Hello Families and Friends!

It’s funny…whenever I am going through my son’s clothes that he has grown out of, or sifting through his old toys to give away, I hear the Carpenters singing in the back of my mind…songs of happiness, sadness, loss, memories, and love. This happened to me during the entire last week of school as I prepared to say goodbye to this wonderful little class of very special students. Who knew I was such a big sap?! Despite my melancholy feelings though, we had much joyous fun together during the last couple weeks of school! 

This year was successful in part to our wonderful parent volunteers. Thank you to all of the numerous parents  who donated their time and/or various items to the class. I SO appreciate the lovely Helen Higa-Campbell, my room parent extraordinaire, who was organized, fun to work with, and so creative all throughout the year! Thank you ALL 🙂

What a grand end of year celebration!

Each year on the last day of school, I hand out special little awards to the kids.  It was just as much fun writing out the awards as it was giving it to them. AND I actually did it this year without crying (much)…Here is the list of the awards:

Ralph – Good Idea Award

Hayden – Sunshine Award

Edrich – Everybody’s Friend Award

Harper – Cheerful Cheerleader Award

Andrew – Mr. Olympics Award 

Elena – Giving and Kind Heart Award

Nora – Ms. Research Award 

Hazel – Puzzle Award 

J.J. – History Buff Award

Neelan – Busy Bee Award

Caitlyn – Impressive Butterfly Award

Anukriti – Inventive Creator Award

Zayla – Colored Pencil Award

Quinn – Ms. Presentation Award 

Kaden – Guiding Light Award

Helen Higa-Campbell – Supportive Sister/Mrs. Organization Award

And our Soar With The Eagles Winner: Kaden Barrasso!

Congratulations to all for your unique and individual efforts and gifts you offered all of us all year long 🙂

All of the Eagle winners

Reading, Writing, Language, & Spelling

During the last few weeks, we had our own “book club” literature studies using the book Freckle Juice by Judy Blume and Chocolate Touch by Patrick Skene Catling. . We started our book club meetings with some predictions based upon the cover and title. Each day, we would read a chapter or two both together and independently and would write answers to comprehension questions which asked who, what, where, when, why, and how. We created character trait charts and also used Venn diagrams to compare and contrast different characters in the story. Ask your child about what was in the recipe for the real freckle juice! Also, see what your child thinks about which they would rather have: a chocolate touch, a cheese touch, or a golden touch!

We worked really hard on locating subjects and predicates in sentences. Every sentence, no matter how short or long, tells “who did what.” The “who” part is the subject, and the “did what” part is the predicate. 

Mathematics

We have been reviewing many of the math concepts that we have worked on throughout the year. Our main focus for this last week of school was addition and subtraction with regrouping (borrowing and carrying) and word problems with these same computations. I cannot stress how important keeping up on basic 0-12 math facts (addition and subtraction) will be moving forward. The kids should really have these facts memorized by the time they enter into 3rd grade. Online math bingo is a favorite in my house, and you can’t beat the effectiveness of good old flashcards (though not as exciting in my house). 

Social Studies

In addition to some mapping lessons and discussing briefly the 3 different branches of the US Government, the students have been learning about different careers. They brainstormed hobbies they like and subjects they enjoy in school. Then they picked 3 jobs where those skills could be used. Then, they researched those jobs on the US Bureau of Labor Statistics to investigate the median pay of those jobs, educational/training requirements, and available positions. I was pretty excited to hear all the ideas the students came up with and the research they completed; they had a blast too! I hope this led to some interesting conversations with you about occupations and how to make a good, honest living!

Science with Ms. O 

We learned about the water cycle.  Did you know that there’s the same amount of water on earth now as there was millions of years ago?  The water keeps following the cycle of evaporation, condensation, and precipitation over and over again!  Has your child sung you the water cycle song yet?  If not, ask him or her to do so; it is sure to be a household hit!

We also learned about how rainbows are formed and the color spectrum that makes them up. 

Teaching Time

Check out all the cool things the kids have been teaching about:

Ralph – how to draw a person, eclipses, how to draw Among Us characters

Hayden – Five Nights at Freddy’s, eclipses, how to draw ocean creatures

Edrich – how to make root beer floats, fireworks

Harper – how to draw a mermaid, Maine, how to do a pull over

Andrew – laser tag guns, his dog Bear, Orbeez gun

Elena – making clay potatoes, piano performance x2!

Nora – her stuffies, karate forms

Hazel – pikas, how to draw a mermaid

J.J. – Furbys, Sirenhead, Captain Foxy

Neelan – Boston, Patagonia

Caitlyn – carrots, water striders

Anukriti – world records, black holes

Zayla – frogs, how to draw video game characters

Quinn – Secret of Nimh, fireworks

Kaden – Big Bend National Park, horse riding gear

I would like to close this final blog by saying the following:

Thank you for all of the end of the year gifts, cards, and especially the meaningful sentiments in those cards…enough to make this old gal shed big tears into her oversized American flag coffee cup, but so sweet as to make this old gal feel like she did a lot of things right this year. To know that you, the parents and kids, are happy is truly the best gift of all. I love my job; I can’t imagine doing anything else and even though I’ve tried, I always land right back in the classroom! It’s a job where I learn, I laugh, I feel joy, and I get to see amazing things happen in little minds and hearts each day. It’s pretty awesome and I am very blessed. 

Thank you for your patience and support as we navigated through the tricky spots of Covid school life.

Thank you for trusting me with your children. Being a parent, I know, appreciate, and respect what it feels like and what it means to leave your most valued treasure with someone who is not you. 

Most importantly, thank you to my students. Every day I spent with you was magic. 

