Life in Seussey Second

Soaring to greatness by thinking great thinks!

Presenting the Seussville Poetry Cafe!

April28

On April 28, 2017, the second graders at Dunlap Grade School celebrated National Poetry Month with an all-day Poetry Café.  Parents and grandparents were invited to join in on the fun by participating in poetry activities with the kids.  Our day started with a Poetry Picnic.  We snugged up with a book of poetry and read with classmates and or our special visitors.  We spent the time reading all sorts of poetry and looking for alliteration, rhyming words and how the poets play around with spacing.

The rest of the day was spent exploring poetry in the following activities:

Newspaper Poetry: This is where poets cut out words/headlines/letters out of newspapers and rearranged them until a poem emerged.

 

Performance Poetry: Poets were placed into groups and chose a poem to perform for the class.  The groups practiced fluency and created actions to go with their poems.

Pass the Plate Poetry: Poets worked in collaborative groups.  Each group had a plate with one word written in the middle.  The plate was then passed around, with each student adding his or her word somewhere on the plate.  The word they wrote needed to go with the word in the middle.  The goal was to pass the plate as many times as possible.

Roll- the-Dice Poetry: Poets explored syllables while writing these poems.  A pair of dice was used to roll numbers that needed to be added.  Whatever the total amount was that was the number of syllables the line of the poem had to have.

Selfie Poetry: Poets used Chromebooks and Padlet to write Selfie poems that talked all about themselves!  They could write about what they liked, disliked, what we looked like, and or what they were proud of! They then took a selfie of course to include with their poem. Check out our poems here: Selfie Poetry Padlet

Book Spine Poetry: Poets worked in groups to arrange books that had titles written on the spine.  Then they had to stack the books in a way/order that created a poem.

Magnetic Poetry:  The day ended with making our own magnetic poetry by finding words in magazines and attaching them to magnets!

It was a fun day of embracing the perfectly poetic world of poetry.  The Poetry Café really helped us practice authentic writing, develop a purpose for writing and share our writing with a real audience.  It was great to see so many families participate and engage in poetry and celebrate this wonderful genre of writing with us.

What poem was your favorite?  What poem was easiest to write?  Which one was the hardest?  What poems will your write in the future?

We Found Golden Tickets!

January27

“But there was one other thing that the grown-ups also knew, and it was this: that however small the chance might be of striking lucky, the chance is there. The chance had to be there.”  ~ Roald Dahl

Seussville Citizens experienced Chocolate Day 2017 today!  Since we had finished reading Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl, what better way to celebrate then by bringing this book to life.  We started off our morning the luckiest kids ever because we each got a GOLDEN TICKET!  Then it was off to the classroom to sign a very important contract which was our ticket into the chocolate factory.  We practiced writing procedural text by drawing our own version of an everlasting gobstopper followed by, writing the steps on how to draw it.  For added fun, we will be switching our directions with another classmate on Monday.  We learned, how important it is to have clear detailed directions!  We can’t wait to see how our friends will interpret our gobstopper directions.

Next, we taste tested all different kinds of chocolates: white chocolate, dark chocolate, bittersweet chocolate, semi-sweet chocolate and milk chocolate.  After tasting, we used adjectives to describe what they looked, smelled and tasted like.  There was something very familiar about semi-sweet chocolate and something very gross about unsweetened chocolate so be sure to ask your child all about it!  There was even one chocolate that changed flavors as we ate it.  Check out our list of adjectives below

Then we finger painted with chocolate syrup. WE COULD EAT THE PAINT! It was sticky fun and we loved it.

Right before lunch, we got to use a chocolate fountain to dip strawberries, bananas, pretzels and marshmallows.

Finally we ended our day with Fizzy Lifting Drinks (root beer floats) and watched the old movie “Willy Wonka and the Chocolate” Factory.  We practiced our comparing and contrasting skills and were able to find similarities and differences even Mrs. Pitzer didn’t think about.

What a fabulous day of learning and fun! What was your favorite part about chocolate day and why?  Can you tell us in the comment section?  Is there anything you would change or make better for next year?

The Pitzer Post!

January13

~*The Pitzer Post*~

January 16-20, 2017

In this weekly post, you will find information about the academic content and special events happening in the upcoming week. 

