Reading with Mr. D

Ms. Broomstick's School for Witches

We have the BEST Special Subject teachers ever! Due to all the rain that we have been having, the ground was too wet for us to go outside and play. In celebration of Halloween, Mr. D, our P.E. teacher read us Ms. Broomstick's School for Witches. This story was about a little witch named Pandora. Pandora stayed in all kind of trouble because she did not follow directions. She attends school once the sun has set. We loved this book. This helped us realize that if we don't follow directions, we can make all kinds of mistakes. Once Mr. D finished reading the book, we exercised to a fun video that Mr. D does with us. He is the best P. E. teacher.

Mr. D reading to our class!

We Love Centers!

This week we have been learning new material! Ms. Donlin has been teaching us a lot of new objectives this week. We go to centers everyday in Ms. Strum's room. We go to four different centers everyday. The four centers that we go to are Phonics, Reading Comprehension, Writing, and Grammar. The phonics center this week that we went to was challenging. Ms. Donlin introduced 2 brand new objectives to us. The two objectives that we learned were Context Clues and Main Idea.

Ms. Donlin told us that the Main Idea is when we read a passage or story and we tell what it was "mostly about". Ms. Donlin told us that when we have main ideas, we also have supporting details that match the main idea. The next thing that we learned about this week was Context Clues. Context clues are key words in a sentence, paragraph, or story that help us determine the meaning of an unknown word or words.

The centers that we went to today are on context clues, main idea, beginning, middle, end, and possessives. Ms. Donlin did the main idea center with us. At this center, Ms. Donlin gave us a story to read and a sheet with a flower. We read the story and then filled out the flower dealing with main idea. We wrote the main idea in the middle of the flower and the supporting details on the petals. Another center that we went to was Beginning, Middle, End. Ms. Strum gave us several paragraphs mixed up. We had to cut the paragraphs apart and put them in order the way it occured from beginning, middle, end. At the phonics center, we were given a sheet of construction paper that we had to fold into thirds. We labeled the first section word, the second section definition, and the third section context clues. The next thing we had to do was cut the words out and glue them in the words column. We then determined what the word meant and wrote it in the definition column. In the third coumn, we wrote down the words that helped determine what words we used to help determine the meaning of the unknown word. The final center was on possessive nouns. Ms. Donlin gave us a list of nouns. We were given a shark and a sheet of construction paper. We glued the shark in the middle of the paper. On the left had side of the paper, we glued the list of nouns. Once we had done this, we were given little strips of construction paper to write noun on using the correct possessive rule.

James and Jemarcus hard at work on the Beginning, Middle, and End Center.

Ms. Donlin working with Karlon, Shamiah, Derrick, Tierra, Ladarius, and Toni on Main Idea.

Johnathan, Brianna, Xzyia, and Alex at work in the possessive center.

Kesheona and James working on possessives.

Jairus, Ladarius M., and Kenosha hard at work on context clues.

As you can tell, we love centers. Ms. Strum loves centers as much as we do! We are able to work independently, with a partner, or a small group. Ms. Strum makes sure that we enjoy the work that we are to complete. We love to be "involved" in our work! Come see us and watch us work!

A Drug Free LIfe is KEY!

Alex, Ladarius C., Kenosha, James, Xzyia, Tierra, Johnathan, and Toni sporting their Red Ribbons!

This week we will be celebrating Red Ribbon Week at our School! Red Ribbon Week is when we promote being DRUG FREE! It is important to be DRUG FREE so that we can stay healthy. Ms. Strum taught us that drugs are bad for your body. This week Mrs. Torrey, our counselor, planned some fun activities during counseling time so that we would know why it is so important to be drug free! Mrs. Torrey asked that each classroom decorate their door to support Red Ribbon Week! Our room is located in House C for all of 2nd grade and the 10-12 year old Montessori room. Our house showed school spirit by all of our rooms decorating our doors. Check out our Drug Free Door Decorations!

Mrs. Beards' Class Red Ribbon Week Door

Ms. Meeks' Red Ribbon Week Door

Ms. Stamps' Red Ribbon Week Door

Ms. Williams' Red Ribbon Week Door

Ms. Strum's Red Ribbon Week Door-OUR CLASS!

What GREAT door decorations we have in House C! As you can tell, we have GREAT school SPIRIT and enjoy supporting it!

The Music's in ME!

Tonight our school had its 1st PTA Program of the Year. Our 2nd and 3rd graders presented The Music's in Me. We began the night with Dr. Bowen welcoming everyone that had come out to see the program. Our PTA President greeted everyone and let everyone know what has been going on this school year and what the PTA has been doing to help. This year Mrs. Williams put together a Show Choir of 4th and 5th grade boys and girls from our school.Tonight they did their DEBUT performance by singing the song "We Go Together" from the movie Grease. They were AWESOME!

Our Principal welcoming everyone to our PTA Program.

Our PTA President greeting everyone and letting them know all the PTA is doing this school year.

Our 1st School Show Choir's BIG DEBUT!

The 4th and 5th grade Show Choir performing "We Go Together" from GREASE!

The BIG closing of the Show Choir's DEBUT!

The second and third graders then presented their program of The Music's in ME! Mrs. Williams does such a great job of teaching us the songs and motions for our program. This program consisted of many different songs, dances, and motions. Mrs. Williams taught us songs such as Pizza-Pizza-Daddy-O, The Lion Sleeps Tonight, and many others. Mrs. Williams shared with everyone as much as we love to sing....we love to DANCE even more! Mrs. Williams taught us (the second and third graders) different dances from the different decades. She taught us the HUSTLE, the TWIST, and the Boot-Scootin-Boogie.

