UPDATES

timberwolvesGo Timberwolves

A & W Night… and other fundraisers have helped us raise lots of money this year.

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Field trip to the movie in Idaho Falls and to the park for lunch.

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A to Z end of the year fun!

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Lit Groups 

Year after year, students and parents alike say one of their favorite things about second grade in my class has been the lit groups.  Coming into second grade and starting out just working on picture books, then working through several chapter books with the aid of a teacher… but MORE importantly their parents and teams.  They love to present, act out, and try to convince the rest of the class to read the book they feel so proud they’ve just finished reading.  And why not?  It is an awesome thing to finish reading a chapter book?  Keep going!

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Confidence Building Activities

The school counsellor is working on some fun activities with the students.  And… I have a few fun activities up my sleeve.  AKA… Conductor, Elevator, and more.  They love playing team building games when we have a few minutes here and there.

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Community Involvement

Each year, we try to get community members to come in and share their businesses with us as we learn about how a city functions.  We learn about city hall, government, banking, and more.  We’ve had the mayor, bankers, the historical society, and other members come in.  This year when we learned about a bakery as part of the town, we invited “Downtown Bread” to come in.  The owner shared with us what it is like to be a business owner.  She taught us about bees and why she uses honey in her bread.  She let the children smell a brick of yeast and let it rise in class.  The children squealed and made faces at the smell at it’s pungent smell.  Afterward, she gave each child a freshly baked cookie!  Later, we created our own city with boxes.  The kids loved to discuss the crucial parts of a city (we somehow forgot a grocery store for a while, but we fixed that by eliminating and renovating one of our TWO pet stores).

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Children’s Art Museum  

The Children’s Art Museum in Idaho Falls came as a guest art teacher and spent 3 hours with our class teaching us to work with oil pastels and water colors together.  They taught us to look at the difference between warm and cool colors.  We looked a various patterns and lines.  We drew either a stegosaurus or triceratops.  It was a delightful experience!

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Children’s Author Gary Hogg

Gary Hogg came to our school and had one on one conferences with our grades teaching our students to be authors.  He told us all to be AMAZING!  We all are.  He encouraged the students to put more descriptive words in their writing and to buckle down during their writing time.

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Christmas Time and Party 2014

Our party was so much fun, we decorated cookies, played Minute to win it, Bingo, saw Santa, and each child got to make their own adorable rice bean bag Olaf snowman to take home.  Thank you to all the parent volunteers!

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HALLOWEEN… OCTOBER 31, 2014

We had a hauntingly fun time.  The kids were dressing in spooky, cute, and original costumes for the parade.  We had great volunteers who helped us play games to keep us busy for the party.  Thanks for all the fun!

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October 28, 2014

Great PUMPKIN GIVE AWAY.  We are so grateful to get pumpkins again this year.  The kids enjoyed decorating their own pumpkins.

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October 27, 2014

RED RIBBON WEEK.  We kicked off red ribbon week by having two officers from the Blackfoot Police Department showing off the drug dog, Moxie.  She was fantastic to watch.  We learned all about Moxie’s ability to track a variety of drugs.

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OCTOBER 20, 2014

Today we had fire fighters come and show us what to do in case of a home fire.  We watched videos.  They challenged each child to go home and do two things: 1- talk to their parents and get a safety plan in place. (Where will you meet?)  2- Check your fire alarms!  The children got to see the firefighters in full uniform so they will not be afraid of them in case of a fire.  We learned great lessons on safety.  Sparky shook hands, we looked at the fire truck, and we crawled around with the firefighter!

Thank you Blackfoot Fire Fighters for your dedication!

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October 2, 2014

Grandparent’s Day.  Today was so fun!  A gentleman came to the school from Ucon who owns three camels.  He brought a boy camel to Wapello so that we could ask questions, pet, and even see our nice principal Mrs. Taylor ride it!  At the end of the day, the school swarmed with grandparents who came to show their love.  The second grade had a sock hop in the gym.  Other fun activities were happening all throughout the building.

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Sept. 15, 2014

I will be sending home the first homework packet this week.  Here is a link to SpellingCity for this week’s list, a fun interactive practice site that has our list already typed in and games that will help your child study (if you choose– NOT REQUIRED).  Look under Imagine It and “Because Of You” for the story’s summary, spelling list, and vocabulary words.  You’ll also find the grammar concept for the week (common and proper nouns).  We have also finished the start ups in Math Connects, so we are beginning Chapter 1 with that.  If you have questions, please feel free to contact me.  I will soon be contacting those of you who wanted to volunteer and getting times for you to come in!  Thanks for your support!

Sept. 9, 2014

Inventors!  We read a short story about a sneaky elf and a mouse caught in the rain.  The mouse was resting under a toadstool and the elf took the toadstool and invented the first umbrella to keep dry.  We watched some clips about kid inventors and checked out a site for kid inventors on the web.  Then we went to work with our imaginations.  The children were asked to come up with the problem they were solving, draw it out, and describe their invention.  Of course, their favorite part was building the prototype!

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Sept. 8, 2014

For parents worrying about when homework and tests will begin, do not worry.  We are still in the “Smart Start” phase.  There is about a 10 day start up part in all of the curriculum where concepts are introduced, warming up, and benchmarking for the year.  Your child’s first homework, spelling lists, and more will go home Monday next week.  The first tests won’t be until that Friday (the 19th) .  I will keep you informed.  No worries!

 

Sept 3, 2014   HELP!  Save Fred!

We did another team building activity.  The students had to solve a fun problem where they had to “save Fred” the gummy worm who was caught on top of his ship in the ocean and his gummy life preserver was under his ship.  Using only the tools (4 regular paper clips) I provided  they had to get the gummy Life Saver around Fred.  They couldn’t let Fred drown by falling on the desk, they couldn’t touch anything with their hands by their tools, and Fred and the Life Saver had to be in tact.  It was great because every team had to use all of their team to accomplish their task.

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Sept. 2, 2014 FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL FUN!

We had a tower building contest so I could observe several different aspects about your child’s personalities as I get to know them more.  It was fun to watch them think, show leadership skills, work together, and cope with failures.  I saw quiet leaders, risk takers, observers, strong thinkers, team players, independent workers, and so many different strengths come out by one activity.  All the while, the kids had a blast.   The teams were given very fragile spaghetti noodles, marshmallows of various sizes, scotch tape, a yard of string and about 20 minutes to build a tower.  The one rule:  See how high you can build a tower and keep one mini marshmallow on top without any support.

They had a lot of fun!

Winner marsh

Winning team with the highest tower.

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First Day of School!: Tuesday, Sept. 2nd, 2014.   It is going to be a great year at Wapello.  Remember early release Tuesday and Wednesday.  We go home at 12:40 both days.

Back to School Night: Scheduled Thursday, Aug 28, from 6-7 pm.  I am excited to meet you all!

Back to school night went well.  I felt we had a great time.  School is starting soon.  Have a great weekend!

2 thoughts on “UPDATES

  1. From the moment Joshua walked though the for all he could say was he couldn’t wait for school tomorrow. Thanks for making his first day awesome!

    • Thanks, Krystal. He is a great kid. I think we’ll have a fun year. Josh was quiet at first, observing his team and thinking it through. Then, he soon took the lead on his team, guiding them, and really helping them build a sturdy tower. It is fun to see their personalities come out when I do team building activities. I haven’t tried this one with 2nd graders, but I wanted to see how it’d work. They did very well!

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