Sharing our feast (written by Mrs. Howard and her class)

On Friday Room 1 had a Thanksgiving feast. We invited our parents and grandparents to eat with us. Many were able to come for lunch. At the feast we ate chicken, rolls, carrots, mashed potatoes and gravy, and green beans. We made the butter for the feast. We shook glass jars filled with whipping cream and salt during Read-Aloud. After a lot of shaking the cream turned into solid butter. We had been reading Little House in the Big Woods and Ma made butter every week in a churn. We wanted to try to make it too. The butter was delicious with our rolls at the feast. For dessert we enjoyed pumpkin bars and  butterscotch cupcakes. The feast was a special time to share a meal with our parents and grandparents, whom we are very thankful for in our lives. The Thanksgiving feast is a special tradition in Room 1 that no one else does. After the feast was over some of us shared our Thanksgiving poems with our parents. The poems are on display in the hallway today and tomorrow too. 

Creative writing

We have used writing time this week to think about all of the many things we are thankful for. We used a graphic organizer to help us start our brainstorming and create lists we could use as we wrote our poems. Then we started the writing process. Many "Thankful" poems were written. We had so, so many things that we enjoy in our lives. It is nice to think about being thankful, instead of just wanting more things.  After the writing was finished, we typed our poems into a Word document to print off on watercolor paper. Today Mrs. Howard took a deep breath and brought out the watercolor paints. Each poem had been covered with a leaf cutout. Everybody enjoyed painting their poems with fall colors. Our creative writing masterpieces will be on display for our feast tomorrow.

Library discoveries!

Each year Daniel Boone Regional Library hosts a field trip for 2nd graders so  they can become more familiar with what the library can offer beyond books. We discovered that we can check out books that we can listen to on an MP3 player. They are called play-aways. We learned that we can use the computers in the children's section for 30 minutes to play games. The computers are new and have touch screens to make them easier to use. We know where the children's desk is. If we have questions about how to find a book or want to use a computer that is where we can go to get help. Before we left we were given "goody" bags. Each bag had a word search, a color-changing pencil, and a certificate for a free book on the next visit to the library. Lots of smiles at the library!

Starting our days off right

Our mornings start off reviewing what month and day it is. This helps us make sense of the calendar and teaches us how to use it. Then we tackle the number of the day. We write it in words, make it with  tens and ones, add and subtract 1 and 10 from it. We also create a portion of a number line using the number of the day as the starting point and the ending point. It helps us get math in twice during our day at school. It is getting more challenging as we have been in school over 50 days now. 

It's Party Time

We had a blast in Room 1 at the end of the day on Friday. So many parents helped us have a fantastic Fall Party. We wouldn't have a party without their help. There were yummy treats to eat, creepy crafts to make, and one very messy game.  We enjoyed playing musical chairs and BINGO too.What a fun way to end October!