Everyone getting in their places to begin the show!

The children singing The Lion Sleep Tonight as the dance.

Look at those MOVES!!!

Dancing, Dancing, Dancing!

We LOVE music!

As you can tell, we love to sing and dance! Ms. Strum said that we did an AWESOME! You can tell that we were paying attention in Music class. Mrs. Williams is the BEST MUSIC teacher!

OUR BIG FINALE!

What a great night of music and dancing!

The Little Old Lady Who Was Not Afraid of Anything

WOW! What a week we have had! This week took our District 1st Nine Weeks Test! We took our Reading Test on Tuesday, Language Test on Wednesday, and Math Test on Thursday. Today our school had a Reading Party. Ms. Strum read us one of her favorite Halloween books. The name of the book is The Little Old Lady Who Was Not Afra of Anything. This book is about a Little Old Lady who went for a walk in the woods. The little old lady went for a walk in the woods and pants, shoes, socks, shirt, and a hat were chasing her. The little old lady was not scared of anything UNTIL the pumpkin head started chasing her. She took of running all the way back to her cottage. Thel oants, shoes, shirt, socks, hat, and pumokin head ALL chased her back to her cottage. Once the little old lady got back to her cottage, she came up with an idea of what to do with the pumpkin head, shirt, socks, shoes, pants, and hat.

Jairus and Kenosha hard at work on their Flip Book on the story.

Once Ms. Strum finished reading the story, she told us that were going to make a Flip Book on the story. Ms. Strum told us that we were going to include the Beginning, Middle, and End from The Little Old Lady Who Was Not Afraid of Anything. We had to write sentences that told what happened as well as illustrate.

Derrick, Johnathan, Karlon, and Trinity work on their Beginning, Middle, and End Flip Book!

Fall is Here!

Ms. Strum has been teaching us since the beginning of the year how to use the Writing Process to write a paragraph. Ms. Strum has taught us that there are 5 steps in the Writing Process. The first step to the writing process is Brainstorming. Ms. Strum taught us that brainstorming is when we organize our thoughts and ideas using a graphic organizer. Ms. Strum told us that today we were going to begin writing a descriptive paragraph. Our student teacher, Ms. Donlin, taught us this lesson. Ms. Donlin told us that we were going to use our 5 senses (hear, see, taste, feel, and smell) to write a descriptive paragraph. Ms. Donlin took us outside to observe and use our 5 senses to describe Fall. We came back inside and made a bubble map describing fall. We then wrote a rough draft on Fall. Ms. Donlin then taught us how to revise and edit the paragraph on Fall before we published the paragraph. Ms. Donlin told us that when we revise, we add sentences and details to our paragraph. She also told us that during the editing stage of the Writing Process, we make corrections to our paragraph about Fall. Once we edited our paragraph about fall, we published it. Ms. Donlin told us that when we publish, we are writing the paragraph in our neatest handwritng without any spelling or grammatical errors.

We went outside to observe the 5 senses of Fall!

Ms. Donlin teaching us how to write a descriptive paragraph about Fall.

We were listening to what Ms. Donlin was teaching us about writing a descriptive paragraph.

As you can tell, we had a great time time observing Fall using the 5 senses. We enjoyed writing a descriptive paragraph about Fall. By the end of this school year, our goal is to write 3 paragraphs as we go through the writing process weekly!

Rain, Rain, Go Away!

WOW! As we all know, we have had lots and lots of rain! Ms. Strum could tell that we were getting very restless, because we needed to release ALL of our ENERGY! About two years ago, Ms. Strum wrote a grant for P.E. equipment and materials. The Junior League gave Ms. Strum the money so that we can could have these supplies. Ms. Strum has an Aerobic Dance CD that she was able to purchase with the money. Ms. Strum put on the CD and let us dance. We have to listen to the directions that the person on the aerobic CD says. One dance that we do is the TWIST! We had SO MUCH FUN doing this! Ms. Strum said that we could do this alot more.

Hopping on ONE foot!

HOKEY POKEY

Dancing, Dancing, Dancing!

Johnathan, Quaniesha, and Kenosha having a GREAT time releasing that energy!

Everyone having a great time dancing!

We had a great time dancing and releasing our built up ENERGY due to all of the rain! What a great way to help release this within the room. As you can tell, we have a GREAT class.

Subjects and Predicates

This week we have learned a great deal about Sentence Structure! We have learned to identify complete and incomplete sentences. Ms. Donlin taught us about subjects and predicates. Ms. Donlin told us that a subject is who or what is doing the action and that a predicate is the action is being done. Ms. Donlin called us up as individuals or in groups to act out the predicate. We had to tell Ms. Donlin what the subject was and what the predicate was that was being acted out! Ms. Donlin had us match the correct subject with the correct predicate that was acted out.

Quaniesha, Briana, and Shamiah acting out walking in a line.

Ladarius C. and Ladarius M. acting out dancing as the predicate, while Jemarcus looks on.

Johnathan, James, and Alex acting out the Predicate-hopping on one foot.

Karlon acting out the predicate-swimming.

Derrick acting out him drinking a glass of milk.

Bryson acting out washing his hands.

As you can tell, we had a great time learning about subjects and predicate. Ms. Donlin had such a fun lesson that will help us remember subjects and predicates.