Veteran's Day Assembly

Friday was our annual Veteran's Day Assembly at Jefferson, which is always a very special event. The children were able to sing some of their Veteran's Day songs to honor our visiting veterans, as well as learn about the Honor Flight program, which sends veterans to Washington D.C. to see the memorials. At the end of the assembly, our class was very excited to have two veterans stop by our classroom.

Grace's grandpa, a World War II veteran, visited our class.

Cole's family friend, Miss Amanda, visited our class, too,

Cole was very excited to have his mom, Mrs. Fisher, read to our class in honor of his birthday!

We enjoyed getting to know more about Elijah, our most recent Star Student!

Nonfiction Museum

Your kids did such an amazing job last Friday as tour guides for our Nonfiction Museum! I was so impressed by all of the knowledge they had on their chosen topics! The best part was seeing them teach our first grade visitors about their topics. We had about 25 first grade friends join us and your second graders were so excited to give them a tour of their topics. From pumpkins to soccer, to space and volcanoes, your children learned so much and were able to share that information with others. I am so proud of them!

Showing off our nonfiction signs that we made!

Cole's little sister, Caroline, made sure she visited her brother first to learn about panthers.

Jalen was working hard to teach his first grade visitor about panthers, while Kellen was super excited to share about lions.

Nathan is working hard to teach Sophie about sharks.

My own first grade daughter, Aubrey, stopped by and learned about space with Amelia.

We ended our Friday with a visit from our latest Mystery Reader, Luke's mom!

Happy Halloween!

Thank you parents for our wonderful Halloween party last Friday! The kids had such a great time! A special thank you to all of the parents who sent in items and volunteered their time to help us have a great party!

Check out our fun Halloween costumes!

Gia's grandmother surprised her as a Mystery Reader!

We enjoyed getting to learn about Nathan during his Star Student week!

Mystery Readers!

We welcomed our first Mystery Readers of the year to our classroom last week! If you would like to be a Mystery Reader this year, send me an e-mail and we'll get you scheduled for a date!

Jalen's aunt visited us from Indianapolis and read The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein.

Keelyn's dad read some fun Halloween books to us!

The kids were so excited that we earned our first Bingo party of the year last Friday! The students work together to earn Bingo numbers for excellent behavior. Then they get to choose how they would like to celebrate. They decided on an ice cream sundae party!

We enjoyed getting to know Grace better as our most recent Star Student!

Celebration Time!

The students have worked incredibly hard these past few weeks with our first writing and reading units. We spent several weeks talking about our "reading beanstalks" and learning how to make them "grow" this year. To celebrate all of our hard work in this first reading unit, we watched "Mickey's Beanstalk" and had a popcorn treat. Likewise, we spent our first several weeks in writing learning how to write small moment stories about our lives. We learned that it's important to pull out a tiny "seed" instead of writing the "whole watermelon." Since we had referred to watermelons throughout our first writing unit, we ended our unit with a watermelon treat. The kids enjoyed a slice of watermelon and got to share their favorite writing piece with their classmates.

Nolen and Kellen are ready to celebrate!

Enjoying our Writer's Workshop watermelon treat!

Thank you again to all of you who donated to our Jog For Jefferson fundraiser! We were able to raise over $42,000!!! Amazing!!!

During our Jog For Jefferson awards assembly, Emma's name was drawn to receive a gift card to COSI! Keelyn and Kaeson received medals for running the most laps in second grade with 18 each! Wow!

We enjoyed getting to learn more about Ethan during his Star Student week!

Jog For Jefferson!

The kids had such a fun time on Friday at our annual Jog For Jefferson! Mrs. Hofmann's Roaring Lions were amazing! I was so impressed by all of the laps the kids ran! We definitely have some runners in our classroom!

Ready to run!!

Cooling off with some popsicles!

We've also had fun getting to know our classmates better these past few weeks with our weekly Star Student. We learned all about Lucy and Cole and can't wait to get to know our other classmates even better!

Welcome To Our Classroom Blog!

Hi Families,
I'm so excited that you're visiting our classroom blog! This is a place where I will upload pictures so you can see what's happening in our second grade classroom! I hope you'll visit often! We've had a great first eight days of school! We're having fun getting to know each other and establishing classroom routines. Here are some highlights!

Cole is showing his First Day of School magnet that he made. The kids were so excited to take these home so they can display all of their special work this year!

Emma and Lucy attached their "Getting to Know You" lanyards onto their backpacks. Each bead represented something about them!

The kids had a great time sharing their "Me In a Bag" with their classmates. We learned that Keelyn loves the beach!

Grace and Angelle are making appointments with each other on their "Partner Clocks." Anytime we have a partner activity, I call out a time and the kids find their partner.

Lucy and Keegan are learning about math workshop. They worked together to build something out of 50 cubes and then came up with an equation. They made an L and a K to represent their initials!

Nate and Amelia created a visual equation to show they had 50 cubes--5x10! They were very proud!

Fairy Tale Ball

We had so much fun last Friday celebrating the conclusion of our fairy tale unit with our Fairy Tale Ball! We began the morning by introducing all of the fairy tale characters from each of the second grade classes. Here are the fairy tale characters from our class:

Cinderella, escorted by her Fairy Godmother

Rapunzel, escorted by Flynn Ryder

Cinderella, escorted by Prince Charming

Kate and the Beanstalk, escorted by Jack and the Beanstalk

Rapunzel, escorted by Prince Charming

Rapunzel, escorted by King Austin

Merida and Little Red Riding Hood, escorted by the Frog Prince

Princess Brianna, escorted by Prince Ahmi

Later that morning, we began fairy tale math. The children were able to rotate to each of the second grade classrooms and complete a fairy tale math activity. In Miss Mountain's room, they estimated and measured how far the Frog Prince had jumped in inches and feet. In Mrs. Callihan's class, they estimated and measured how long Rapunzel's hair was in inches and feet. In Mrs. Nose's class, they practiced geometry concepts by building houses out of various three-dimensional shapes, and trying to prevent the wolf from huffing and puffing and blowing their houses down. And in our class, the students estimated and measured how tall Jack's beanstalk had grown.

To end our day, the students got to enjoy some delicious fairy tale snacks!

Coppa Gelato

The kids were very excited to receive a visit from Coppa Gelato, a business in Westerville, last Thursday. Olivia had written a review of their gelato shop during our opinion unit, so they brought cups of delicious gelato for the entire class! I had never heard of Coppa Gelato until Olivia wrote her review, but after how nice they were to our students, I'll definitely be visiting them, and I hope you will too!