Have a wonderful summer and enjoy time spent with family, friends, pets, books, and nature! I will see you soon either to the north or south of Camp Wanna-Learn-A-Lot!

Best,

Annie

Happy Birthday, Harper!

Happy Birthday, J.J.!

Surprise Retirement party for Mrs. Tomiak!

Step up to 3rd grade day with Mr. Gould and Mrs. Stalkfleet

Oh, just working 🙂

Hello Families and Friends of 2B!

Here we are, only 14 days left together in 2B. Hard to believe, I know. 

We would like to wish you all a very special Mother’s Day and hope you love the little gifts we made for you! 

Weren’t the kids adorable at their Spring Show today? Great job to everyone!

Our end of the year party is quickly approaching. We will be having a water slide party in our park with the other 2nd grade class on Wednesday, May 25th.  The students will be allowed to have free dress that day: they will need some sort of water wear, and a change of dry clothes as well. The students will enjoy a lunch, some sweet treats, and a few other surprises. Thank you to Hazel’s mom, Helen, for helping us make this party possible!

The kindergarteners, first, and second graders were lucky enough to jump on buses and go on a fun field trip last week to see the Tucson Symphony Orchestra.  They introduced us to different orchestral instruments and played some really great familiar pieces that the students loved! This concert reignited my lifelong desire to be part of an orchestra…not as a piano soloist, but as an orchestra member! So I have decided to take up either the violin, cello, or the clarinet. Let’s see what kind of a music student I will be as an adult – haha!

Bus ride!Beautiful auditorium 

Reading

We finished our reading and language arts series with a few great selections about what makes our country GREAT! “America Is. . .” by Louise Borden  discusses the customs, symbols, celebrations, and landmarks that make up the national identity of the United States. “This Land Is Your Land,” words and music by Woody Guthrie, were accompanied by explorer Sam Abell’s photos of the United States which, combined with these song lyrics, express this man’s love of the unique American landscape. Some of the words we have been using in sentences, reading about, and looking up in the dictionary are: freedom, immigrant, landform, monument, seek, state, symbol, and united.

The next couple of weeks, we will do some fun book club activities during our language arts time.  Get ready for some fun reading adventures! 

Spelling and Language 

We have been working with the -ent and -ant endings as in the words ‘talent’ and ‘recent.’ We also discussed how to tell where to divide these types of words into syllables. Next week, our spelling list will consist of words that have been most commonly misspelled by the students throughout the year.

We have been practicing dissecting sentences for the following things: subject, predicate, adjectives, and prepositional phrases. The kids now know exactly what I mean when I say “write a complete sentence!” No excuses any more 🙂

Writing

The students were eager to share the nature myths that they wrote with each other. I will send those home to you very soon.

Since we have been reading and writing about our great nation, we decided it would be fun to write about a place we know well: Arizona! We came up with our own lists of things unique to our state. This list was easy for the students to create as so much of our social studies and science this year revolved around our unique desert environment. Then we wrote our own Arizona state anthems/poems/facts using these ideas. We finished off our good drafts by coloring an Arizona flag on the back (personally I think our state has the coolest flag out of all the states!).

What would you do if you had the power of invisibility? Ask your child to see the paragraph writing project he or she completed last week. All I can say is….some of these kids are SNEAKY! Read your child’s paragraph to see what I’m talking about!

Mathematics

We are pushing through our entire math curriculum! Over the past few weeks the students have been solving comparison problems with a smaller unknown, playing games that involved subtracting amounts from 100 or one dollar, and solving story problems with a focus on developing efficient and accurate strategies for subtracting 2 and 3 digit numbers with regrouping (borrowing).

Social Studies

We have just started a new unit on how goods are produced and distributed. In small groups, we created a simple toy car using assembly-line techniques and learned that most goods and products we use and buy are produced by teams in factories. We learned that using assembly lines and good teamwork strategies including effective communication and job distribution, all make the job easier and quicker! We will continue to research how goods are moved from the factory to the store. 

Assembly lines!

Science with Ms. O

We continued our weather study by doing more weather journaling. We will be learning about the 4 most common types of clouds: cirrus (the thin wispy ones), stratus (the blanket covering the entire sky ones), cumulous (the giant puffy white ones) and cumulonimbus (the big gray poofy raincloud ones).  

Teaching Time

Check out all the cool things the kids have been teaching us all about:

Ralph – Colorado, his dad’s surgery

Hayden – how to draw butterflies, 

Edrich – motorcycles, Pima County Fair

Harper – gymnastics, mochi

Andrew – scooter tricks, baseball

Elena – Shedd Aquarium, rattlesnakes

Nora – pikas, Kirby

Hazel – how to draw a bee

J.J. – how ipads work, Glamrock Freddy

Neelan – archery, how to ride scooters

Caitlyn – dolphins, I Lost My Tooth book report

Anukriti – evolution, flying squid

Zayla – how to draw Kirby, hiccups

Quinn – Abe Lincoln, ant lions

Kaden – J.K. Rowling, Yellowstone National Park

Important Dates:

Wednesday, May 11th: 11:50 dismissal

Friday, May 20th: Relaxed dress day,  Art Expo, evening time

Have a wonderful weekend and Happy Mother’s Day!

Annie

Last round of Renaissance testing done!

Hello Families and Friends of 2B!

April is coming to an end and I am sad to say that this school year too, is quickly coming to an end. We only have about 25 days left together. I’m not sure how that happened, but it did. We have had a lot of fun over the past couple of weeks and are gearing up for a strong finish of 2nd grade!

Thank you to Helen and Melissa for arranging a super cute and fun Easter celebration before our break! Also, before Easter Break, we completed a fun Easter themed STEM challenge last week. The students were given jelly beans, toothpicks, and a plastic Easter egg. In pairs, the students had to create a structure that was at least 4 inches tall, could stand by itself, and hold a plastic egg. Through positive communication, each team was successful and had FUN!

