Our roller coaster day will be November 15 and we are still in need of:
*grey pipe insulation ( long foam tubing we cut in half for the roller coaster track)
*wide masking tape
*paper towel or better yet, wrapping paper tubes
Mrs. Riggert's Second Grade |
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And don't forget to check the parent page for updated book reports, calendars, and newsletters. In Science , we started our unit on Force and Motion. The pictures below show kids writing what they want to learn one know more about with force and motion, and doing two experiments. First up, Jackson is demonstrating our 2 gravity experiments. Then we see each table using their force (of breath) to move a pompom into a square. Our roller coaster day will be November 15 and we are still in need of: *grey pipe insulation ( long foam tubing we cut in half for the roller coaster track) *wide masking tape *paper towel or better yet, wrapping paper tubes Fun 3 digit Halloween math.... The kids practiced formula writing, creating books on the BookCreator app, using story cubes to write fun Halloween stories, and rainbow writing. Look how awesome these character pumpkins turned out! Thanks to all those kids who went the extra mile to create a one-of-a-kind pumpkin...they rock! In reading groups we are reading various non-fiction books to strengthen our knowledge of informational text features. Later in the month our focus will turn to reading Historical Fiction stories. On Friday, Mrs. Moore came to talk with the kids about honesty and telling the truth even though it is hard to do. She came in and specifically highlighted this topic on my request because we have had things go missing, my iPad screen smeared with something sticky, and notes written to a person with a different persons name on it. The kids responded well to her lesson and I am hopeful that we can turn this behavior around :)
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What an incredibly fun and exciting week it was all leading up to our annual Fall Party and Parade. We did many things this week, but here are the highlights... After we read The Littlest Pumpkin, the kids created their own fun and unique pumpkin. The kids worked on a Monster Swap which was basically a How-To. They had to draw the picture then write a detailed description on how to recreate that picture. Then today they tried drawing the same picture but only following the directions- you can see below how hard that was! How cool are these costume projects?! Getting ready and the parade! And here is the party- which of course ROCKED! So I am a little behind in catching you all up with what has been happening the past two very, BUSY weeks so I have combined everything into one blog entry! Here below we see kids sharing their brainstorming work with a friend. We are still working on creating personal narrative, small moment stories about themselves. Mrs. Hall came in to team teach Formula Writing with me last week. This is a graphic organizer that eventually everyone in the school will use when planning their writing. We planned and wrote one story together and then the kids wrote their own Halloween story this week using the planner. Down below you will see that right after they learned Formula Writing, a kiddo applied it the very next day in her Family Message Journal! ![]() Walk to school day...too bad we lost to a Michigan school (they had more kids walk than us) so Mrs. Rykowski will have to wear a Michigan shirt :( Our unit on Maps and Globes is going well- the kids have loved looking at different kinds of maps, learning about land forms and doing research for their state reports! Mrs. Moore started coming in for Circle of Grandparents- this week (10-14) we talked about responsibility. Practicing to use rulers correctly, looking at inches, feet and yards and place value have been on the top of our lists the past two weeks in math. Kids were so happy to be using rulers that several took an idea in the BUILD and created their own qr code measuring paper for their friends to use! And of course the Dance-a-ton! How awesome did Mrs. Rykowski look in that rockstar outfit! Thanks to everyone for their help on that day or getting donations for the school. We really appreciate it! My class has decided to write a letter to the PTA asking them to consider a Read-a-thon or an ArtsandCrafts-a-thon. They feel ALL the related arts should be supported! Measuring our stuffed animals... Today we gave compliments way with little critters attached! It was great fun to see how wonderfully creative the compliments were! And finally.... Don't forget conferences are next week! See you all then :) Happy Wet Friday! The rain may have been the weather outside this week, but it didn't dampen our mood inside :) Don't forget to check folders today....newsletters, book reports, calendars and more came home. Don't forget that it is a new month for Scholastic and the blog has been updated in the parent section. Fun games to play during indoor recess this week....of which we had many days inside this week. If kids have games they want to bring in on days you know we will be indoors, feel free to do so :) And here they are in action...our second grade scientist! The kids really loved doing these experiments, ranging from sink and float, to dissolving items in water, looking at velocity, and evaporation. The virtual lab was very exciting too with the parachute and egg! Below are the kids sharing their paper bag book reports. Notice there are sitting at Compass Roses so that each can take a turn talking! Watching Arthur.... Classroom Gallery rocked today! The kids learned about Kandinsky and created really beautiful pieces of art! Don't forget that tomorrow at 10:00 is the Cardboard challenge. Come for 10 minutes, stay the whole time!! Second grade has chosen their theme wardrobe for Dance-a-thon.....Sports! Come dressed in sports attire on