Last Week of September

Tuesday-      Day 1

Wednesday- Day 2

Thursday-    Day 3
Walk to Little Storm Lake Discover Center  with 2D

Friday-         Day4
Katie van der Linden-live animals!

Little Storm Lake Discovery Center, just across the street from the Elementary School.  Did you know this hidden gem was just behind the trees?  Photo courtesy of Presten Meineke

 

Tornado Fans Up in the Stands!

Call Me Maybe!

Varsity Tornado Cheer & Football Players!

Quiet boys.





Days ahead...

Remember that Friday is an early dismissal at 12:25.  There is also no school on Monday.  Kids, come back ready to tweet on Tuesday!

Orange!

Team day!

Homecoming Week!!!!

Happy Hat Day!

Monday-Hat day

Tuesday-Team day

Wednesday-Wear orange

Thursday-Funny Feet

Friday-Green & White Day!!!

I was born in a small town....

Kids worked on Thursday and Friday to build their own small communities.  They made decisions like:

• How many people live in my community?
• What kind of transportation do they use?
• What businesses would I like to have in my small town?

Writing with Words We Know

Students have been getting to know their shaken PWIM words in the last few weeks.  We have sorted them, looking for different word patterns.  We found short & long vowels and r controlled vowels.  Wednesday, students read their words again and decided which they were comfortable using in their writing .  They used those words to write quality 2nd grade sentences.  They focused on using the word correctly, having a capital letter to start the sentence, and a punctuation mark to end the sentence.

Book Orders

 

3 book orders were sent home with students today.  Please make checks out to Scholastic.  When parents order, the classroom benefits!  We bank points that are spent on free books for our classroom.

To fill out:  Mark the number of copies of the book you want in the QTY  column, then fill out the total price for those books.  Add up your grand total at the bottom.  Make sure your child's name is at the top of that order.  Send it to school in a sealed envelope or baggie.

Brainstorming and more....

Today we learned on Loop Scoops, that each year 4 billion juice boxes are used.  It takes 300 years for them to decompose. We figured out that this generation of students has contributed 28 billion juice boxes to the landfills so far. 

Solution?  Drink juice out of a glass!

Brainstorming different things we can recycle! ~Stefany



Nickolas is cleaning up the lake!

Oscar is finding recyclables in the ocean.  We learned about the Pacific Ocean Garbage Patch.  This was really disturbing to 2nd graders.  Beautiful marine animals suffering because of our carelessness.

Marine Debris-Pacific Garbage Patch

Hunter is recycling a water bottle!

Waste Reduction

In June, Mrs. Loving and I took a fantastic class at the Prairie Heritage Center near Petersen, IA.  B.V. County Solid Waste supported Buena Vista County teachers by paying for our class, the UNI credit, and all of our materials.  We recieved many great books for our classroom as well as wonderful ideas to educate children about waste in our world.  The following link will take you to a Pilot Tribune article about the class.

http://www.stormlakepilottribune.com/story/1839211.html

Mrs. Loving and I spent the last week team teaching.  We discussed many aspects of waste reduction, recycling, & reusing materials we already have.  Students learned that our main message was that we don't need more stuff to be happy.  Flat screens, Playstations, cool cars...they are just STUFF!

Students journaled about the things that bring them

true happiness:

family, a special pet, hugs, time with special people.

Project:

Snip the bottom of the tshirt...then tie it off like a baby blanket!

Josie & Benny

Ximena, Tammy, Raquel, Dol, Hailey, Mia, Stefany, Josie, Tracy 

Benny, Oscar, Nickolas, Joseph, Alexis, Hunter, Skyler

Students brought in tshirts and jeans to repurpose.  Many of them had holes and were ready to be given away for hand-me-downs or sent to Goodwill.  Mrs. Loving had students make a few quick cuts to their tshirt and it became a brand new bag!  I had students turn jeans into jean-shorts or capris and then decorate them.  There were many smiles admiring each other's new clothing.  Everyone was inspired to make more tshirt bags!



Hunter's sweet designs.

 

Front row: Ashley, Ximena, Hailey, Stefany, Josie
Middle row: Adrian, Benny Tammy, Skyler, Raquel, Mia, Tracy
Back row: Bryan, Jerson, Hunter, Joshua, Oscar, Dol, Nickolas, Justin

Showing off our Pants & Bags!

Full Day Friday!

This is a reminder that there is no class for Storm Lake Schools on Monday due to the Labor Day holiday.  Please take advantage of the events happening this weekend in our great city!  Kids, get outside and enjoy the weather! 

Community Calendar-Storm Lake United

Math

We are starting our year making class graphs of our birthdays.  We made a bar graph and a pictograph with our information, then compared it to another classes data.  We found out we have many July birthdays!

Today we talked about animals that live in groups and the labels we give them.  A pod of whales, a litter of kittens, a pack of wolves were some of our examples.  We then worked cooperatively to solve different kinds of problems involving the animal groups.  Fun! 

First Day

Hailey and Ximena started their morning right!  Great breakfast with friends!

Hunter worked so hard at using good vocabulary, sounding out words and drawing to show that he understood our story today.  Six Dinner Sid was a great story about a very sneaky cat!

Happy New Year!

I am looking forward to meeting all of my new students!

Welcome conferences
Monday, August 20
Tuesday, August 21

Classes begin
Wednesday, August 22  12:25 dismissal
Thursday, August 23 12:25 dismissal

First full day of school
Friday, August 24


Specials will start on Friday August 24
Day 1  PE-Art
Day 2  Guidance-Challenge
Day 3  Music-PE
Day 4  Library-Computer
*It is your child's responsibility to wear tennis shoes on PE days, or keep a pair in their locker or backpack.

Morning routine at school:
7 am Morning ETA starts
7:50 all non-ETA students may enter the building
Second grade students should go directly to breakfast or the gym, not their lockers.  Bathrooms in the commons area may be used.  When students are dismissed from the gym at 8:20, they will be escorted as a grade to their lockers and may use the restrooms before heading to their classroom.

Class begins at 8:20....please be on time.  It is a walk from the zone to our classroom so make sure you drop your child off no later than 8:15 if they are not eating breakfast.