Holiday Fun

We had lots of fun before the Christmas break with holiday activities.  First, the second grade did a fabulous job performing in our 2nd grade musical "A Fantasea Christmas".  We also had lots of fun at our holiday party turning some of our classmates into real life snowmen.

Learning About a Democracy

Today we learned about what a democratic government is and observed our right to cast a vote about our class ribbon design.  Students waited in line just like in a real life voting booth, cast their vote by paper ballot, and then celebrated the results.  We learned the concept of majority rules and students had a great time seeing what won.

Waiting in line to cast our votes

Making our selection

 

Book Character Dress Up Day

I love this picture!  All the kids were acting like the character from their books!  Thanks for participating.

Awesome Apostrophes!

We have been learning all about the jobs of the apostrophe.  Students have learned that we use an apostrophe to show that a noun owns something and that we use it with pronouns to make contractions.  They got a firsthand experience being a doctor in class.  After getting prepared for surgery, students took two words and created contractions.  They used their mighty surgical tools; scissors, band aids, and their brains to do this.

 

Fall Festival

This weekend is our Fall Festival from 4:00-7:00 on the 13th.  We will be having an informal open house that day as well from 3:30-4:00.  Please feel free to come by the classroom and look at your child's work.  Our class worked hard to create our class project this year.  I hope that you come by and put in a bid.

What is going on in ELA?

We have been hard at work with our second English Language Arts Unit: A Season of Chapters.  Our guiding question is how do the parts contribute to the whole?  In writing we started small and learned what makes a complete sentence.  From there we learned what are the three parts of a paragraph; topic sentence, the body, and the closing sentence.  Right now we are focusing on each of those parts and becoming experts in paragraph writing.  In reading we learned to look at a story and answer the 5Ws and How.  We learned that these questions help us to figure out 4 very important story elements; the setting, characters, problem, and the solution.  We also learned that fiction stories are written in a very organized way; the beginning, action in the middle, and the ending.  We also looked at nonfiction writing and text features that author's use to organize their writing.  Next week we are going to start looking more closely at poetry and some literary devices like rhythm, rhyme, simile, and metaphor.

Friday is our celebration for reaching our school goal of $12,000.00 dollars for our Walkathon.  The kids will be watching the movie Dolphin Tale.  Make sure to send in the PG movie permission slip.  They will also be celebrating by having a water day in activity.  They will get the opportunity to dunk some teachers and have a Popsicle reward.  I am so proud of our class for setting a $500 dollar goal and surpassing it.  We raised $750 as a class!!!!! Thank you so much for helping your child get their pledges in and supporting our school.

Early Release Day

Tomorrow is our first Early Release Day. Make sure your child knows how they are getting home or where they are going after school.

Mrs. K

In Full Swing

We have finally gotten things going in full swing this year.  After a very rushed and crazy two day move in, our classroom is finally starting to look like itself again.  Students have been working very hard to learn the routines and procedures of 2nd grade.  With the help of music and some furry quiet critters, they are really starting to get the hang of things.  We have been discussing what community means and setting up our classroom community. As part of this, students have been bringing in pictures of themselves to keep in OUR classroom the rest of the year.  We have also discussed what it means to be a Wildcat, how we can be Bucket Fillers this year, what qualities a good citizen in our classroom would have, and the rights and responsibilities of students in our rooms.  

In reading we have worked on Daily Five activities, reviewed metacognition, and practiced the workshop routines.  We are trying to become deeper thinkers this year by really being aware of our thinking while reading.  In writing we have been working on setting up our writer's workshop.  Students have used many activities to get ideas for writing and have been practicing extending these ideas by writing long.  Math has been really fun because we start with a crowd pleaser, measurement.  We have been investigating different tools that we use for measuring like the ruler, measuring tape, yard stick, and meter stick. Students have also been learning how to organize data using tally charts and line plots. Last, but not least, we have been learning the Phonics Dance. Ask your child to show you how to do it.

Mrs. K

PTA One-call Emails

The school and PTA are now using one-call emails to communicate info home to
families instead of the one-call phone calls. If you are not receiving one-call emails from the PTA, please let Centerfield know.

Six Traits of Writing

We have started looking at books like writer's and talking about The Six Traits of Writing. We have been focusing on Word Choice. We've discovered that words can be powerful and can form strong mental images in our reader's mind. It is really important that we use words correctly and sometimes we say things that when visualized seem silly. These are some posters that the kids created using either puns, homophones, or homonyms.