Literacy (Reading & Writing)

Click the link to view our upcoming theme skills!
Theme 8 (week two)
Phonics Words:  blink, drink, junk, thank, trunk, round, stay, blanket, monkey
Sight Words: happy, place, lot, stay, when
Vocab Words:  operate, field, effect
Grammar Skill: Review Action and Linking Verbs

Math

Next week we will continue our chapter on metric measurement.  This current chapter does a lot with subtraction and I noticed that we are having some trouble in that area.  One way to help your child at home is practicing math facts.  Fact fluency is a vital skill for students to have especially as we move into harder concepts.  There are so many options and ways to practice facts:

Check out this great website:   http://www.mathfactspro.com/mathfactfluencygame.html#/home
Students can practice basic facts and it allows you to pick the operation, how many problems and then reports how long it takes you to answer.  There of course is a paid version but the free version is just as great! J  You can also use flashcards and or the Flash to Pass App.  If you are having trouble with when to practice you can try a little bit each night or designate certain nights of the week for practice; whatever works the best for your family.

By the end of second grade students are expected to have mastered addition and subtractions facts 1-20!  I know third grade teachers highly appreciate as much fact fluency as possible!

Science

This week students experimented with magnets of all different shapes and sizes.  They then determined what was magnetic and what was non magnetic.  Can your child explain some examples from class?

Second Step

This week we explored strong feelings like frustration, excitement, and anger.  These strong feelings often take over which makes it had for the thinking part of our brain to operate.

Can you child explain this:

Next week, we will focus on managing embarrassment and remembering when we feel strong feelings to stop, name our feeling, and calm down.

Fun-tivities

On Friday, January 27, 2017, second grade will be celebrating Chocolate Day! We are currently reading Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl.  There are so many chocolately adventures that await. Who is excited?!

On Wednesday, February 1st we will be celebrating Global School Play Day 2017! Check out the flyer below for more information: Global Day of Play 2017

Upcoming Events

Monday, January 16, 2017 

  • No School! MLK Day

Tuesday, January 17, 2017 

  • Lunch: Hot Dog
  • “operate”  note card comes home, due  Tuesday
  • STAR Reading Benchmarking Begins

Wednesday, January 18, 2017

  • Lunch: Chicken Fajitas
  • “field” and “effect”  note card comes home, due Wednesday
  • FIRST CURSIVE HW: Watch Cursive Intro Video on Blog and leave a comment!

Thursday, January 19, 2017

  • Lunch: Homemade Chili
  • Phonics Words Practice Paper comes home, due Friday

Friday, January 20, 2017

  • Lunch: Bosco Sticks
  • Theme 8 Progress Test

Celebrating Our Greatness!

  • Super Improvers were EVERYWHERE!!!
  • Diving in to biography writing with  Google Docs
  • Navigating the controls of Google Docs and working hard to stay focused. CTRL Z is our friend!
  • Receiving messages from our teacher when she had a sub and wasn’t even in our room! She was able to use a program called Go Guardian that allows her to check our Chromebook screens to give us advice or remind us to get back on track.
  • Learning how to measure in centimeters and meters
  • Our teacher is participating in the #30daystlaphooks challenge (Teach Like a Pirate Hooks, or ways to get students excited and pumped about learning). Her hooks this week were:
    • Mozart and Interior Design Hook: using music and lighting to spark interest in grammar lessons
    • Mystery Bag Hook: a bag with a ? on it appeared in our room before math and we predicted what we thought would be in it
    • Student Directed Hook: we reflected on math workshop and then our ideas were used to create a chart of what workshop should look like.  We had voice and choice in a lesson!
    • Kinesthetic Hook: We got up and moved around the room making sure 12 sentences had correct end punctuation
    • Teaser Hook: Mrs. Pitzer started the day with no paper chain and by lunch time she had a long paper chain attached to her wrist. We spent all day trying to figure it out.
  • Participating in the “Who can make the longest paper chain with only 1 piece of paper” Competition!
    • 1st place was 260 cm
    • 2nd place was 242 cm
    • 3rd place was 191 cm
  • Realizing that creating a paper chain takes teamwork, critical thinking, problem sovling, and effort!

Second Grade in Pictures

        

Hooray! Hooray for Diffendoofer Day!

October21

Second Graders you all deserve a bow,
We thus declare a holiday-
It starts exactly now,
Because you’ve done so splendidly
In ever sort of way,
This day forever shall be known,
As Diffendoofer Day!