Friday October 7th for a ton of fun and dancing! Yay! Our tiny notebooks arrived this week.....and just in time! Writers Workshop started this week and the kids have been really using them to jot down their small moment story ideas. The classroom was so quiet, I think it was the quietest lesson so far this year, when I handed out those notebook and they started writing down their ideas ;) They will be working on personal narratives, small moment stories for the next few weeks and I am excited to share all that work with you at conferences. In science this week week we learned how scientists work and the procedures they go through when creating experiments. The experiment we did this week involved whether food coloring would disperse quicker in hot or cold water. After we did several tests, we learned that the blue coloring dispersed quicker in hot water. We then thought of a second question, what about other colors? Out of the four colors yellow, red, blue, and green, which would be the quickest in hot water? It looked like red was the winner- then yellow, green and blue as the slowest. Which led us to wonder, where would orange and purple fall...closer to blue/green side or red/orange side? The kids loved doing the experiments and talking about them! Math this week saw a shift from adding two digit numbers to telling time. They jumped right in to telling time to the 5 minutes, along with hour, half hour and duration. In keeping with this topic, all the BUILD games have been changed to include games with telling time. The kids also made clocks today to help them with homework or to use during our lessons! ![]() This app looked interesting because one option is to tell time the opposite way than we are used to- twenty minutes past ten instead of 10:15. I have not used this app yet, but plan to download this app this weekend. MathTappers Click the image to go to the Google site for it. ![]() Quick Clocks- (or Clocks) (by Simply Things) This was hard to find because if you search for it on the App Store by "clocks" it is hard to find! I LOVE this app. It gives many ways to practice time- all of which are perfect for second graders. It is challenging but I highly recommend it. Click the image to go to the Google site for it. Don't forget that book reports are due at the end of this week. We will have a popcorn party and watch an Arthur movie to celebrate on Friday. I will be buying popcorn that is free of any of our classroom allergies. I will send email on Monday of specific brand ( I can't remember the big bag I get from Giant Eagle) If anyone has questions, please send me an email. And finally, here are two questions the kids answered this week- well one was a question, the other was a note. I hope your week was full of as much joy and learning as ours was...Have a great weekend :) This week we added a few new things to Daily 5. The first, and most exciting was Listen to Reading. You can see from the pictures that the kids a chance to use many different things to listen: Chrome books, iPads, tape recorders, and our newest addition, the CD players. I am particularly excited about the CD players because they came from a PTA grant I applied for last year. They are wonderful because I also got with the players a box that allows up to 8 people to listen at the same time! In Work on Writing, we added writing a re-tell for a story along with a "How-To". We practiced by having everyone doing a "How to slide down a slide.". You can see that we then when outside and I tried to follow their directions, much to their amusement and surprise that they often had parts missing! In BUILD, the kids rotated through various stations that had various games involving addition and subtraction, and using pattern blocks to create tessellations. Also in Math, we practiced using place value as a way to add two digit numbers. For example, say you are adding 43 + 31. You take the big number and think "Ok I start at 43. If I pull apart or expand 43 I get 4 tens or 40 and 3 ones or 3---31 into place value that is 3 tens, or 30 and 1 one or 1. 40 + 30 is 70 and 3 + 1 is 4 so the answer is 74. The idea is to get them to add mentally as much as possible. Here are the pictures I promised last week from the "All about me" project!
**Before I forget, Cardboard Challenge is looking to second grade for donations of bottles of glue for the October 1st Cardboard Challenge even. Please consider donating- just have your child bring it in to school and we'll take it from there...and thanks!! Even though it was a short week, we sure did pack a lot into it! Today , we had the opportunity for Mr. Norris to come in and help us boost up a table so that kids could stand and work. Allowing for flexible seating is our goal this year and this is a great example of how we used math today to achieve that! Kids can use this at any time during the day as an option. Two other great examples are the stools and cushions... We worked on several writing projects this week, but my favorite by far was the "The best part of me" class book we created. Here you can see the kids putting their final touches on their work. Once they are all done, I will take pictures of each and post them. They will be hanging on the bulletin board outside the room so if you happen to stop by, check them out! Next week they will write about a friend that is important to them. In spelling this week we focused on antonyms and synonyms . Their favorite activity was finding a friend who had the other "synonym' roll to theirs! Along with some work on compound words :) Next week we will be looking at homophones! In math we finished Module 1 and took our first math test! The kids did great- look for those to come home next week. The kids also had a chance to practice their math facts using ipads, computers and several fun hands-on activities with a partner. And finally, here are two questions of the day...How would you answer them?!
