Mrs. Lawson's Class

Drinking From a Paper Cup?

2012-02-02T21:07:00.001-06:00

Yep, that's what we all got a chance to do last week. As a reward for filling our gemstone jar halfway, we went upstairs to Mrs. Thorsen's 7th grade class and did origami. The kids had a BLAST "hanging out" with the older students and learning from them.

Year of the Dragon

2012-01-30T21:52:00.003-06:00

We learned a bit about China's culture last week as they are celebrating their new year, the year of the dragon. We celebrated by making these paper dragons in class. Gung Hey Fat Chow! (Happy New Year!)

100 Days of School!

2012-01-27T19:48:00.003-06:00

Please click on the link to see the latest about next Friday!

100 Days Celebration!

Here's a cute idea :)

Movie Worthy Books

2012-01-24T21:05:00.000-06:00

Here are our posters for the Movie Worthy Books! They will each count towards 1 book due for January book reports. Thanks for your help with them!

Dominic-"Leap Frog Friday"

Caden-"Night of the Ninjas"

Ashley-"The Littles Make a Friend"

McKayla

Avri-"If You Take a Mouse to the Movies"

Tony-"One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish"

Fallon

Maggie-"On the Night You Were Born"

Bethany-"Happy Birthday Bad Kitty"

Chris-"The Incredible Shrinking Kid"

Anna-"Carnival at Candlelight"

Adi-"Jacob's Tree"

"Put Me in the Zoo"

Owen-"Owen" :)

Welcome 2012!

2012-01-06T21:10:00.003-06:00

We have some awesome goals for 2012! Hope you've been keeping up with your New Year's Resolutions, too!

"My 2012 goal is to work in the store. My 2012 goal is to write neater." McKayla

"My 2012 gole is to do a flip at home I want to improve at school at math."-Anna

"My goal for 2012 is writing needer." -Tony

"I want to be better at doing spelling, math and grammer. And reading and math faxt to. I want to be a little bit smarter and thats all"-Maggie

"My goal for 2012 is to check over my work. If I don't check over my work I will get bad grades."-Caden

"My goal for 2012 is in the summer is helping my dad build a porch."-Dominic

"My New Years Goal is to get better at getting clips up. I also want to keep my desk clean at home."-Fallon

Where is Winter?

2012-01-05T15:40:00.001-06:00

It was so nice today---high temp of 48!
We played Spelling Basketball to review our spelling words (ea pronounced with the short e) OUTSIDE! It was wonderful! Speaking of wonderful, it has been a great week. We've spent a lot of time getting back in our routine and practicing procedures after break. So far, so good.
Practice those words for our test tomorrow :)

Merry Christmas!

2011-12-27T16:36:00.001-06:00

Hope you are all having an amazing Christmas break!

Here is our classroom door and area decorated for the holidays. We cut out a lot of different shapes of stars for our tree. Underneath the tree are our gifts we would give someone else or the world if it were possible.

On Tuesday we had our Polar Express Day! We all got to wear our pajamas, were served hot, hot, hot, hot chocolate and enjoyed watching the movie in the afternoon. It was a perfect day before break.

Merry Christmas from Florida! See you all next week!

Arrowheads & Polygons

2011-12-19T23:29:00.000-06:00

We had a special visitor a few weeks ago. Mr. Brown from Hanover came in and shared his extensive Indian artifact collection, all of which he has found himself. His speech was so interesting and easy for everyone to understand, I definitely want him to visit again next year!

Our new unit in Math is over 2-d and 3-d shapes. We explored different polygons this week by making line segments with toothpicks and marshmallows, then connecting the line segments into different shapes. Here are a few kids showing different octagons. Remember, your child can bring in 3 dimensional shapes for our shape museum we'll be putting together after Christmas break! Golf balls, Kleenex boxes, soup cans, etc.

Hands on!

2011-12-06T22:07:00.000-06:00

We did a lot of hands on activities last week! Tangram puzzles, Making Words lessons, and shaving cream spelling were just a few of the things we did!

This is something you can do at home too! Sprinkle some flour or salt on the counter and practice writing those spelling words!

Owen working on Making Words.

Trying to figure out the tangram puzzles. Some of them were tough!

Totem Poles & Reading Groups

2011-11-22T21:04:00.000-06:00

Our Totem Poles look awesome! Check them out!

The kids have also had fun working with small reading groups reading the same books that are at their level, then doing a small project on them. They have read Arthur, Berenstein Bears, and Junie B. Jones. Ask your child about what book they're reading!