Easter fun!

Spelling/Language

We studied a few tricky spellings these past couple of weeks…the ones you pretty much need to memorize because they completely lack phonetic sense: the -le, -sion, and -cian endings (as in cable, tension, and musician). We brainstormed lists of words with these endings as well as read fun poems and short stories which contained words with these spellings. 

We have also been working hard on identifying how prefixes and suffixes change the root word’s meaning. Knowing these word parts helps us to determine words’ definitions! The specific prefixes we studied recently are: dis, pre, in, and im. Suffixes were -less, -er, and -or.

In addition to our continued work with verbs, nouns, and adjectives, we were introduced to prepositions. Ask your child about my own 7th grade English teacher at Saints Peter and Paul named Mr. Adams and his “famous chair routine” to explain what prepositions were. He was just one of the many special teachers in my life who made such an impact that I find myself quoting him (and several others, including my folks) to my very own students year after year 🙂

Reading

“What does America mean to you?” That is the big question we are exploring in our new and last language arts unit. To answer that question, we are reading, writing, and talking about the United States’ customs, symbols, celebrations, landmarks, and national identity. The story “Apple Pie 4th of July” by Janet S. Wong tells about a little girl who learns that she can celebrate the 4th of July with Chinese food, as well as with parades, fireworks, and apple pie. “America: A Weaving” by Bobbi Katz is a poem which tells how people in the United States celebrate diversity and embrace common American traditions. Some of the vocabulary words we have been working with are: American, belief, culture, difference, expect, language, tradition, and variety.

Writing

We have been practicing rephrasing questions and including them in our short answer responses. For example: Why did your husband bring home a PlayStation from Wal-Mart instead of lightbulbs? Answer: My husband brought home a PlayStation instead of lightbulbs because, clearly, he didn’t stick to the list. True story.

Anyhow, this type of short answer response will follow the kids through high school and beyond, so may as well get used to it now!

We were also introduced to a new genre a few days ago – nature myths! We have researched different models of myths and folktales and then brainstormed on what we could write about!  There are some great topics that the students are writing about: how flowers got their colors, how turtles got their shells, how bunnies got long ears, and many more! 

Mathematics

We started and have nearly completed Unit 7 in our math series. We focused on three main ideas:

-Investigating odd and even numbers: representing even numbers as the sum of two equal addends and an odd number as the sum of two equal addends plus 1.
-Visualizing equal groups in the structure of arrays: using an equation to model the total number of squares in an array as the sum of equal addends.
-Describing and representing equal groups as the foundation of multiplication: counting by and adding equal groups, and describing the relationship between a number of equal groups and their total.

Let’s multiply!

Social Studies

In addition to our mapping skills, we have been back to focusing on identifying and naming the continents and oceans, as well as categorizing the different land and water forms. We also have been discovering multiple attractions throughout our United States. I am impressed with how many different places the kids have already seen on their travels with their families.

Science with Ms. O

We have been tracking the temperature each day when the morning bell rings at 8:00am and watching the trends from week to week. The students were also introduced to different weather tools that meteorologists utilize to do their jobs. They practiced reading weather maps which brought in the cardinal directions. Next up: the water cycle, cloud formations, and rainbows!

Teaching Time

Check out all the cool things the kids have been teaching about:

Ralph – constellations, Hirobayashi campground

Hayden – how to draw a cat, how to draw flowers

Edrich – Space Force, golf

Harper – her dog, how to draw a tree

Andrew – Pop-its, football gloves

Elena – Starbucks, how to draw a flower

Nora – bunnies, hamsters

Hazel – Willie Nelson, blobfish

J.J. – Pikachu, Lamborghinis 

Neelan – pickle ball, darts

Caitlyn – rice, jaguars 

Anukriti – apples, ostriches

Zayla – red panda, how to draw a hamster

Quinn – earthworms, Is It Cake show

Kaden – Jiujitsu, difference between bunnies and hares

Important Dates:
Thursday, April 28th: TSO field trip, please wear red shirts and khaki bottoms

Saturday, April 30th:  Dine In movie fundraiser in our park…hope to see you there!

That’s all, folks! Happy weekend!

Annie

Happy birthday, Anukriti!

2nd grade popsicle party for Move-a-Thon!

Hello Families and Friends of 2B!

Hello and happy April! This month will be another month full of fun, friends, and fulfilling young minds!

Thank you to the lovely Helen for our pretty Easter and Spring decorations!

Has your child showed you his or her new skill that he/she learned (or brushed up on) yesterday? Mrs. Tomiak and I ran a “shoe tying clinic” for all of the 2nd graders. We taught the “old school” way of tying shoes. We just practiced by tying a shoelace around our leg…this can be done at home easily to keep up on this skill!  Nobody can go through life without being able to tie a proper knot/bow, so now this mission has been accomplished! Also, if you’re like me, trying to find uniform-appropriate shoes for our kids in velcro is becoming impossible. So…MANY PROBLEMS SOLVED – YAY! 

Spelling and Language

We have been focusing on long vowel words as well as words that we can hyphenate. We also have been learning about articles (‘a’, ‘an’, and ‘the’), synonyms, and antonyms. The students have been enjoying becoming more familiar with the thesaurus and the dictionary. We are practicing using both resources to find what I like to call $100 words in our writing. We just have to remember to use words from the Thesaurus that we can understand! Our recent spelling patterns are: al, all, oi, oy, ow, and ou.

Writing

We have been working very hard on locating details from stories and/or articles and using those details to answer comprehension questions in written form. Rewording information is a tricky skill! We have also been writing sentences while paying close attention to verb form (past, future, present tense). The students have been using rhyming words from our spelling pattern lists to compose short rhymes. 

