Hometown Heroes

On Friday, September 9, the second grade EAST students, facilitated by Mrs. Paula Cook, had the opportunity to meet some of our Hometown Heroes. Our class was lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time to have a tour of the outside of the fire truck and walk through the cab of the inside. The students learned about 9/11 and the policemen and firefighters that were the heroes of that tragic day.

Each link in this paper chain symbolized the 343 firefighters who gave their lives on 9/11.

The students had their pictures taken with our Hometown Heroes.

The students made hand prints to symbolize the nearly 3,000 people who were killed on 9/11.

Here is what we will be learning this week:

Reading: We will be reading "The Surprise", this week.
Here are our vocabulary words:

guess- to try to give the answer to something when you are not sure
pile- a heap, mound, or hill of something
tomorrow- the day after today
surprised- when you didn’t know that something was going to happen
never- not ever
pleased-when you are happy or content with something


We will continue working on author's purpose. The students are still struggling with this skill, so we will look at it from a different perspective. We will also be working on sequencing and using transition words to help us understand texts. Examples of transition words are first, next, then, also, finally, last. We will be using these words in our writing this week, too!

Spelling- We will be looking at the inflected ending -ed and high frequency words.
Here are our spelling words:

1. jumped
2. pulled
3. pushed
4. crossed
5. wished
6. picked
7. house
8. never
9. took
10. these
11. off
12. funny


Language- We will become masters of common nouns and proper nouns this week. We will continue to work on complete and incomplete sentences, and the four types of sentences, though, so help your child remember those while you are reading and writing sentences at home.

Writing- Didn't those final copies look fantastic out on the wall! I was very proud of their hard work and their neat handwriting. We will be starting a new writing- "How to Make My Favorite Sandwich." Be sure to talk with your child about how you make their favorite sandwich. Be thinking of ways to make it even healthier- They might ask you how healthy their sandwich is!

Math- We will have our assessment of word problems on Thursday. We will continue working on the 'secrets' we discovered the other day with the 'start unknown' type of problems. I have some smart students who made some very big mathematical break-throughs and discoveries the other day. Good job small group! I love your thinking!

Don't forget to have your child practice math facts at Xtramath.org.

Planner- We will make our healthy meal on plates. MyPlate is a great place to learn more about the new 'food pyramid." We will also reflect on our new food logs that they (hopefully) filled out over the weekend. We will make a new bar graph to compare how the students eating has changed since learning about the food groups. The class is also really excited about creating a menu for the cafeteria one day. I will let you know what day our menu will be served in our cafeteria. We want all of the 2nd grade to eat a tray that day! Last, we will reflect on how our health has improved because of studying healthy habits. Do you see your child wanting to eat healthier? Do you see them wanting to be more active and get you active? Are they washing their hands more? Are they making it a point to eat more fruits and vegetables? If so, they are really taking ACTION during this planner!

Remember, Scholastic orders are due September 30!


I hope you have a GREAT week!

Happy, Healthy Me!

I thought I would post some pictures of the student's work that is part of our first planner. As an IB school, we have Units of Inquiry that students allow students to learn through inquiry and action. The class is learning within the transdisciplinary theme of "Who We Are." In this unit, the students are making inquiries about how to be happy and healthy in their physical, mental, and social lives. We have learned about how to be a good friend, what a bully is and how to handle bullies. We are also learning about how their diet.exercise, and positive habits can make them feel healthy and happy. They have researched food groups in computer research class. Take a look at a little of their work!

We brainstormed ways to be a good friend and a bad friend. They had lots of stories to share about their friends!

Then we wrote a paragraph, "What Makes a Good Friend." Each paragraph has a topic sentence, 3 main ideas, 3 detail sentences, and a closing sentence. They did great! I am very pleased with their first attempt at an organized paragraph this year. This is the writing display.

We also sorted pictures into healthy and unhealthy habits. They worked in groups to discuss why each habit was healthy or unhealthy. Here is the poster of the results.

Then we research food groups and made posters in small groups. The posters were to have the following information: at least 6 foods from that group with labels (We are learning about non-fiction conventions!), tell how many servings, and what that types of food does to help the body. A big thanks to Mrs. Bilbo for getting books and teaching us how to take notes. Here are our posters!

Before we learned about food groups and nutrition, the students had to fill out a food log. Then they sorted our foods in the food groups (plus fats/sweets) and wrote a tally for each time they ate that food on one day. Then we totaled the amount and graphed our results. The class was very upset by their findings! They immediately made observations like, "The fats and sweets and the veggies need to be reversed. We shouldn't be eating as much meat. More grains- whole grains!" YAY!! They are making all sorts of connections.

