We are thankful for....

Miss Dower is thankful for 19 wonderful, smart, healthy, wonderful students who make her smile every day. She is also thankful that she has such wonderful supportive parents of students who bake her bread, help make copies, organize the literacy library, donate whiteboard markers, and bring Starbucks!

Sarah is thankful for Sadie Lady because she is cute.

Aakash is thankful for his friends who are nice to him.

Lucy is thankful that she can run, walk, play, and do fun things.

We are all thankful for the earth.

Aubrey is thankful for a house because if we were outside, we could die.

Caelyn is thankful her dogs Otto and Quamer because they're cute and playful.

Raghav is thankful for school because it's always fun.

Leon is thankful for having such a nice teacher.

Olivia is thankful for a beautiful, awesome, cute, perfect, and just right classroom.

Mike is thankful for Thanksgiving holiday and sleep.

Sofia is thankful for the books, the classroom, and her teacher, Ms. Dower.

Rachael is thankful for all of her family, her mom, her dad, her sister, and horseback riding.

Nehan is thankful for learning, reading, writing, and cursive.

Ryan is thankful for every single classmate and happy that all the things that everyone has.

Emilee is thankful for her friends and playing with them.

Travis is thankful for his house because it keeps him warm and safe from storms.

Ryland is thankful for his house, and school.

Ella is thankful for love.

Endangered Animals

Part of our unit on Sharing the Planet involves learning about endangered animals.
This website is a GREAT resource for learning about those animals.


I'm using this graphic organizer for my kiddos.

To show the kids some of the currently endangered animals, I let them see this video, it was neat to show how beautiful all the animals really are!

Race to 100

Today we played an impassioned game of Race to 100.
Each kid gets a number and then has to tell me what the number needs to make 100.
The strategy I teach them is to find the next friendly number, and then count by tens to get to 100.

Example:

Some of my students are able to do all of this in their head. Others need to go by the steps. Either way is fine, but I expect that they can get to a friendly number quickly by now.

If they are still struggling to make their friendly numbers, I go back to the basics of what makes ten. 

I encourage my parents to practice these strategies at home and then eventually when the kiddos can do it in their head, practice in the car!

Remember, friendly numbers are numbers that end with zero!! 

oil spill

Video made by a child about oil spills (5 minutes)
BP Oil Spill (4 minutes)
Washing a bird (2 minutes)


I read this book by Melvin Berger. It's a great resource and explains very clearly what happens and what people do to save the animals.





Then we did our own oil spill experiment where we had to figure out what the best tool would be to remove oil from water.
We used: cotton balls, Popsicle sticks, Q-tips, paper towels, eye droppers, rocks

We started off by making a prediction about what would work BEST to clean the oil spill, and we kept a chart of our data. 

Technology Party

We did it! We filled our FUZZY jar!
We earn fuzzies as a class by getting compliments in the hallway, following expectations, and working as a group.

The kiddos came up with a list of possible party ideas, and then they voted.
The overwhelming majority voted for a technology party, meaning they got to bring their cool gadgets to school. I'm so impressed with all the different games and programs I saw.
I even saw some cool math ones!

Sometimes when I have recess duty, my girlies like to come and chat with me. I snapped a couple of pictures with them...

It's getting COLD! 

Loving the natural resource-SUN. 

I know I'm bias... but don't I have the cutest group of 19 students ever?

P.S. Nehan, get well soon! We miss you. 

Making Ten

My kiddos know their doubles pretty well.
However, I have noticed that when we're trying to make our friendly numbers (numbers that end in zero) they take a while to figure out what each number needs.

We played a VERY basic game to practice making tens.

I gave cups with 10 cubes to each pair of students.
One student grabbed a few cubes, the other student had to guess what was left, then count to be sure.

Start off with ten in a cup.

Then Aubrey pulls out four.

Then Aakash guesses that there are six left.

Then I play a game where I just bounce a ball to a student and give them a number, like 32. Then they have to tell me 32 needs 8 to be 40. 

Parts of Speech

Second Grade TEKS require that I teach parts of speech.

We talk about nouns, pronouns, adjectives, adverbs, verbs, proper nouns... all through out the school year.

I use my Parts of Speech posters and sorts. 

I love Schoolhouse Rock videos.

Here's the one for nouns.

Verbs

Adjectives

Adverbs

Click here to download the worksheet.

Recess

Just had to share the cutest picture I captured during recess. :)
Love my sweet bucket filling ladies.

And just because Thanksgiving is coming up...

Two Digit Addition

Today we learned two new strategies for adding two digit numbers. Before, we've been drawing the hundred block, ten rods, or ones.

Now we want to work on faster strategies. Hopefully, my kiddos understand the concept of base ten. So we can move on to more mental strategies.

Partial Sums Video

Partial Sums means that you add the tens first, then the ones, and add those sums together.
Example: 43 + 20 becomes 40+20, 3+5 and then 60+8.

Friendly Numbers Video

Friendly number means that you change one of the addends to be a number that ends in zero.
Example 53+29 becomes 52+30.

To pick up my freebie posters click here.

Singing Zoologist

This morning we had Lucas Miller, the Singing Zoologist come and visit Spicewood.
He was AWESOME.

His website is http://www.lucasmiller.net/

He went over these vocabulary words:

Carnivore
Ominvore
Herbivorce
Adaptation
Camouflage
Warning coloration
Mimicry

We haven't learned all those words yet but I thought he did a great job introducing them!!