A Whole New Cast!

It is a few days before the first day of school and I find myself not sleeping as well in anticipation of a whole new cast of second graders! There have been major changes in my professional life this summer and I'm anxious to begin working with new kids, a new aide, a new student teacher, two new second grade teachers, and possibly a new LBS1. As you can see this year is going to be all about a renewed energy with all of these new people. In case all of these new people in my life are not enough, I also have a new classroom and a new room code. I'm excited to share my brand new classroom with 22 anxious 2nd grade stars in just a few days! As for the new room code (2H), I expect 11 year old habits to die hard so these new students will probably get called 2Ha quite often. If you are one of my new stars, I would like to invite you to create a blog account so you can follow and respond to my blog this year! I can't wait to meet you for our first half day of school on Monday, August 23rd from 8:30-11:30! Even though it will be the morning, we will have a great "Opening Night!"

Thank you for a great year!!

I want to take a minute to thank each of you for sharing your child with me this year! I am thrilled that I had the privilegeof being their 2nd grade teacher! The last day of school is always an emotional one. Kids excited to be out for the summer and me sad to see them go! I know that I have prepared them to soar in 3rd grade! I will be checking up on them next year and for many years after that. I love when students come back to visit! This Tuesday, I had a former student who is graduating from high school this year stop in and say Thank You! It made my day! A few weeks ago one of my struggling readers from last year came to report her Dibels score from the end of third grade to me. She was so proud of herself! I loved that she knew that I would be proud of her, too! I hope I have made that kind of impact on your child and can't wait for them to come see me in the future!!

Reading Wow!!!

Today I finished testing the students to find their end of the year reading level. I'm very happy to report that the gains 2Ha students have made in reading are incredible. Our class as a whole has gone up 205 levels in reading this year. While this number is impressive to me, it is the students' actions in reading that impress me more. At the beginning of 2nd grade half of the students looked at me blankly when I asked them to retell what they had just read and the other half gave a half hearted attempt at hitting a few highlights from the passage they just read. Now they can all hit the major highlights and most of them splash their retellings with vivid descriptions from the passages they just read. At the beginning of the year, my second graders read mostly in monotone voices reading one word after the other with little comprehension of why the writer had used any kind of punctuation what so ever. Now, I hear the expression in their voices as they read ahead in their mind to determine how they think the author might have wanted that sentence to sound. Yes, 200 levels total is an incredible acheivement for any class of 2nd graders but I'm much more proud of the confindence that rings through their voices as they read any book that they set their mind on reading!!

Country Reports

WOW!!!! I was so impressed with the work you all did on your country posters! Most of you did an excellent job on your presentation as well. It is so hard to get up and speak in front of your peers and you did a great job!!! This project fulfills the state Language Arts goal about speaking and presenting. This is the first year that we have done this particular project so I would like some feedback.

If you have a favorite part of the project, something that was unclear about the assignment, or general comments that will help to make the project better for next year's 2nd graders, please comment about that this week!

Favorite Holidays

In Social Studies we have been talking about countries around the world and traditions. Some of my family came from Ireland many years ago. St. Patrick's Day is a day that my ancestors celebrated in Ireland a long time ago. Did you know that my favorite holiday is St. Patrick's Day? It hasn't always been my favorite but 13 years ago that changed when my daughter, Kourtni, was born on St. Patrick's Day! At our house we have a tradition to celebrate St. Patrick's Day and Kourtni's birthday together. We all wear green. We have birthday cake that has a St. Patrick's Day theme. We go out for dinner or have our favorite Irish meal, corned beef and cabbage. Kourtni is one of the only kids I know who gets presents for St. Patrick's Day.

This week, I would like you to write about your favorite holiday and the traditions that your family has for that holiday. If you would rather, write about the country that your ancestors came from and what holidays they might celebrate.

Determining Importance Assignment

This week, we have been learning about the comprehension strategy of determining importance. We have learned that this is a skill that we will need in all aspects of our life. The children had fun helping me decide what items from my huge purse were really important to fit into the little purse that I am taking on my trip to Florida at the end of next week.

This week, I would love for the children and parents to respond about times that they have had to use the skill of determining importance.

Welcome to my blog!

This is my first adventure into blogging! I hope that this can be a fun new way for students and parents to interact with me and each other! I hope parents and children alike will have fun commenting on the assignments I post! Stay tuned for the first assignment!