Thanksgiving

2011-11-20T17:39:00.000-06:00

2 posts in 1 day! I finally found my camera, so hopefully I'll be posting things more often!!

We've been learning about the first Thanksgiving of course, and some of the Native American tribes.
Thanks for your help creating the turkey feathers---they turned out cute!

Friday afternoon we learned about the North-Western Indian Tribes who made totem poles. We talked about how Indians were very spiritual people, connected to animals and nature. The kids each chose an animal they liked or could relate to in some way, drew it, and painted it. Their reasoning behind them choosing their animal was really neat. Some chose a cheetah because they could run fast too. One chose an owl because she feels she is wise. Another chose a giraffe because that is an animal she has always liked.
Here is a peek at what our room looked like after we worked on our animals on Friday. Pretty messy!

I'll post a picture of our completed totem poles soon!

Honoring the Veterans

2011-11-20T15:22:00.002-06:00

Last week we made an American flag from our handprints, read the book "H is for Honor", made cards for 4 local Veterans, and wrote letters to Veterans.

Field Trip, Lemonade & Halloween

2011-11-01T21:44:00.001-05:00

I'll leave you a few pictures from our past week or so. We had our class field trip, worked on sequencing and made lemonade, and celebrated Halloween!
If you enjoy our pictures, leave us a comment and let us know!

What a great looking class we have!

McKayla & Ashley working hard at squeezing lemons.

Pretty sour!

We have fun in 2nd grade :)

Maggie & a student from the other class---they were the winners of the 2nd grade Halloween Costume Parade.

ABC's of our week

2011-10-23T20:54:00.002-05:00

A--Antiques
-My Grandparents, Jim & Phyllis Moffet, came and gave a hands-on presentation of antique apple and potato peelers and corn shellers and grinders. The kids LOVED it. It was neat to experience how much work used to be put into things we now consider to be very easy.

Some of the apple tools peeled, some cored, some chunked, some sliced. This one THREW the pieces!
B---Bullying
-We had an up-beat, funny man named Jim give us a presentation on bullying. Please talk to your kids about school and if they feel bullied. Please let me know if there are problems---if I don't know about it, I can't help. The kids learned to Stop, Think, Report and the difference between tattling and reporting. Tattling is trying to get someone IN trouble, reporting is getting someone OUT of trouble.

C----Cause & Effect
-We learned and acted out a lot of things about cause and effect this week. We discussed and filled in a graphic organizer on our Mimio Board while reading the story, "Lemonade for Sale."

----Check back later for pictures from our field trip to the Mississippi River Museum we took on Friday!

Fire Safety Week

2011-10-19T22:27:00.001-05:00

Last week was Fire Safety Week and we were visited by our local fire departments. We all had the chance to explore a fire truck, go through the smoke house, try on fire equipment and more. The kids even had the chance to spray the fire hose! Did you discuss where the "safe spot" is to meet with your family in case of a fire in your home? If not--do that this week. You can never be too prepared!

I'll leave you with a few shots from our day.

Kid-Approved Games & Websites

2011-09-30T22:00:00.001-05:00

We go to our computer lab every day for 20 minutes. The kids work on a computer program called CCC for 20 minutes Monday-Wednesday, EasyTech on Thursday, and Friday is Fun Day! Mrs. Nicholson has the website available for the kids to view and play the games at home.
There is also a great site-Spelling City-where the kids can practice their spelling words.
The best part about it---they should already have a pretty good idea of what they need to be doing since they've done it in school, so you won't have to help them through every screen AND they get to practice their computer skills!

2nd Grade Games & Sites

Journal Writing

2011-09-26T20:20:00.001-05:00

The 2nd Graders wrote in their journals this morning for their morning work. I am seeing a lot of progress in them "adding details" to their writing. Instead of just saying, "I went to Mallardfest." They are learning to tell who they saw, what they did, why they did it, and how they felt doing it. Here is Adi sharing his writing this morning in class. Great work 2nd Graders!!

Diorama Ideas

2011-09-25T23:51:00.000-05:00

I'm looking forward to seeing the diorama book reports! Please send them in by October 3. That way we can have them on display for everyone to see at our Open House. If you have questions on how to make them, feel free to ask! Remember, it counts as 1 October book report. Here are some pictures to get the inspiration juices flowing!!

Be creative and have fun!

Less than a week!

2011-08-16T21:09:00.000-05:00

Can you believe school is starting in less than a week? I am so excited to meet all of you on Wednesday. I have a lot of fun ideas and projects that I'm excited to do this year! I know we'll have a wonderful year together in 2nd grade. See you soon!

Mrs. Lawson