What a wonderful day in second grade land today.  Mrs. Pitzer and Mrs. Weiss were inspired by the book Hooray for Diffendoofer Day by: Dr. Seuss, Jack Prelutsky and Lane Smith, so much that they recreated the day.  The book is all about a school (Diffendoofer School) that is different-er then the rest.  They study things such as smelling, laughing and yelling.  One day they have to take a special test and they are worried they won’t pass because they are different.  If they don’t pass they will have to go to dreary Flobbertown.  You do not want to go to Flobbertown because everyone there does everything the same.  However, once the test is passed out they see that they were taught how to think and they pass with flying colors. They have a celebration with pizza, milk and cake.  They then decide to have a special holiday to celebrate their success!

Our Diffendoofer Day began at morning meeting where Mrs. Ellis, er Mrs. Lowe, introduced the school to some crazy second grade teachers. Then it was off to study the same subjects they study at Diffendoofer School:

1.)      Yelling: Mrs. Pitzer’s mom came in and students learned about sound.  They learned how to make noise that was loud and quiet.  They also learned how to change the loudness and pitch of a sound.  Finally they were able to use instruments and their voices to be noise making machines.

2.)       Laughing: Students read and laughed at so many Laffy Taffy jokes.  Then they picked their favorite one to illustrate and write about.

3.)      Listening: Students had to listen carefully to Halloween noises and try to write down as many sounds as they heard as well as draw a picture of the images they created in their minds.

4.)      Tying Knots: In this subject, there were bins filled with; twine, string, shoelaces, fabric, craft loops, yarn and curling ribbon.  The goal was to try to make something entirely made out of knots.  Students discovered which objects tied the best, which objects tied the worst, and that there is more than one way to tie a knot.  We could even wear our creation all day!

5.)      Noodle Poodles: Spaghetti noodles, spirals, shells, fettuccine, elbow macaroni and more were available for us to make a poodle out of noodles.  We then got to name our poodle and write something fun about it that we wanted other people to know.

6.)      Smelling: *sniff* *sniff* we tested our smelling skills by sniffing 8 different smells.  We had to try to figure out what the smell was and describe the smell using juicy adjectives.  We then picked the best and worst smells.  Some of the smells included: grape Kool-Aid, onion, vinegar, pumpkin, popcorn, chocolate and cinnamon.

Next it was time for science class by making robotic rats out of soup cans and foam balls.  We got to decorate our rat however we wanted adding pipe cleaners, washers, bolts, buttons, googley eyes and sticky foam pieces. It was so fun to create our robotic masterpiece.

After science, we drew pictures upside just like the art teacher Mr. Breeze who drew pictures hanging by his knees.  We sat under the tables and drew the life cycle of our robotic rats!

Finally our day ended with some mathematics fun.  We traveled through the following math centers:

1.)      Math Bingo: We played bingo for prizes but we had to find a problem that matched the number given.  We had to really think and practice important skills such as fact families and fact fluency.

2.)      Math Games: There were so many games to choose from: Tanagrams, Optical Art, and tricky puzzles.  It was neat to see that math can be in board games too!

3.)      Candy Corn Math: First our estimation skills were put to the test by trying to figure out how many candy corns fit in the jar. (571 pieces!) Then we used candy corns to measure objects and determine which objects were longer and which were shorter.

4.)     Eggo Math: Students worked with a friend to race to 1,000.  They used an egg carton to shake buttons to see what numbers they would land on.  Next, they added those numbers by practicing their regrouping skills.  They then kept a running total to try to get to 1,000 first.

We also could not have had a day like this without parent volunteers and donations of all kinds. Thank you to Mrs. Michanicou, Mrs. Fleming, Mrs. Feuchter, Mrs. Badawi, and Mr. Glover for volunteering your time to help us learn in so many differen ways.  Thank you also to all who donated to making this a day to remember!

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Here’s to a wonderful day filled with so many activities that allowed us to think AND have fun! Please feel free to share your favorite part of the day in the comment section.

Seussville: Preseason Footage!

August9

Attention soon to be Seussville Citizens:

Second grade will be “Seussified” with all the “thinks you can think!”

Feel free to let your creative juices flow.

Embrace your inner Seuss.

Become a skilled collaborator.

Sit back, relax, and get lost in your favorite book while snuggled up on our classroom couch.

Be a part of the enchanting transformation of a butterfly.

