. I would choose that spell because I really love earth and don’t want our home to change. People are trashing earth, I don’t like that. The trees are getting cut down, I don’t like that either. I love earth!” – Whitley, gr. 3

Camille

“If I were a wizard I would make people stop cutting down trees. It takes away some of the animals’ homes. Some people say that you need trees to make paper but you can recycle and the recycled stuff can be used to make paper. Another thing is that if you cut down all of the trees you can’t breathe because the trees give off oxygen and people need oxygen to breathe. That is my spell if I were a wizard.” – Camille, gr. 3

All of the students did a wonderful job on their projects. I enjoyed reading their responses and seeing them express their creativity through art. Asking imaginative questions is a great way to get their minds thinking and including art gives them an outlet to express any feelings they may have.