Good Friday afternoon :) Below you will catch a glimpse into our VERY busy week! For reading all this week the focus has been on setting. The kids capped off this work with some creativity by making a triorama of a book they read this week. They worked so hard and they look terrific! In math we not only worked on place value, but even and odd numbers. This concept of even and odd is still not a firm concept with some kiddos, so any chance you get please ask them if a number is even or odd :) During Theme we read the book, "The Invisible Boy" which talks about Brian, a boy is is overlooked by friends and his teacher. We wrote and discussed a lot about how to treat others and how to make our classroom the best it can be. You will also see kids putting up fingers while they are reading. They are practicing the Five Finger Rule, which is on the yellow bookmark in the packet from Curriculum Night. It helps kids see that if they miss too many words, they should put the book away and read one that is a little easier. Have a great long weekend and we'll see everyone on Tuesday! Fall Conferences this year will be held the week of October 17th. Follow the link below, take a look at the times, and sign up for what best fits your schedule. I have included some early morning times if that works too! If you will be out of town or need something different, please let me know. What a great week it has been! Thanks to everyone who stopped by for curriculum night- it was a great turn out! I also found a few more "Helping Hand" on my desk afterwards- thanks! If you still want to donate something to the classroom we still need one more chair :) Here are some pictures of math and reading/writing time! I added more pictures to SeeSaw, the app I was telling you all about yesterday. A paper went home today sharing how to get to the website and sign up. See you all on Sunday for the Carnival!! Well, our week has ended and what a great week it was! Yesterday we shared our "Get to know you bags" and learned that we all had a connection or a similar like/interest with someone else in the class! What was even more fun was when we played the toilet paper game- where you take as much as you need- then you have to share as many items about yourself as the # of squares of tp you took. The average was 4 but there were a couple that had to share 7 or 8 things about themselves! We also played a fun get up and move activity called friend bingo where they had to find people that fit in their box, such as "I love chocolate ice cream" or " I have 2 brothers" We got so much done in this short week- learning about the classroom, our friends, teachers, and what to expect to do in second grade. It's a great adventure we begin together and I can't wait to share it all with you.
So that's a wrap and have a great weekend! What an EXCELLENT day we had in second grade!!! The kids had a great time catching up with each other, getting to know our new routines, and trying new things. Below are some snap shots from the day- Usually I take more pictures but the day ran away from us and I was so busy working with students I only got a few- look for more on Friday :)
Remember, if you haven't had a chance to subscribe to the blog please do so now- it should be on the right side of this panel. Remember that this is the primary way I will communicate with parents. Before you get started- if you are a parent from last year make sure you unsubscribe from the blog so you don't keep getting emails that I have posted- and have a GREAT third grade year :)
Hello in coming second grade families! Welcome to 2nd grade! My name is Kirsten Riggert and I will be your child’s second grade teacher this year! I am so excited to be your child’s teacher and I am looking forward to a great year! This year is my 26th year of teaching and my 11th at Evening Street. I grew up in Cleveland, went to Ohio University, lived in Chicago for 16 years and then moved back to Ohio with my husband and son. In my free time I enjoy gardening, traveling, cooking (I taught cooking classes for 6 years) and spending time with my family. I am excited to get to know each of you as the year progresses! Now…some business. This part is long so stay with me! Open house is Tuesday, August 16. You may either come from 11:00-12:00 or 5:30-6:30. You don’t need to come to both! When you come, please bring all of your child’s school supplies, not labeled. You will label some when you come in and others won’t get labels. I would love for about half of you to come at 11 and half of you to come at 5:30. So I know when to expect you, I have created a sign-up. Please click the link below and sign up for a time. http://www.signupgenius.com/go/20f0948a4a82da0f94-meet The first day of school is Wednesday, August 17. Allergies if your child has any allergies, please check in with me either via e-mail or in person to ensure we are all on the same page. Last…I have a class website. I use this as my main method of communication rather than sending group e-mails. I will also be putting pictures and other things on this website (I will have you sign a permission form for pictures when you are at open house). On the this page, you will see a space for you to put in your e-mail and subscribe to receive updates in your e-mail. Please enter your e-mail and subscribe to receive updates in your e-mail. I also recommend that you bookmark the website and check back for pictures! Whew! I think that’s it for now! Thanks for sticking with me! I can’t wait to meet all of you at open house on Tuesday, August 16! Well, we've done it! Another great year in the books! Below are some pictures from the last week of school. First up is Teach the Teacher day. It was incredible to see everyone come up with great ideas on what to share. Everything from how to throw and catch a baseball to what is a Venus fly trap and everything in between! We had fun with the last four days of school.... DQ... The last day party at the Posey's was wonderful! Thanks to all the parents who made the day extra special and helped out - the kids really had a blast! Thanks again everyone for a wonderful year...we'll see you next year!
Happy last Friday everyone! Wow was this a busy and fun day. First the kids had Town which was incredible! Everyone worked so hard to put together such a great business and such excellent customer service!! The pictures below capture but a small glimpse into the 150 people that came through Street 103, Nowlandville, and Thomas Avenue. Then my son Paul and his best friend Samuel came in to teach the kids how to kick a football. Sam is the kicker for the University of Toledo Rockets and every year he comes in to show them that both boys and girls can be kickers in high school and college. Here is our Dive into Summer project..... |
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April 2017
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