We had a wonderful time practicing and performing our Christmas Musical "A Fantasea Christmas". The students put in a lot of hard work practicing their songs, dances, and making their costumes. Thanks to all the parents who helped us. Below is a link to the musical on School Tube. The video was provided to us by The Welborn's, thank you very much. Please feel free to leave a comment for the students.

Mrs. K

http://bit.ly/ytBCBI

What's Going on in Reading?

Students have be working on using their five sense to visualize. We talked about how a good reader can not only paint a picture in their mind while they read, but they create a movie with sounds, smells, tastes, and they can feel. These are only a few students who did an excellent job visualizing music and smells.

North Oldham Middle School Visit

Students had a great time working with North Oldham 8th graders on their partner fairy tale stories. The older students helped them with adding more details to their stories, revising, and editing. It was a great opportunity to learn from some more experienced writers.

Book Character Dress Up Day

We all had a blast on Book Character Dress up Day. Mrs. Rigdon, Mrs. Karen, and myself enjoyed dressing as characters from Sesame Street.

What's Going On in Writing?

Students have been hard at work completing two writing pieces. First, they created their own teaching book to display their strong schema in certain areas. This book also lets them use their new learning about nonfiction writing. We have gone very slow with this piece because we have been learning all about the writing process and how to use response groups, and buddy editing. For a first attempt at a writing piece using the writing process, they are doing well.

Second, students are working with a writing partner to create their own version of a fairy tale. We have been reading many versions of fairy tales and practicing making text to text connections all month. Students have also learned about characteristics of the fairy tale genre. So their stories will include things like talking animals or objects, the number 3 or 7, a villain, a good guy, and even a simile.

How Tall are My Teachers?

Students have been working very hard since the begininng of the year on measurement. We have learned about different measuring tools like rulers, meter sticks, yard sticks, and measuring tape. We also learned what different measurements each tool has and learned how to estimate the size of something. We measured some interesting things like classroom items, parts of our own bodies, and how far we can jump. We used this last one to learn how to make a tally chart and line plot. Both of these were really a challenge. Finally, we looked at some of our measurements and wrote comparisons sentences.

At the end of our unit the students were given a pretty big challenge as a transfer task. They had to measure 10 teachers and explain the tool they used, how they did it, create their own tally chart and line plot, and finally write some comparisons about the teachers, all on their own.

Second Grade, Here We Go!!!

The school year is under way and I have the pleasure of teaching 2nd grade this year. I am having a great time with my students, they are really bright and very sweet. Right now we are doing a fantastic author study on one of my favorite children's author, Kevin Henkes. We have read Lilly's Purple Plastic Purse and Chrysanthemum. Today the students had to draw a portrait of themselves and write why they liked their names. Here are a few wonderful examples from Mrs. K's Class Name Book.

Child Labor in America

Children were often preferred to work in factories, because factory owners viewed them as more manageable, cheaper, and less likley to strike. American children worked in large number`s in mines, glass factiries, textiles, agriculture, canneries, home industries, and as newsboys messengers, bootblacks, and peddlers. In 1836 Massachusetts limts children`s work days to 10 hours. other states soon pass similar laws, but most of these laws are consistently enforced. Some boys and girls were so small they had to climb up on the spinning frame to mend broken theards and to put back the empty bobbins!
By:Jenna:-)

Testing Day 1

Today we tested in reading and I have to say that I noticed many 5th graders really giving their maximum effort on their open responses and taking their time to answer their multiple choice questions. Remember to get a good night sleep, eat a healthy breakfast, and take it one day at a time. See you tomorrow!!
Mrs. K

Personal Narrative Podcast

Check out some of the wonderful narratives written by our outstanding 5th grade writers at Centerfield. Students were focusing on using great word choice, writing in slow motion, showing not telling, and using voice. I think they did a fantastic job. You can go on, listen to your classmates narrative, comment, and even download to your mp3 player as a podcast if you like. Enjoy!

