Here we go, a little over a third of the way through the school year. I’m happy to see that students continue to make new connections socially and I can say that this group has a strong sense of humor and fun. They appreciate funny stories or humorous moments and really enjoy when a teacher reads aloud to them. They struggle more with paying attention during whole group instruction and waiting until instruction is complete to ask a question or make a comment. Teachers would really appreciate your support in helping with respectful communication -waiting until other person is done to speak, checking if what you are about to say is a meaningful contribution or a distraction that means instructions will take longer, might it hurt someone’s feelings?

Second and third grade students really seem to enjoy math work. They are excited about expanding their addition and subtraction skills by completing wrap ups and task cards, and practicing column addition and trade first subtraction using base ten blocks or paper and pencil. Students have seemed to enjoy the games of Largest Sum Wins and Get to Zero. New to them this year are the challenges by educator Marcy Cook, who also is the creator of our task cards, and the students are starting to see the patterns and feel more comfortable solving them.

In terms of whole class activities, students created delicious cranberry sauce and cornbread for the Stone Soup feast. They also chopped mushrooms, green beans, and cabbage for the soup. This class really loved the soup; I noticed a whole group of them requesting seconds and thirds and saying that it was delicious! With geoboards and rubber bands they practiced geometry by creating and discussing their beautiful designs. I got some clay from Linda and we each made cubes which then became dice students could take home. For the holiday season, we created six pointed stars (snowflakes), discussed Christmas and Hanukkah traditions, and played the game of dreidel. During one of our sharing circles we came up with brain break activities such as YMCA, Simon Says, etc. These activities will be written on popsicle sticks and pulled by our popsicle picker whenever there is a need. For our closing sharing circle, each student made a wish for another student, and then a wish for the class. We created a web of yarn that connected all of us as we did this activity.