All Kinds of Fun

Bookfair Information:

Some of you have asked for Bookfair time information.

I have contacted our Parent's Club and they will

have a volunteer working from 8:00am to 3:30

October 4th-9th. Thank you for supporting our

Parent's Club! They do so much for us.

See more info on the right.

Today we used the activotes to take a test on our reading

that we did this week. They are like a remote to put

in our answer to a test on the screen. This is DL who really had fun with it.

This is group 2 taking their test. They read the question and then

push in their answer with their remote.
Here is a video of our reading group reading one question.
"Glad we have all this fun technology".

After their test, these boys settled in for some quiet reading.

On Wednesday I introduced a new math game using cards.

It is called, It all adds up. We are learning how to add 3 digit numbers.

Today it was raining during our lunch recess so we stayed in and played.

Here we are celebrating that we did a great job playing quietly.

2 grown ups commented on our good behavior, so that got us

really close to having enough monkeys on our chain for a treat.

(Monkey Moments)

Mrs. Thorne, our guidance counselor, invited people who had an August or September birthday to join her at the birthday table. Here are our birthday people. PS, LH, and TC.Since it is the last school day of the month, we got to spend our money that we have earned.

(We get 2 pennies a day for working hard and making good choices)

Here we are shopping at our little store. Many of us had the opportunity to practice a little math by making change.

After the store I lost some of my seconds graders.

I have no idea where these kids came from or who they are????

Recess Events

During morning recess, second graders are now allowed to play on the intermediate play equipment. We were glad to go over and try it out.

Here CS is testing out the monkey bars.

SM liked the barrel. You run on it and it rolls.

When students to something exceptional they sometimes get a green slip.
Students then put their names on them and turn the in the office in hopes of

having their green slip draw out for a prize. This is MA with her

prize after our first drawing for the year. This is a school wide

project.

Today was the first day of walking club.
Students can walk around the path during recess.

Once they walk 20 laps they receive a charm for their school necklace.
They are showing you their walking card which keeps track of their laps. Mrs. Thorne hosted a new students to McKay party this afternoon.
This is CL and BT who are new to McKay this year.

We sure are glad they are here. They are really fun to be around.

Library Books

Today we went to the library and checked out a few books.

Our regularly scheduled library day it Thursday. I

encourage children to pick out at least one book at their

independent reading level and

then one they can read with a grown up. We started reading in small reading groups this week.

I am so happy to see how many of us enjoy reading.

Remember if you want to purchase any books

from the book order, please sent order to school

no later than this Wednesday.

McKay Mystery

Today we had a McKay Mystery. The children had to read and brainstorm to figure out this mystery. Hopefully they will give you the whole story, but here is a little bit to get you started.
Our custodian doesn't get in this drawer of her desk very often, but Wednesday morning she did. She was surprised by what she saw. Scroll down to see what was sleeping on this pair of gloves. Surprise....a baby squirrel! She is nursing it with a syringe and milk. We have all kinds of theories as to how and why it chose to live in her desk that is located in the boiler room of McKay. ??? Go figure.

During reading today I introduced the listening center.

Here you can see GH and CSH listening to a story.

We also drew pictures to go with our ABC's. My mom and dad sent me to school with a VERY large red apple as a model. It was almost as large as NE's head.

At lunch time NE and N helped serve lunch. Click on the picture below to watch a short video.

Listen carefully and you will hear SM's great manners.

What a Great Day

Today students were able go on the computers in our room and use the Read Natural program. It is a great way to work on improving our fluency. Students read a passage for one minute (computer tracks how many words read), then they listen and read along as the computer reads to them. Once they feel like they know the words in the story they have a grown up listen to them and hopefully pass onto the next reading level. Our goal is to be able to read 120 or more words in a minute before the end of second grade. We finished writing in our Home Journals today.

Each week we will write a letter home to our mom and dads.
Then over the weekend parents will write a note back to us.

Then on Monday students will read their letters from their parents.

This is a fun way to practice reading and writing.

Parent please remember to write in print as cursive

is a little too hard to read at this age.

This is JM's finished letter. I sure was impressed by their

nice handwriting. I hope you are too.

Today we met our 4th grade reading buddies.

It was a lot of fun. Here you can see CD with JM.

Here GH is reading with ER a former 2nd grader of mine.
We have more second graders than fourth graders, so LR was lucky

enough to have two reading buddies.

Thank you to all who have left a comment on the blog. We love to read how much you enjoy and appreciate it. Thanks for sharing in our lives and making learning so much fun (We love to read your notes).

Fire Near Our School

This afternoon right before we headed home for the day we found firemen and policemen getting ready to help us all get home safely. The winds brought a fire over the hill right up to our playground. This is a large field of dry weeds and grass that goes along many of our homes. Our school playground is the grass area in this picture. We don't go all they way up there to play, usually we just walk around the path. Many agencies grouped together in efforts to keep everyone in the area safe today. Thank you to all who helped. We were busy inside counting money before the day ended.

Here NE is exchanging coins that are in his online bank account.

(Behavior Management System I use)

Today proved to be a day about our teeth.
Here BB is showing me his loose tooth.

CL actually pulled out her tooth today that

has been sticking out since school started.

We went to the gym today to play a game.

We wore flags and our friends tried to get them from us.

Better look out for LR, she has 3 already.

RV was pleased to have gotten this one off someone.

This is LW stealing HH's flags. They were having so much fun.

KC is lucky, he still has two.

We are collecting pop can tabs. LH brought in this bag full.

If you would like to help us collect some, we would sure appreciate it.

We turn them in to the hospital and they are used to help

patients get the treatment that they need.

We are also collecting soup can labels and box tops.

We get money back for these items which helps us buy

things our school needs.

A Lot of Writing Today

Here is TC being interviewed by the class for his birthday book.

We each asked him a question ....
and then went to our tables to type up a page for his book.
This is DE and SR working together.

This is BB and NS together.

One person helps with spelling, or the flow of the sentence,

while the other person types. Then they switch.

Here you can see KZ with a sticky note that has a harder

word written on it for her work with CL

Hopefully we will have time tomorrow to download

and illustrate our writing and then give it to our latest birthday boy.

Round Up Painting

This week BT joined us at school.

With Round Up this week in our town,

we just had to find some funny cowboy stories to read.

Here are two that we really enjoyed.

Then we started drawing cowboys.

Some of us worked with a partner to create our work while others chose to work alone.

Below you will see pictures of our projects as they develop.

Let'er Buck Second Grade !