Mrs. K

http://cewildcatpodcast.podcastpeople.com

Blog Check

Hey Guys,
I want to to see how many of you are actually getting on my blog regulary and reading our posts. Please leave me a post praising a classmate, friend, or teacher about something you have noticed about them lately. I will be rewarding those who are getting on the blog.
P.S. Don't share this info with anyone.
Mrs. K

Life Skills Winners and Student of the Month

Congratualtions to our Life Skills Winners for April and May

April/ Confidence:

Shane Davis

Kasey Markle

Madeline Skeeters

May/Cooperation:

Gillian Groomes

Payton Metcalfe

Mateo Rosario

April Student if the Month

Tainasia Beard

May Student of the Month

Sierra Hauck

District Governor's Cup

Congratulations to the Centerfield Academic Team members who placed in the top five of their academic areas at District Governor's Cup last month. They will be moving on to Regional Governor's Cup at Clear Creek Elementary on March 19th.

Sierra Hauck 1st place Langauge Arts

Julia Roy 2nd place Math

Tyler Mason 2nd place Science

Emma Lane 5th place Math

Madison Grau 5th place Composition

Lily Forseth 5th place Arts and Humanities

Reading Counts Quiz Challenge

Have you ever taken your reading log, went to the lab, logged on to Reading Counts, only to find you cannot find a quiz on any of the books you have been reading this year? It's frustrating! Well, we are now going to do something about it. For the next two weeks, we are going to have a Reading Counts quiz challenge. The challenge is that you need to make a 10 question, multiple choice quiz over any books from your reading log. Here's what you will need to include: the name of the book, the author's name, 10 multiple choice questions with 4 possible answers, and star the correct answer. It is very important that you really ask good questions about the book. Try to think like a teacher and ask questions about the main character, their family, the problem, the climax, the solution. You can also ask questions about the setting and other characters in the book. Make sure that you spell all names correctly.

The class with the most use able quizzes made in the next two weeks will receive a class reward that we will decide on together. Make sure to put your name on your quiz and check Reading Counts to make sure there is not a quiz already in there. Please turn all quizzes into me personally.
Mrs. K

Happy Birthday Dr. Seuss!!

Here are a couple of links to some great sites that celebrate one of my favorite authors, Dr. Seuss. Feel free to check them out and leave a comment.

http://http//www.seussville.com/

http://www.seussville.com/games/lb_sam_i_am.html

Verb Review and Flip Chip Activites

So, after learning about verbs in class, doing the superhero activity, completing the verb review, and the Flip a Chip activity what have you learned about verbs and verb tenses? How will this learning help you in the future in reading and writing? Please be specific.

Puzzle Time

Students took a different kind of vocab test this week. They were given the challenge to put together a puzzle then write a story to go along with the puzzle using their vocabulary words correctly. This was especially challenging since they were working with Homographs this week.

Here is a great example of a student's work:

Forever Friends

I love my puppy Coco. He is my best friend. My mom got him for me as a birthday present. It was in 2008. I was an invalid and my mom refused to let me go to school. Worst of all, it was my birthday.

I hated being sick. The objects around my room swirled around like a tornado. Everything got more blurry with every minute. My mom walked in to check my temperature.My mom has done that so many times today that I have a feeling the thermometer will be invalid. She objected when I asked her to quit.

"Honey, I got you something," she said. Then she presented me with a little minute puppy. He was so cute! He made my spirits soar and made me well enough to take out the refuse! I was even present at school the next day. I named the puppy CoCo and I still love him to death. He is and always will be my best friend.

by: Julia Roy

Verb Review and Flip a Chip Activity

Students have been hard at work identifying parts of a sentence and verbs. This is a great website that allows them to practice what they have learned at school.

Verb Review: When you finish the verb review, highlight, copy, and paste the self check sections into a word document. Print and turn it in for a grade.

http://cdis.missouri.edu/exec/data/courses2/8225/lesson05/study.asp

Flip a Chip:Students can also practice using grammar skills and verb tenses using this website. You should do all six activities and then print the final paper that says that you completed 6 out 0f 6 activities.

http://www.readwritethink.org/classroom-resources/student-interactives/flip-chip-30031.html

Congratulations Student of the Month and Life Skill Winners

Our Student of the Month was Emma Lane. She has really shown that she is serious about 5th grade. I would also like to conratulate our September Life Skill Winners for Responsibility: Emma Lane, Lauren McCabe, and Ben Kibiloski. They have really proven to be very responsible when it comes to doing the right thing, getting work completed, and working in groups.