We have also been working hard on improving our basic paragraph writing. Writing interesting topic sentences, adding details, and a fun concluding sentence has been our focus. We also started peer editing our work. Knowing that our fellow classmates are going to read our rough drafts before I get to them has helped many students step up their handwriting, spelling, and grammar games! Also, every student has the opportunity to offer productive feedback, accept constructive criticism, and work on revision skills. 

Reading

We have finished our reading unit on dependencies in nature. The story “Odd Couples” by Amy Sarver was a science article which describes animals that form partnerships in order to survive. “Working Together” by Lori Wilkinson was an article which explains how flowers and honeybees help each other survive. A few vocabulary words that we worked with in our workbooks and used for dictionary activities were: ability, difficult, enemies, partners, respond, species, threaten, and unusual.

We have begun reading the book Totally True Adventures: Balto and the Great Race.  This book complements our Social Studies topic about the Iditarod.  We are reading this book as a whole class in a “book club” type of setting. We discuss each chapter and students complete comprehension questions. They love books where the main characters are doggies!

Mathematics

The students were introduced to standard measurement tools. We used inch rulers to measure familiar objects and various lengths, and also located benchmarks on our bodies that we can use to estimate lengths. We were introduced to centimeters and meters and found objects that were about equal to these units. We also continued to solve comparison problems and other story problems about lengths and made line plots of measurement data that we generated. Next up: concepts of multiplication! 

Oh, just measuring pretty much everything we can think of in inches, feet, and centimeters!

Science with Ms. O

We have continued working on our weather unit. We have had a great time going outside to observe the weather to write in our weather journals. Not only do we (as meteorologists) have to feel the conditions, but we also have to see them as well…like seeing which direction the wind is blowing according to a windsock or flag, or observing the cloud formations. We will be taking part in more fun weather activities shortly!

 Social Studies

We have been reviewing map coordinates and brushing up on our mapping skills in general. 

We have been reading about how people use and misuse the natural resources in various environments. We also discovered some of the negative effects of pollution caused by misuse of the environment. We brainstormed how to solve the world’s trash problem by understanding the adage: “reduce, reuse, recycle.” 

Teaching Time

Check out all of the interesting things the kids have been teaching about:

Ralph – basketball, Hotel Congress

Hayden – Roblox, Among Us

Edrich – cotton candy

Harper – ear piercing, hula hooping

Andrew – football, drones

Elena – paper cuts

Nora – dogs, cats

Hazel – her sister, four square rules

J.J. – Roblox, Toys R Us

Neelan – his brother, World Cup

Caitlyn – jellyfish, dragonflies 

Anukriti – kite flying, Shrinky Dinks 

Zayla – Roblox, Siberian Huskies

Quinn – Roombas, snails and slugs

Kaden – snowy owls

Important Dates:

April 7: 2nd grade popsicle party for Move-A-Thon winnings

April 8: 2nd grade Easter party

April ll-15: No school

April 28th – Field trip to see the Tucson Symphony Orchestra.  We will be headed to The School for the Deaf and Blind for this performance by bus. Students must wear red shirts and khaki bottoms

April 30th – Movie night at St. Michael’s in the park

That’s a wrap! Have a wonderful weekend!

Annie

Hello Families and Friends!

Can you believe March is halfway over and we only have about 45 days of school left? This year has flown by for us here in 2B!

We completely enjoyed our Love of Reading Week! Thank you to all of the parent volunteers who helped make it so special for us! Highlights: meeting two published authors – Stephanie Permain & Chris Gall, decorating our classroom door together, visiting the book fair, and reading to service dogs. What a great week to celebrate the gift of books and reading!

Chris GallStephanie Permain

Did you hear about our leprechaun hunt last week? Daniel O’Murphy left clues all over the school for us to find which led us to a special treasure!  

Nobody was getting pinched on my watch!

Eating the cookies Danny Boy left for us!

Reading

“How do living things depend on each other?” That is the big question we are exploring in our new reading unit. To answer it, we are reading, writing, and talking about the partnerships some plants and animals form in order to survive. “Go to Sleep, Gecko!” by Margaret Read MacDonald is a cute folk tale where a gecko learns how much his survival depends on other animals in the forest. “Enric Sala: Marine Ecologist” by Kristin Cozort is an article where the author describes the work of Explorer Enric Sala, who studies coral reefs and the many creatures that depend on them. Ask your child about each of those books! Some new vocabulary words we have been reading, using in our writing, and looking up in the dictionary are: accept, connect, necessary, relate, roles, and vegetation.

Spelling/Language

We have been studying the short O sound spelled oo, ea, au, and aw. I am pleased to see that more and more students are remembering these odd spellings that we study week-to-week in our spelling packets. That’s the whole point! Not to mention that the students are also becoming more aware of these spellings when they view them while reading. We have also been working hard on using the rules of hyphenation. We are continuing to talk about subjects and predicates as well as present tense and past tense verbs. In addition, we studied the prefixes un, re, and mis along with the suffixes -y, -ly,and  -ful. 

Writing

We had a couple of big weeks full of Irish writing. We started writing some fabulous leprechaun adventure stories. From start to finish of the writing process, these have taken the students a longer time than normal because their stories are becoming more and more detailed – and I’m way ok with that!! 

We also learned how to write limericks! From the rhymes to the beats in each line, these are some entertaining poems to write. This has now become the students’ favorite type of poetry to write!

Mathematics

We have been continuing work on adding and counting within 100 and 1,000 through workbook pages and partner games. Story problems, including comparison problems with a larger unknown, and story problems with more than one step have been our major focus during this past week. The students have focused on developing efficient and accurate strategies for adding larger numbers, specifically those that involve adding hundreds, tens, and ones and having to regroup. 