Multiply and divide your way to mathematician status.

You’re famous! Learn to sign your autograph in perfect cursive.

Concentrate on improvements that will grant you Seusstastic learner status!

You won’t just be the MVP…you’ll be a hall of famer!

Let the experience begin!

Your Mayor of Seussville,

Mrs. Pitzer

Presenting The 2nd Grade Poetry Cafe!

April22

On April 22, 2016, the second graders at Dunlap Grade School celebrated National Poetry Month with an all-day Poetry Café.  Parents and grandparents were invited to join in on the fun by participating in poetry activities with the kids.  Our day started with a Poetry Picnic.  We snugged up with a book of poetry and read with classmates and or our special visitors.  We spent the time reading all sorts of poetry and looking for alliteration, rhyming words and poems in different shapes.

The rest of the day was spent exploring poetry in the following activities:

Newspaper Poetry: This is where poets cut out words/headlines/letters out of newspapers and rearranged them until a poem emerged.

IMG_5216

Performance Poetry: Poets were placed into groups and chose a poem to perform for the class.  The groups practiced fluency and created actions to go with their poems.

Pass the Plate Poetry: Poets worked in collaborative groups.  Each group had a plate with one word written in the middle.  The plate was then passed around, with each student adding his or her word somewhere on the plate.  The word they wrote needed to go with the word in the middle.  The goal was to pass the plate as many times as possible.

IMG_5171 IMG_5172

Roll- the-Dice Poetry: Poets explored syllables while writing these poems.  A pair of dice was used to roll numbers that needed to be added.  Whatever the total amount was that was the number of syllables the line of the poem had to have.

IMG_5215 IMG_5169 IMG_5168

Selfie Poetry: Poets used Chromebooks and Padlet to write Selfie poems that talked all about themselves!  They could write about what they liked, disliked, what we looked like, and or what they were proud of! They then took a selfie of course to include with their poem.

Book Spine Poetry: Poets worked in groups to arrange at least 8 books that had titles written on the spine.  Then they had to stack the books in a way/order that created a poem.

IMG_5179 IMG_5180 IMG_5178 IMG_5181

Magnetic Poetry:  The day ended with making our own magnetic poetry by finding words in magazines and attaching them to magnets!

IMG_5217

It was a fun day of embracing the perfectly poetic world of poetry.  The Poetry Café really helped us practice authentic writing, develop a purpose for writing and share our writing with a real audience.  It was great to see so many families participate and engage in poetry and celebrate this wonderful genre of writing with us.

IMG_5214 IMG_5212

What poem was your favorite?  What poem was easiest to write?  Which one was the hardest?  What poems will your write in the future?

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Do you have what it takes to be a Poetic Ninja?!

April1

April is National Poetry Month!  National Poetry Month is the largest literary celebration in the world.  It was created to raise awareness and increase appreciation for poetry in the United States. The Academy of American Poets started this in 1996 after they were inspired by the successful celebrations of Black History Month (February) and Women’s History Month (March).  The most amazing thing about poetry is being able to play around with language and the rules of writing.  There are so many different types, forms, and ways to construct a poem.  Check out this video about what a poem is…

To celebrate National Poetry Month, each day of April there will be a new poem to read or listen to on our blog!  By the end of the month that means you will have read or heard 30 different poems! Soooo why not make this a game.  Let’s gamify poetry….what does that mean you ask?

Your Poetic Mission

(should you choose to accept it) 🙂
Below you will find the missions you can accomplish daily with each poem that is posted.  Except for the Poetic Padlet Mission, you will want to type your mission(s) in the comment section of the daily blog post.  Do as many or as few as you like.  For each mission accomplished, points will be awarded and posted on our leader board.  Throughout the month as you achieve point values, you can collect your prize.  Points will continue to add up throughout the month to help you on your way to becoming a Poetic Ninja.  Who in our class has what it takes to earn Poetic Ninja Status?!
Poetic Missions
Poetic Prizes

Are you ready?! Here we go!!!

Poetry Quest: Poem #1

Ickle Me, Pickle Me, Tickle Me Too by: Shel Silverstein

Seussified Birthday Celebration!

