Penguins have overtaken Mrs. Prunes' room!

I have really fallen down on posting! Time has just gotten away from me. I cannot believe how fast the year is going!!

We have some EXCITING news in our classroom!! Santa has sent us a penguin to report back to him. Now, if you know anything about Santa (which I'm sure you do) he normally sends elves. But Santa knows how much I LOVE penguins, so he sent our classroom a penguin that is EXTRA special. He reportes back to Santa every night to inform him of who has been naughty or nice. Our class came together yesterday and they decided to name him Snowchip.

Every morning, when the kids return to school, they have to find our silly penguin and see what he has been up to. This is a picture of his first morning after the kids met him.

In other penguin news, I encourage you to come check out our pengiun bulliten board. The kids worked really hard on making a mosaic penguin, giving their penguin and name, and writing a story about their penguin's winter adventure.

Math and Spelling Games

I just updated out Math and Spelling page on the right-hand side with tons of games to play online. Check them out and let your child have fun learning.

Learning about Mass and Teamwork

This week we started learning about mass in science. I couldn't pass up sharing this great teamwork picture. The kids were discussing their predictions about what weighed more and less than a penny and then they were discovering by weighing the objects and comparing them with a pan balance.

Week 6 Peek and Spelling

This is a very important week in second grade. We will be having our very first reading benchamrk test on Wednesday and Thursday. Be sure you child comes to school well rested and with a full tummy.

Open House

**Open House - Sept. 27**

Come to our class and see what we have been up to. :) Can't wait to see you there.
5:00 - 6:30

Chunk the Chinchilla

I'm sure that your child has talked about Chunk at home. I thought I would share a picture of him. Chunk got to take a journey today to the vet's office. All of the ladies there loved him. He got checked out by the vet and is 100% healthy. When he got back to the classroom, he was very excited to be back in his cage.

If your child has not mentioned Chunk, here are a few questions you can ask about him.
-How does he take a bath?
-What is his favorite snack?
-Where is his favorite place to be in his cage?
-What does his fur feel like?

Peek and Spelling

Oops! Where did my post go?

Well, it seems that my spelling and peek post did not publish for this week like it should have. I'm so sorry. To make up for it, here is an awesome story elements rap that you can enjoy with your child at home. We will be viewing it in class, and I have a feeling that the kids are going to LOVE it. It goes over the five story elements (plot, character, conflict, theme, and setting) in a fun and exciting way. Encourage your child to practice identifying the five elements in their reading and writing.

Five Story Elements Rap

Week 3 Information

This week we are going to continue building off our skills from the previous two weeks. We are getting established into our classroom routines. Also, rules and expectations are starting to become second nature to the kids.

We are going to have another timed test over +1 facts on Friday. Be sure to practice, practice, practice at home every night. The students are expected to complete 50 problems in 3 minutes with no mistakes. Also, be sure that your child is practicing their spelling words every singe night.

We will continue building our addition and subtraction skills in math this week. We are going back over characters and setting in a story and we are using the text structure of our weekly story to help our comprehension.We are covering consonant blends in phonics (this is also our spelling skill). We are learning how to magnify topics in our writing to get interesting and clear ideas to write about.We are continuing our study on physical properties in science and we are learning about what makes a rural community in social studies.

As you can see, we are very busy with some fun and exciting lessons this week. I hope that your child is enjoying learning with me as much as I am enjoying learning with them.

Week 1 Down!

Wow! What an amazing first week. This, by far, was my best first week yet. My kids are amazing and we are diving head first into some awesome lessons.

Here are the spelling words and the peek at the week for week 2.

Are you ready?

I remind myself of a kid on the night before school starts. All of my plans are finished, my bags are packed and already in the car (thanks hubby), and I have my clothes picked out. I'm 100% sure that I will not sleep a wink tonight because I am so excited to start our new year.

I have not stopped thinking about all the precious faces that I saw at Meet the Teacher. I can already tell that I defiantly have the best class at PCA and I am so excited to get to know and learn with each one of my students.