By now, the students know that telling time is an essential skill in their lives. Telling time allows them to relate the duration of an event in their daily routines to reading a clock. These applications provide a purpose for telling time and keeping track of the duration of an event. With the short hand, we tell the hour and approximate how close we are to the next one by where it is pointing. With the long hand, we focus on the distance traveled to tell the duration in minutes since the last hour, and how long until the next hour.  We have practiced using the terms “half past” and “quarter past/til.” If the kiddos don’t have an analog watch or clock, I’m putting it on their wish list!

Social Studies

We have practiced identifying geographic features and locating them on a physical map.  We also practiced drawing the different geographic features on our own physical maps to show understanding. We have been studying about all of the different landforms/water forms that are found on earth, too. Lots of new vocabulary words…maybe to look up in the dictionary at home? (ocean, river, lake, bay, island, canyon, peninsula, hill, mountain, valley, plain, volcano, plateau, desert, glacier, delta, isthmus, waterfall, and cave)

Science with Ms. O

A new science unit is about to commence: air and weather!  So far, we have discussed the interactions of air, water, and energy which we call “weather.”  Weather is more than windstorms, but weather is always directly or indirectly something going on with, or in, the air. We will practice being meteorologists by observing the day’s weather and notating it in our weather journals! We will also be discussing all of the different types of cloud formations.  

Teaching Time

Check out all the cool things the kids have been teaching about:

Ralph – Charles Lindbergh, leopard geckos

Hayden – trees, sharks

Edrich – the sun, lightning

Harper – how to draw a brick wall, Big City Greens

Andrew – how to skateboard, snowboarding

Elena – glass, mirrors

Nora – calico cats, Ireland

Hazel – mythical creatures, her brother

J.J. – Pokemon, claw machines

Neelan – Iditarod, St. Patrick’s Day in NYC

Caitlyn – lemurs, crystals

Anukriti – mold, Holi 

Zayla – clownfish, drawing lesson 

Quinn – Babysitter’s Club books, A Wrinkle in Time

Kaden – porcupines, St. Patrick’s Day

Important Dates: 

April 11-15: Easter Break

Have a nice weekend! I am sending this out a day early because I will be staying home with my little boy tomorrow who is feeling a bit under the weather. Mrs. Sandy Schultz, former 3rd grade teacher at St. Mike’s for YEARS, will be my substitute.

Thank you,

Annie

Anukriti winning a Move-a-thon award!

Elena winning a Move-a-thon award!

Such sweet pups!

Hello Families and Friends!

Good day to you all! I hope you have had a great start of March – we sure have in 2B!

Thank you for all of the pre and post surgery wishes you sent my way. My carpal tunnel has been released and the stitches are finally coming out today! PSA for all of my friends out there: don’t ignore symptoms or be stubborn for 25+ years. I have learned that the five most dangerous words strung together are: “maybe it will go away.” In any event, the recovery process is under way and I’ll be back at the piano as soon as I can comfortably be! 

Erin go Bragh! Thank you, Helen, for the awesome St. Patrick’s Day decorations!

Next week is Love of Reading Week! Please refer to Mr. Layer’s blog for more details, but kindly let me know if your child does not wish to participate in the “reading to a service dog” portion of the week (occurring on Wednesday). Thank you!

Spelling/Language

We have been working on contractions.  The students know that contractions are used mostly when speaking, however they can be used for more informal types of writing.   We have also been working on locating pronouns.  For a refresher, pronouns take the place of a noun…I, you, he, she, it, and they are examples of pronouns. Finding and using possessive nouns and plural possessive nouns were also a focus of ours this week (example: dog’s or fairies’).

Our spelling patterns included “r-controlled vowels” spelled ir, er, ur, air, are, ear, eer, and ear.

Reading

We have been coming across some heavy-duty words in our reading, so we have started to brush-up on our dictionary skills so we can look up these hard words and learn their meanings, as opposed to just skipping over them! Once the lightbulb clicked as to how to actually use a dictionary, the kids were so excited! Some of them even are choosing to explore the dictionary during independent reading time!

Speaking of reading, let me remind you that it is just as important for your child to read aloud to you as it is for you to read aloud to him or her!  By hearing adults read, the children will be exposed to more elevated vocabulary, they will hear your voice inflections, and also it can’t hurt their listening skills!

We finished our current reading unit with a few cool stories. “In a Mountain Community,” by S. Michele McFadden, focused on how an explorer named Losang Rabgey witnessed how a community came together to build a school that ensures a good future for its children. “Mi Barrio” by George Ancona was a photo-essay which showed how a boy helped his community by painting beautiful murals that reminded people of their heritage. Some of the vocabulary words (which we also looked up in a dictionary) were: education, opportunity, organize, project, result, and success.

Writing

We have been practicing writing directions for various activities in list order such as writing a recipe, retelling our daily schedule, etc.  Another skill we have been learning about in writing is how to use examples from stories without plagiarizing. This is a tough concept, but we are getting better at restating ideas.

We also had fun writing some cause and effect books based upon the story pattern that is used in the book If You Give a Pig a Pancake.

The students have been working hard on writing formal paragraphs. So far, they have written one narrative and one opinion paragraph. The students are guided through the process of taking their ideas from their brainstorming and organizing them into the elements they will need to write their paragraph. The way we break down each part of the writing process has been fun and effective. More great writing to come!

Mathematics

We have embarked on Investigation 2 of place value in the hundreds. The students have been focusing on strategies pertaining to +/- 10, +/- 100, and numbers through 1,000. One fun game was called “Close to 100,” where the students used their knowledge of place value and known combinations of sums to find pairs of 2-digit numbers that add to 100 or close to it. We played several rounds of “Guess my Number” up to the 1,000s! That’s a game you could totally play at home if you have a number chart; ask your child how to play. More math fun to come soon!

