"Mask"ed Excitement

We couldn't "mask" our excitement!

Our Class's Favorites

What a week! We had our final Art Adventure, where the students were able to create masks, and they loved it. We took a picture of those artists who wanted to display their artwork. We also had the excitement of having Go Noodle's duo, Koo Koo Kangaroo, come and pump the kids up with fun songs and dances. They loved it! Another highlight this week was creating graphs for math together in groups. The students practiced cooperation to agree on categories they wanted to vote on. Then, they chose their groups, and spent the next few days working together to collect data and represent it in some sort of graphing format. Below are pictures of our highlights for the week! One of the moments that created the most thrill was counting up our tally marks for how many books we have read this month. We counted all the way up to 960 books. With this week's books, we will for sure beat our goal of reading 1,000 books as a class in the month of February. The students are very proud of their hard work, as is their teacher!

Going Koo Koo for Koo Koo Kangaroo

Pop See Ko!

100 Days Smarter

Writing Celebration

Wow! The 100th day of school has come and gone! It is so fun to look back at how far these second graders have come since the beginning of this year and since the beginning of the year last year as well! There was a great celebration of learning on our 100th day, with different stations all centered around the number 100. The Queen of 10's paid a visit, and we also had Art Adventure that day. It was fun to see the different older young people who came to school that day--the kids had fun with dressing up if they chose to do so, and with the stations and centers throughout the day. Activities included: Making patterns with 100 pattern blocks, decorating paper cupcakes with 100 sprinkles, reading 100 books (as a class), creating words from the letters used to make the phrase "One Hundred", and playing a "Race to 100" game. We also were able to get outside and enjoy the sunshine, which I hope you all get a chance to do at some point over this long weekend! Have a wonderful weekend!

100 Sprinkles on Cupcakes

Sharing our Letters

Making 100's Day Hats

Pattern Block Fun

How we can be an Everyday Superhero

Reading 100 Books!

More 100th Day Fun!

What does Community Mean?

This week, we had some very thoughtfully put together projects by the students, centered around the idea of community. They had to create and present on a community that included places to live, work, play and solve problems. We talked about different kinds of homes a community could have, different places to work and play, and we also talked about the similarities we see in our own classroom community. We faced some challenges, in deciding on community names, and deciding where to put places around our communities. I was impressed to see that students were able, with guidance, to come to compromises and handle conflicts and disagreements in a respectful way. They also rallied around each other when it came time to present. Although there was only one designated "reporter" for each group, all of the groups chose to have most or all of their members help with the presentation part. It was encouraging to see their level of enthusiasm and cooperation, and led well into our discussion later this week: What is the difference between someone who bosses others around, and someone who is a good leader? We will increasingly focus on this important concept in the coming weeks. In the meantime, enjoy some photos below of our group presentations, and of this week's Art Adventure. Thank you to those who volunteered and helped out in some way!

Group Presentations

Group Presentations

Art Adventure

Art Adventure

Different Cultures

What a great week to celebrate diversity! With the Chinese New Year celebrations in full swing, and the start of Black History Month, our week was busy and interesting and fun. One of our classmates taught us how to say "Good Morning" in Chinese, and we used that as our morning meeting greeting for the day. On Friday, the kindergarten classes paraded through the school with a great dragon, waving colorful masks and using instruments to show celebration of the Chinese New Year. We also got the chance to learn about Edmonia Lewis and Maya Angelou as our spotlight African Americans of the week. We will continue to highlight African Americans who have contributed to making our country great. It is wonderful to see the students in our class embracing each ethnicity and culture represented in our class.

Students continued to practice cooperation and responsibility this week by working together to finish their communities in social studies. We will start the next week by presenting on them. It was fun to see how different each of the communities was, and how unique.

Finally, we had the excitement of another pajama/comfy day! It was fun to see all the kids in the school showing their Jaguar Pride. Kids also enjoyed taking a stroll through the library to view all the art projects for Kids Create on Thursday. I hope you were able to go and enjoy the creativity shown by so many of Parkview's students! Have a refreshing weekend, everyone!