Peek at the Week and Spelling

May 14 - 18

Peek at the week:

Reading:
Unit 6 Week 3

Weekly Story – A Birthday Basket for Tia

Genre – Realistic Fiction

Vocab – aunt, bank, basket, collects, favorite, present

Skill – drawing conclusion, questioning

Phonics:

Skill – Final Syllables –tion, -ture, -ion

Language Arts:

Writers Workshop

Spelling List:

1. mixture

2. nation

3. section

4. future

5. picture

6. action

7. caution

8. station

9. fixture

10. motion

11. nature

12. feature

Challenge Words:

1. celebration

2. tradition

3. flowering

4. beetle

5. abdomen

Dictation Sentence:

The picture station featured paintings of nature.

Buddy Reading

The kids LOVE the grab a book, a buddy, a pillow or stuffed animal, and read with each other. I believe that it's a great way to build strong readers. I love to listen and observe them buddy reading. They mimic my questioning that we use during small group time and it tickles me to see them "act" like the teacher. Little do they know, they really are teaching each other.

Peek at the Week and Spelling List

May 7 - 11

Peek

Reading:
Unit 6 Week 2

Weekly Story – Red, White, and Blue: The Story of the American Flag

Genre – Informational Text

Vocab – America, birthday, flag, freedom, nicknames, stars, stripes

Skill – Author’s Puropse, Summarizing

Phonics:

Skill – Abbreviations

Language Arts:

Writers Workshop

Spelling List

1. Mr.

2. Mrs.

3. St.

4. Jan.

5. Feb.

6. Aug.

7. Dr.

8. Ms.

9. Rd.

10. Oct.

11. Nov.

12. Dec.

Challenge Words

1. migration

2. hibernation

3. scientist

4. adaptation

5. journey

Dictation Sentence

Dr. and Mrs. Smith will be our neighbor on our St. soon.

Peek at the Week and Spelling List

April 30 - May 4

Reading and Language Art Peek at the Week

Reading:
Unit 6 Week 1

Weekly Story – Just Like Josh Gibson

Genre – Realistic Fiction

Vocab – bases, cheers, field, plate, sailed, threw

Skill – Compare and Contrast, Monitor and Clarify

Phonics:

Skill – Inflected Endings

Language Arts:

Writers Workshop

Spelling List

1. tried

2. trying

3. planned

4. planning

5. liked

6. liking

7. skipped

8. skipping

9. heavier

10. heaviest

11. lighter

12. lightest

Challenge Words

1. photosynthesis

2. germination

3. pollination

4. chlorophyll

5. cotyledons

Dictation Sentence

The woman tried planning the party and liked it.

Flip Books with B, M, and E!

In writing, we are working on pulling all the wonderful writing techniques that we have learned all year together into well written stories. We use this flip books for several things in class and I thought they are the perfect way to demonstrate how to segregate the elements of the beginning, middle, and end of a story but also how they work together to make a whole story.

We started with drafting our stories in our journals. The draft is seperated into the beginning (including the main characters and setting),the middle (including the problem that the character faces), and the end (including the solution to the problem). The students would write a section of their story and check that it included all the nessacary factors and also that their writing had lots of details.

Next, when they had comleted their story and each section flowed together, they got two friendsto  help edit their writing. When the editing was finished, they were able to make their flip book.

Here is an example of the book that I wrote about our class pet, Ollie, and how he came to be apart of our classroom.

Yummy Worms - Illustrations by Erin Gentry

Setting up the drafting paper.

Reading the beginning section of the story.

The whole story together.

The title on the back. 

Peek at the Week and Spelling List

April 23 - 27

Peek at the Week:

This week we are reviewing unit 5 and will be benchmark testing towards the end of the week.

Spelling:

I am very, very excited about spelling this week. Spelling time is one of my favorite times of the day. I always try to make our activities hands on so the kids enjoy and can retain what they are learning. I hope that they come home and tell you when we have a fun activity. Since this is a review week, our curriculum does not provide a spelling list. This means that I get to create a list that reflects the needs that I feel my students have.

This week, instead of having a high frequency word list with common misspelled words, I have decided to make a feeling words list. One of my goals in second grade is to get the kids away from writing simple words like sad, happy, and mad. I try get them thinking of higher level words that will enrich their writing or even their conversations amongst one another. So, this week we are working on feeling words and I am so excited about the learning that will follow.