How close to 100 can you get without going over?

Science

Question: you have plain water and water with salt mixed in. Which one will evaporate first and why? We completed this very experiment! Annnnnndddddd….the fresh water evaporated more quickly! The salt crystals create more of an obstacle for the water molecules to pass through during the evaporation process. Next science unit – weather!

Magic potions!

Social Studies

Going along with our Language Arts theme of teamwork and reaching goals, we have embarked on studying the Iditarod! This race takes place in Alaska. It is a 1,100 mile race from Anchorage to Nome and commemorates the 1925 heroic journey to get a much-needed serum to the children in Nome during a diphtheria outbreak. The use of dogsled teams was the only way to deliver the medicine to the children. After reading a few books and watching some videos, the students have all picked a musher and will keep track of his or her progress during the race! We will also be doing a literature study using the book Balto in the next few weeks.

Here is a list of the kids and their mushers so that you can keep track of the progress at home this weekend if you wish (the race starts on Saturday, March 5th):

(Website to check progress of the race: https://iditarod.com/ )

Anukriti – #4 Michelle Phillips

Zayla – #5 Paige Drobny

Edrich – #6 Martin Massicotte

Hayden – #7 Jessie Holmes

Hazel – #9 Anna Berington

Kaden – #10 Matthew Failor

Neelan – #11 Mats Pettersson

Nora – #12 Joar Leifseth Ulsom

Harper – #13 Hanna Lyrek

Quinn – # 14 Eric Kelly

Annie – #27 Brent Sass

Caitlyn – #29 Julie Ahnen

Elena – #32 Amanda Otto

Ralph – #48 Matt Paveligo

J.J. – #49 Yuka Honda

Andrew – #50 Hugh Neff

Mrs. Fenstermacher is a middle school teacher, also Queen of the Iditarod, who graciously shared lots of insider info with us!

Teaching Time

Check out all the cool things the kids have been teaching about:

Ralph – obsidian, light sabers

Hayden – flowers, foxes

Edrich – computers, Tiger Woods

Harper – her cat, the Grand Canyon

Andrew – model airplanes, golf clubs

Elena – birch trees, Mardi Gras (with beads and masks for all – thank you!)

Nora – her dog,  Pokemon

Hazel – how to draw a bird, Proterra

J.J. – Grogu, RC cars

Neelan – headphones, speed skating

Caitlyn – starfish, her uncle

Anukriti – Magic Treehouse books, star cactus

Zayla – Japan, book reports

Quinn – Google Nest, smudging 

Kaden -the rodeo, bow drills

Important dates:

Friday, March 11th: Relaxed dress

Wednesday, March 16th: 11:50 dismissal

Have a nice weekend!

Annie

Valentine’s Day pics I forgot to post.  

Mardi Gras wear – thank you, Elena!

Hello Families and Friends!

Interesting weather this week, wouldn’t you say? Thank you for continuing to send your child to school in layers 🙂

Speaking of thank yous, we love our Valentine’s Day decorations from Helen Higa-Campbell! Thank you!

The kids will get to celebrate Valentine’s Day on Monday the 14th…pictures to come! Please make sure to help your child remember to bring in his or her Valentine cards to share with our class and 2A on Monday!

Spelling/Language

We have been working on identifying nouns, verbs, and adjectives in sentences and paragraphs.  Included in our noun work, we are practicing changing singular nouns to plural nouns and are observing how at times, the spelling can completely change when doing so. We are working on locating and using singular and plural pronouns (I, me; them, us) as well as subject and object pronouns (she, it; him, her). Our spelling patterns for the past few weeks have been the ‘ar’ sound and the ‘or’ sound spelled OR and ORE. 

Reading

We started a new reading unit: “Why do people work together?” That is the big question we are exploring at the moment. To answer it, we are reading, writing, and talking about cooperation. The story “Domino Soup” by Carmen Agra Deedy was a play where neighbors cooperate to make soup from just one domino. “Stone Soup” by John Forster and Tom Chapin was a cool story that talked about a soldier who uses stones to make soup for an entire village. All stories weighed heavily upon teamwork and the benefits of cooperation. Some vocabulary words we have been working with during the past two weeks are: cooperate, enough, possible, society, teamwork, and together.

Science with Ms. O

We have observed various liquids and have discussed their densities, how they move, and if they are transparent, opaque, etc.  We learned that the closer the molecules are in a piece of matter, the harder, or more dense, it will be.  So, for instance, a liquid like honey is made up of more closely-packed molecules than the molecules in water.  We performed an experiment to solidify this concept: we tried to mix water and oil together, but no matter how hard we tried, the liquids would not combine!  That’s because they have different levels of density!  Next week, the kids will have an assignment where they have to create a “magic potion”. They will use their recent knowledge of liquid densities and vocabulary in order to make some pretty interesting concoctions I’m sure! 

Social Studies

We began a new study on geography.  We are learning that communities have different geographic features and that physical maps show these features: mountains, deserts, rivers, valleys, oceans, lakes, islands, plains, etc.  We learned about, identified, and are trying to memorize the 7 continents and 5 oceans on the globe!

We enjoyed a recycling presentation called  “Too good to throw away” given by the City of Tucson. We learned about all the things we can and cannot recycle. Ask your child about it! 

Writing

We have been practicing rephrasing questions in developing answers in written form. Two writing assignments where we practiced this were based on the topics of kindness and reasons why we are special. Using part of a question when answering it is one of those elements of writing that needs a lot of practice and attention. We will continue working on this skill all year.  We also worked on writing recipes for soup. We had some pretty unique recipes from good old chicken soup to Nothing soup and Pencil Soup. Ask your child about his or her recipe! 

