What Makes Us Special

This week we began to focus on the routines that we need established in order for the students to meet in reading groups.  This is called Daily 5 time.  Mrs. Chattin and Mrs. Colella did a wonderful job last year of establishing these routines.  The 2nd grade is not missing a beat and falling right into line. Next week I will begin to meet with small groups, while the rest of the students work on Daily 5.

We read the story of "The Lion and The Mouse" and a piece of expository text titled "Meet the Artists" we discussed how everyone small and big are special in some way.  "The Lion and The Mouse" is a fable in which a small mouse saves the lion.  "Meet the Artists" is an article written about two children that have special talents.  Ask you child if they remember what Marcos's and Lei Mae's special talents are.

In Science we began our unit on Balance. We balanced cut outs of Cray Fish on our fingers. We used terms like balance point and counterweights.  The counterweights are clothes pins that we attach to the shape that we are tying to balance.

In S.S. we read a book call "How Full is My Bucket" this book helps teach the students how actions and words can hurt others.  We all have an imaginary bucket over our heads and depending on how someone treats a drop is placed in your bucket or drops fall out of your bucket.  For example a simple greeting of "Good morning you look nice today" would place a drop in your bucket.  Someone saying "I don't want to be your friend" would be an example of being a bucket dipper.  We followed the story up with a discussion and activity.

Have a wonderful weekend!