February26

Seussville was all a flutter this morning to celebrate the birthday of Dr. Seuss!  We started off by wearing mismatched clothes and wacky socks to school and having breakfast.  We gobbled up green eggs and ham, doughnuts, Fruit Loops and orange juice. (Thanks Mr. Pitzer for waking up at 4:30am to make us green scrambled eggs, and Mrs., Kamin and Officer Butterfield for visiting us!)

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After our bellies were full of yummies, we listened to the Cat in the Hat.  We learned that Dr. Seuss wrote this book based on a list of high frequency words that young children would know.  We then shared all the rhyming words we heard and turned them into a poem of our own.  We tried to rhyme as many words as we could and some of us even made up words just like Dr. Seuss. Check out some of our writing:

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Next it was time to gear up our creative juices and create our own Cat in the Hats.  The trick was we couldn’t use scissors or pencils.  We could only tear the paper.  It made from some very “Seussey” cats.

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Then it was time to snuggle up with some of our favorite Seuss books either with a friend or on our own.  We ended the day watching Horton Hears a Who!  What a “Seussey” day for sure.  Happy Birthday Dr. Seuss! Thank you for all your wonderful, silly and wacky books!

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Dr. Seuss Celebration = Wacky Socks + Mismatched Clothes

February25

Hmmm, did this little number show up in your mailbox today?  What kind of day do you think we are in store for?  Can you guess what will be for breakfast?

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posted under TLAP, Wonder | 12 Comments »

I’ve Got a Golden Ticket!

January22

“But there was one other thing that the grown-ups also knew, and it was this: that however small the chance might be of striking lucky, the chance is there. The chance had to be there.”  ~ Roald Dahl

Chocolate Day 16 (1) Chocolate Day 16 (2)

25 lucky second graders experienced Chocolate Day 2016 today!  Since we had finished reading Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl, what better way to celebrate then by bringing this book to life.  We started off our morning the luckiest kids ever because we each got a GOLDEN TICKET!  Then it was off to the classroom to sign a very important contract which was our ticket into the chocolate factory.  We practiced writing procedural text by drawing our own version of an everlasting gobstopper followed by, writing the steps on how to draw it.  For added fun, we switched our directions with another classmate who had to try to draw our gobstopper.  We learned yet again, how important it is to have clear detailed directions!  It was neat to see how our friends interpreted our gobstopper directions.

Chocolate Day 16 (4) Chocolate Day 16 (6) Chocolate Day 16 (7) Chocolate Day 16 (8)

Next, we taste tested all different kinds of chocolates: white chocolate, dark chocolate, bittersweet chocolate, semi-sweet chocolate and milk chocolate.  After tasting, we used adjectives to describe what they looked, smelled and tasted like.  There was something very familiar about semi-sweet chocolate and something very gross about unsweetened chocolate so be sure to ask your child all about it!  There was even one chocolate that changed flavors as we ate it.  Check out our list of adjectives below

Chocolate Day 16 (12) Chocolate Day 16 (13) Chocolate Day 16 (14) Chocolate Day 16 (17) Chocolate Day 16 (18) Chocolate Day 16 (19)

Then we finger painted with chocolate syrup. WE COULD EAT THE PAINT! It was sticky fun and we loved it.

Chocolate Day 16 (20) Chocolate Day 16 (21) Chocolate Day 16 (22) Chocolate Day 16 (23) Chocolate Day 16 (24) Chocolate Day 16 (25) Chocolate Day 16 (26) Chocolate Day 16 (27) Chocolate Day 16 (28)

Right before lunch, we got to use a chocolate fountain to dip strawberries, bananas, pretzels and marshmallows.  Mr. Pitzer even showed us how the chocolate fountain worked.  Special thanks to all the parents who donated money and or supplies!

Chocolate Day 16 (31) Chocolate Day 16 (32) Chocolate Day 16 (35)

Finally we ended our day with Fizzy Lifting Drinks (root beer floats) and watched the old movie “Willy Wonka and the Chocolate” Factory.  We practiced our comparing and contrasting skills and were able to find similarities and differences even Mrs. Pitzer didn’t think about.

Chocolate Day 16 (37) Chocolate Day 16 (38) Chocolate Day 16 (39) Chocolate Day 16 (40)

What a fabulous day of learning and fun! What was your favorite part about chocolate day and why?  Can you tell us in the comment section?  Is there anything you would change or make better for next year?

Chocolate Day 2016 Chocolate Day 2016 Silly Chocolate Day 16 (10) Chocolate Day 16 (11)

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