Today I passed out another food log with a tally chart of the food groups. I was so pleased when Gavin started rallying his table, "Come on everyone! Let's do better this time!" We will chart our new graph next week from our results on the second food log. I hope their results show the ACTION they are taking with becoming healthy!

While this is not all that we have done, it give a good overview of what we are doing in our class as part of an International Baccalaureate (IB) Primary Year Programme. It is wonderful to see the students internalizing what they have learned. I have heard from so many parents and grandparents that students are asking what food group their meals fall into. They are trying to eat healthier, I hope! They are logging their exercise and seeing it's influence in their lives. This is IB in ACTION and I love it!!

If you are a parent of one of my students reading this blog, please let me know what your child is telling you about our inquiry unit. I would love to have your stories here so I can see what is working and what isn't. If you are a teacher, what fun ways do you have to make nutrition come alive for your class? If you are teaching in an IB school, I would love your input on what you see with our planner! I am always striving to make the units stronger!

Have a wonderful weekend!

Week 4- Busy no more? NAH!

Of course we are busy!! Would you expect any less? We had an incredibly busy week last week. First, we had Grandparent's Day. It was a HUGE success, with CHE hosting over 350 grandparents on Thursday morning. I believe this is the largest number of grandparents to ever attend at our school. It was a pleasure to meet so many students' grandparents and share a little about what we are learning in 2nd grade. Then on Friday our Hometown Heroes were honored by 2nd grade EAST. The class was lucky enough to meet three firefighters. After eating cookies, punch, and reading kid-made, heartfelt thank you cards, they showed the class all the equipment on their truck. The students then got to walk through the cab of the fire truck. With a little arm twisting (but not much!), the firefighters turned on the sirens and blew the LOUD air horn as they pulled away from the school. What an exciting day! I will be posting pictures soon! We owe Mrs. Paula Cook a great big THANK YOU for organizing and hosting this EAST event! You are awesome, Mrs. Cook!


Hopefully, our week will be just as busy, but not quite as eventful as we concentrate on some deep learning this week. One big event is our Parent-Teacher Conferences that will be held on Thursday, September 15, at 3:30-6:30 p.m. There will be a PTA meeting at 6:00 in the multi-purpose room. I encourage you to become a part of this organization. It is vital to our school because it provides so many resources that the students benefit from!

Here is what we will be learning this week:

Reading: We will be looking at long e words, word pictures, and rhythm and rhyme in our story, "Three Little Bikers", this week.
Here are our vocabulary words:


1. signals- anything that warns or directs, such as a light or a hand motion
2. steep- having a high slope or angle
3. trail- a path
4. gravel- small stones or pebbles
5. giggled- laughed
6. gully- a small valley made by running water
7. soared- flew upward
8. crept- moved slowly


Please work with your child on making a sentence using the word. Some students are still giving definitions on the test!


We will also be working on author's purpose. It's as easy as P.I.E: Persuade, Inform, and Entertain! This is continued from last week. We just barely touched on it because of all of the events happening last week. We will REALLY become master's at this skill this week. Additionally, we are going to learn one of the most important skills of the year: How to read a passage. This will be the foundation for summarizing, main idea, outlining, note taking, and research in later years. Yes- 2nd grade is where this starts!


Spelling- Our focus will be on long e spelled ee and ea.
Here are our spelling words:

1. deep
2. seen
3. free
4. leaf
5. meal
6. team
7. each
8. lunch
9. their
10. through
11. would
12. could

Be sure to check out Spelling City. You can play games and take practice tests. You can find the list at Spelling City

Language- We will be covering the types of sentences a final time before moving on to common and proper nouns. Be sure to have your child sing the "Noun Song" for you! You will find yourself humming it, I promise! :)

Writing- We will continue with our "What Makes a Good Friend?" writing- We are ALMOST finished. They will be ready for Parent-Teacher conferences on Thursday.

Math- word problems- Boy, are these hard! I have taught the kids how to CUB their answers and we have learned some ways to help us solve problems. Please refer to the posters if your child needs extra help.


cub it

Word Problem Types


We will review result unknown and change unknown word problems on Monday. Then we will add start unknown to the types of word problems. Please help your child each night with their homework. Remember, they CAN use calculators. That is one strategy for solving word problems, however, I encourage students to find other ways to solve problems before resorting to the calculator. They can use their 100 chart, draw a picture, use base 10 block pictures, use manipulatives, or use a math equation.


Don't forget to have your child practice math facts at Xtramath.org.

Planner- We will continue learning about the five food groups and how they help our body grow. We will be examining our food logs to see what food groups we ate from. We will then analyze our eating habits and set some goals for ourselves. Hopefully, these goals will include making some healthier eating choices- And yes, this includes me!!
We will also be documenting our exercise in an exercise log. Please help your child remember to fill out the log each night. We will be looking at ways we can improve in our activity areas after we complete this. It will be due next Monday.