Mathematics

We completed our introduction work with line plots and bar graphs and have moved on to Unit 5 in math. This unit has a focus on the place value of three digit numbers, fluency with addition/subtraction within 100, and identifying, reading, and writing numbers up to 1,000. Weaved in and out of each unit are randomly placed time-telling sessions. If your child doesn’t have an analogue clock or watch, it may be a good “time” to purchase one (see what I did there?).

Awesome number sense game called “Collect 5”

Teaching Time

Check out all the cool things the kids have been teaching about:

Ralph – crystals and diamonds, Bakugan

Hayden – how to draw a diamond, how to draw dice

Edrich – Olympics, bioluminescence 

Harper – Legend of Zelda, Golf N Stuff

Andrew – lacrosse, RC cars

Elena – how Jolly Ranchers are made (with samples!), how tamales are made (with HOMEMADE samples – YUM and WOW!)

Nora – foxes, wolves

Hazel – how to draw a Phoenix, groundhogs

J.J. – Pokemon, history of Valentine’s Day

Neelan – Mt. Lemmon Gravel Grinder, getting his stitches

Caitlyn – avocados, her family

Anukriti – Olympics, Lunar New Year

Zayla – her snake, how to draw a cat

Quinn – how to make clay, Lego Masters

Kaden – Havasupai Falls, Grand Canyon

Important Dates: 

Feb. 18th: Relaxed dress

Feb.  21-25: No school

Monday Feb. 28th: BACK TO SCHOOL!

Best,

Annie

Happy Birthday, Edrich!

Icicles on the fountain!

Hello Families and Friends!

Hello and happy (almost) February from 2B!  We hope that you have had a nice couple of weeks.  Interesting weather we’ve been having…I never know how to dress! But it is still chilly in the mornings, so please continue to send your child to school with a jacket or sweater!

Our 100th day of school was fabulous (that was TODAY!)! We created pictures out of the number 100, wrote some funny books based on 100, and we made a collective list: 

Things we have been told (or have said)100 times

Turn off your game

Turn off the lights

Get up

Sit down

Stop fighting

Stop ___(sibling’s name)!

Don’t be late!

Clean up your room

Pick up your toys

Pay attention

Do your homework

Can you fill my water bottle

Time to eat

Time for bed

Hurry up

Put your mask on the right way

Wash your hands

Close the door

Get your work done

Get off

Put your seatbelt on

No biting

Put your clothes away

Pick up your shoes

100th Day glasses!

**Cool news**

St. Michael’s was gifted the donation of a beautiful 1947 Steinway small grand piano. We are so lucky to add it to Camp Wanna-Learn-A-Lot! ! The students were able to see it moved in and assembled by my friend Daniel at Ley’s Piano Company. What a wonderful gift to the school, and we are so blessed to have the opportunity to house it in our room!

Spelling/Language

I am sure by now you have noticed that our spelling lists include bonus words and a bit more challenging words. This is in preparation for 3rd grade spelling/vocabulary expectations. There are still phonetic pattern/syllable pattern words as always, but now there are more difficult words included from our reading text and also some words from our science and social studies units. A few of the vowel spellings we have been working on during spelling time are: the ‘OO’ sound spelled oo, _ue, ew, ui, and ou; and the ‘YOO’ sound spelled ue and ew.

We have also been working hard on correct placement of quotation marks. Boy, do we “love” grammar and punctuation 😉

Reading

We have finished our unit on different cycles in nature. It was the students’ favorite reading unit so far as it contained so many interesting and thought-provoking selections.

“What Makes the Seasons?” by Megan Montague Cash was a cool poem-story where the speaker described the four seasons and explained why Earth has them. “A Winter Wonder” by Tyrone Hayes, Ph.D. was an interesting science article where explorer/scientist Tyrone Hayes explained how the American wood frog adapts to changes in the seasons.  Some vocab words we have been using in our reading and writing during the last couple of weeks were: affect, autumn, explain, measure, and reason.

Writing

We have been completing some fun writing assignments lately! In one assignment, the students had to use descriptive language to write clues about their favorite season by describing how a tree looked during that season. We then read our sentences aloud and made guesses based upon the language used what season the author was talking about. 

We also have been refining our writing to flow a little better for the reader. This includes understanding how compound sentences (2 simple sentences joined together with the words ‘and’ or ‘but’) and compound questions (2 simple questions joined together with the word ‘or’) work. We practiced writing compound questions by pretending we were waiters and waitresses. We wrote mini-plays where we pretended to take a customer’s order and wrote compound questions such as: “would you like fries or apple slices?” The kids had such a good time pretending to be servers! 

In the spirit of Valentine’s Day, we will be starting to write the rough drafts of some V-day themed projects. Stay tuned for final drafts!

Some Valentine Sweetheart creature paragraphs we did today!

Mathematics

We have started a new chapter called “Working with Categorical Data.” We kicked off the new unit with a game of “Guess My Rule.” During this game, we sorted our classmates into two groups according to a secret attribute or rule. They made representations of the data for one rule, compared different representations, and were introduced to the conventions of picture graphs. We have started learning different ways to collect data and how to organize that information into a picture graph, line plot, or bar graph. We created our own surveys and got together with the kids in 2A for data collection…this was so fun! I love this chapter and I’m sure the students will be creating their own surveys and graphs at home soon too!

Surveys and graphs!

Surveys and graph project with 2A!