1. terrible
2. annoyed
3. relaxed
4. concerned
5. bored
6. startled
7. impatient
8. delighted
9. bubbly
10. jealous
11. terrific
12. gloomy

Challenge Words:
1. measurement
2. area
3. perimeter
4. governor
5. children

Dictation Sentence:
Since we are working on creating sentences using feeling words this week, I am going to let the kids create their own dictation sentence to practice. They will be graded on correct spelling, punctuation, and capitalization.

Becoming Authors

Our second graders have been hard at work publishing books. Earlier in the year, we read the book The Library Mouse and it sparked an idea in the minds of my second graders to create our own classroom library full of books that they have published themselves. Now we have a section in our library center dedicated to those books for the students to browse and enjoy during independent and buddy reading times.

The process started with writing a draft that included all the parts of a story. The students peer edited their writing and conferences with me to help prefect their ideas and grammar. With every student that peer edited their work, they had an objective. The first "friend" was supposed to help the writer add details and build better sentences. The second "friend" was supposed to help with spelling and grammatical errors. When they were finally ready to conference with me, their writing was pretty close to spot on. The editing was great practice for the writer and for the editor.

After the student conferences with me about their writing, they were able put their story onto their book and illustrate their writing. When they are finished, they added an About the Author page in the back and questions that someone could ask themselves or a buddy about their story after they were finished writing.

As you can tell, the process took weeks. Every child worked at their own pace (some are still finishing up) until their writing process was complete and they have a finished book to add to our library.

The students are so excited about reading each others books and having their books read by their peers.

Our Second Grade Author's Library Section

A few of the books that have been published. 

Meet Ollie the Hedgehog

A huge part of our classroom community is our class pet, Ollie. The kids are over the moon in love with him. Ollie always has a buddy during buddy reading time and a classroom full of helpers when it is time to clean out his cage. 

I had to think long and hard before deciding on a classroom pet. My number one requirement was that it was something that did not stink and was not very high maintenance. I also wanted an animal that the kids could interact with and could become part of our classroom. A hedgehog was the perfect choice. We are able to let him out to freely roam the classroom, but the kids are not tempted to touch him. It's a big deal when Ollie is let free to roam around the room. The kids know they have to be quiet and not make sudden movements so that they will not scare him. They get so tickled when he goes under our reading bench and I have to pull everything out to get to him. I hear them talk about adventures he is taking around the room and they make up stories to write about in their journal.

I am amazed to see how such an interactive pet has transformed my classroom. Kids who are reluctant to read love to pick out a book, sit beside his cage, and read to him. Some who often have a hard time thinking of topics to write about choose to write about adventures that Ollie may take or an informational text full of facts that they have learned about him though our research.We also get in as many read alouds featuring hedgehogs as we can throughout the year. 

Before getting Ollie, we researched the differences between hedgehogs and porcupines. They wrote facts from their research in their journals. 

Week 31 Peek at the Week/Spelling List

Reading:
Unit 5 Week 5

Weekly Story – The Signmaker's Assistant

Genre –Humorous Fiction

Vocab – afternoon, blame, idea, important, signmaker, townspeople

Skill – Main Idea and Details, Inferring

Phonics:

Skill – Vowel Patterns aw, au, au(gh), al

Language Arts:

Writers Workshop

Spelling List

1. talk

2. because

3. August

4. caught

5. draw

6. walk

7. chalk

8. auto

9. taught

10. thaw

11. fault

12. launch

Challenge Words

1. probability

2. likelihood

3. important

4. afternoon

5. apologize

Dictation Sentence

The teacher taught the children in August.

More About Me

Since I am not a very technical person, I figured I would not try to wow everyone while still trying to figure out what I am doing. I thought that it would be best to start out by just blogging about myself because secretly I have no idea where this post is even going to go. So here I go, pretending like I know what I am doing....

My name is DeAnna Prunes. I am blessed to be the mother of two wonderful little girls, Bella who is 2 and Chloe who is 3 months, and the wife to my husband Jon. My relationship with my husband is different than most other married couples because my husband is also a teacher. Not only is he a teacher but we teach at the same school. So, as you might imagine, education is our lives. I am about to complete my fourth year of teaching and the past three years I have taught in a second grade departmentalized reading and writing classroom. Although I will not be posting any math, science, or social studies lessons, I will include valuable classroom management, parent communication, and organizational tips though out my blogs that I hope everyone who reads will find helpful. 

Me, Ms. Jones (Math), Mrs. Smith (Science/SS)