Last, don't forget about our Scholastic Book Orders. You can order online by using the instructions below. It's a great way for our class to get new books and get your child reading!

Online Ordering Information">

Thanks again for your support! Let me know if you like the blog by leaving a comment on our class blog!

Alisha Stevens

Gearing up for a WONDERFUL week!

I hope everyone is enjoying their beautiful Labor Day! The weather is PERFECT!

I have two requests
1) If you have any old magazines that you wouldn't mind donating to our class, we would appreciate it! We specifically need magazines with pictures of foods for our health planner. We will use magazines all year long, so we welcome any that you are ready to discard!

2) Also, I was wondering if anyone would be willing to help with some cutting and stuffing of class projects. I occasionally have papers that need to be cut and then put into baggies for activities our class will be doing. If this sounds like something you could help out with, please let me know. I will supply all materials and give an example of a completed project, so it is EASY for you! I appreciate any help! :)

I also have a project that I am borrowing from another teacher. It is called Mystery Reader. Please see the letter below:
Mystery Reader Parent Note

I hope you are able to help us with this fun mystery! I know the class will love seeing who the visitor is on Fridays! :)

Here is a run-down of what we will be studying this week:

Reading: We will be looking at non-fiction conventions (headings, pictures, captions, maps, labels) in our story this week. Students will be reading "Tools" from our basal.
Here are our vocabulary words:

1. tools- things that help you do work
2. world- the Earth and everything in it
3. fix- to repair something that is broken
4. clean- not dirty
5. farm- to grow food or animals to eat or sell
6. write- to make letters or works with a pen or pencil
7. easier- less hard to understand than something else
8. use- put something into the action that it was meant for


Please work with your child on making a sentence using the word. Some students are still giving definitions on the test!


We will also be working on author's purpose. It's as easy as P.I.E: Persuade, Inform, and Entertain!


Spelling- Our focus will be on initial blends of ch, sh, gr, and the silent 'e' at the end of a word (cut becomes cute).
Here are our spelling words:


1. child
2. chin
3. chip
4. shape
5. ship
6. shut
7. use
8. world
9. grade
10. write
11. clean
12. many
13. work

Be sure to check out Spelling City. You can play games and take practice tests. You can find the list by clicking here:Spelling City

Language- the four types of sentences- Declarative (telling), interrogative (asking), imperative (commands), and exclamatory (excitement). I hope your child has told you all about Debbie Declarative, Igor Interrogative, and Iman Imperative. We will be reviewing all of these types of sentences and will have our last visitor, Xavier Exclamatory visit us this week, too! Students will be assessed on Imperative and Exclamatory as one assessment and over all four types of sentences for another! Overall, students are doing very well with this skill. There will be homework about the sentence types and vocabulary words to be completed every night. Students need to turn this in on Friday.

Writing- We will continue with our "What Makes a Good Friend?" writing-
We will also be making thank you cards for our community heroes. We will be celebrating our police officers and fire fighters on Friday in remembrance of 9/11.

Math- word problems- We will learning how to solve word problems such as result unknown and change unknown.
Here are some examples of result unknown problems:

There were 14 rabbits in the garden. 5 more rabbits joined them to eat the lettuce. How many rabbits are in the garden now? 14 + 5 = ?
15 cars were parked in the parking lot when we went in to the store. 10 cars left while we were shopping. How many cars are in the parking lot now? 15 - 10 = ?

Here are some examples of change unknown problems:

There were 12 birds in the tree. Some more birds joined them and now there are 16 birds in the tree. How many birds flew into the tree? 12 + ? = 16
There were 24 Cokes in the box this morning. Scott took some Cokes in his lunch. Now there are only 19 Cokes in the box. How many Cokes did Scott take in his lunch? 24 - ? = 19

We will continue with this next week when we add start unknown to the types of word problems. Word problems are typically a very difficult skill for second graders. Please help your child each night with their homework. They CAN use calculators. That is one strategy for solving word problems. I encourage students to find other ways to solve problems before resorting to the calculator. They can use their 100 chart, draw a picture, use base 10 block pictures, use manipulatives, or use a math equation.

Don't forget to have your child practice math facts at Xtramath.org.

Planner- We will be learning about the five food groups and how they help our body grow. We will also have some real visitors come this week! Cody Daily, manager of Legends Gym, will be talking with 2nd grade on Tuesday morning. He will be talking about exercise and its importance in fitness. On Wednesday, Christie Anderson, manager of the TASD food services, will be discussing how to make healthier food choices.

Last, don't forget about Grandparent's Day on Thursday, September 8 from 8:15-10:30. I look forward to meeting many grandparents!

Alisha Stevens