Science with Ms. O

We continued our study of solids and used our senses to decipher which properties different solids share in common.  We completed an activity including a “sorting circle” where we sorted objects according to common properties, and we also had fun with “guessing bags” where we participated in question/answer sessions to create a list of properties (read: generating lists of adjectives!) and then hypothesize what the solid was based upon the properties we discovered through those questions. 

Social Studies

We reviewed how to use map grids on a larger scale. Then we tried our hand at making our own grids…which we quickly found out was harder than it looks, but still a fun challenge! We practiced using our cardinal directions in pairs by playing a fun game. We had a game board and some cards with directions such as “take 2 steps south and 1 step east.” The goal was to get to our specific house on the game board through all these directional steps. Finally, the students are feeling much more comfortable with NSEW direction-giving. Practice makes perfect 😉

We have also been completing some logic and following directions/listening activities. Such important skills to practice!

Teaching Time

Check out what the kids have been teaching each other (and me) about!

Hayden – how to draw a cake

Edrich – NFL

Harper – Girl Scouts, how balloons are made

Andrew – how Beats work, how the Oculus works

Elena – moths, narwhals

Nora – chocolate, koalas

Hazel – how Covid tests work

J.J. – Teslas, how fidget spinners work

Neelan – history of Crocs, barracudas 

Caitlyn – prosthetics, human eye

Anukriti – pack rats, Wordle

Zayla – Iceland, the history of telephones

Quinn – Encanto characters, Alaskan wood frogs

Kaden – pararescue troopers, Sonoran Desert

Important dates:
Monday, February 14th: please bring your Valentine’s to school for our class and 2A!

That’s about all of the big news for the past 2 weeks! Have a great weekend!

Annie

Happy birthday, Caitlyn! 🙂

Hello Families and Friends!

Greetings and happy 2022!  We started the new year strong here in 2B!  The students seemed to all be excited to get back to the grind and are doing quite well. 

Thank you for attending your child’s conference. If you have any further questions or concerns that we did not cover, please do not hesitate to let me know!

We will be exchanging Valentines with both second grade classes for Valentine’s Day. There are 29 students total and I’ll send out a name list soon. More details to follow…I just wanted you to know how many cards you would need far in advance because if your child is like my child, they are VERY specific about the types of Valentine’s they want to send out, thus needing to be special ordered 🙂

Reading

“Why is nature always changing?” That is the big question we are exploring in this new reading unit. To answer it, we are reading, writing, and talking about cycles in nature, including weather and the seasons. When the Wind Stops by Charlotte Zolotow was one reading selection where a mother explained that things in nature don’t end; they only change or move on to another place. Day and Night was an article and experiment by Glen Phelan which explained what causes the patterns of day and night. While discussing our reading, we have tried to use our new vocabulary words: appear, motion, observe, pattern, repeat, and shadows, to name a few. 

Spelling and Language

 Here are all the various spelling patterns we have studied over these past two weeks: long I spelled I, ie, igh; long E spelled e, e_e, ie, y, ea; soft G spelled gi and ge; soft C spelled ci and ce; the N sound spelled n, kn, gn; the R sound spelled r, wr; and the M sound spelled m, mb. Many of the kids think it is cool to point these spellings out when they are reading independently. You can encourage them to do this at home too. Strong reading and strong spelling go hand-in-hand. In language, we focused on complete sentences with correct subject/verb agreement, adjectives, synonyms, and antonyms. 

Writing

We have been practicing persuasive writing. This group of bright students is already proficient in being convincing; however, we can always use practice on using stronger words in our writing paired with details to support our thoughts. We read the book Dear Mrs. LaRue and wrote a persuasive letter to the main character (Ike the doggie) where we used persuasive language to convince Ike to stay at his obedience school. The students had such a great time with this assignment, so we decided to do more persuasive writing: they were given a chance to try to persuade me to take them on a field trip to any place of their choosing. The students had to provide enough concrete examples as to why their field trip would be best and most useful for our class to attend. Boy, your kids are wonderful at finding reasons to help them convince others! They also must think I have sacks of money sitting around my house or something…read: proposed field trips to Defy, the movie theater, Legoland, Mt. Lemmon, Florida, the zoo, the Phoenician, the Desert Museum, an art museum, a gym, and Hawaii. Haha! If only… 😉

Mathematics

We have been continuing working on solving story problems with unknown changes and unknown starts and recording our solutions so that someone else can understand our unique strategies. Story problems help students to consider the relationship between addition and subtraction to arrive at an answer. Often, our book asks the students to solve the problems in 2 different ways; so we see different representations using numbers, symbols, pictures, and/or words to find the solutions. We also have been practicing our number sense by playing the beloved  “Guess My number” but at this point in the year, we are starting to play using larger numbers up to 500!

Math game on the 200s-300s chart: 5 in a Row!

Social Studies

We took a tour of our lovely church as part of our studies on St. Michael’s history. There are many hidden treasures in and around the church which proved to be fascinating to the students.  We  even had the opportunity to hear the pipe organ – a first time for many. The students were mesmerized by the sound of the pipes surrounding the church! In the coming weeks, we will be learning about the history of St. Michael’s School – when it started, student population, etc.  The students will be writing about the information they have learned and creating some type of flip book.

Pipe organist Dr. Leightenheimer performing for us!

We are also continuing to work on making and reading maps. We played a fun compass game to help us with our NSEW skills, too. During our Social Studies block, we discussed how we can do our part in society to make things better. We wrote  some touching word poems for MLK Day where we named things we wished to improve about the world “with our two hands.” We also learned a lot about each other by doing a little snowman hieroglyphic activity. 

Compass games!

MLK inspired poetry and water colors!

Science with Ms. O

 We dove into a new science unit of matter: solids, liquids, and gases.  We learned that everything in the universe is made up of matter.  This past week, we focused on solids.  We analyzed several different solids and observed their properties. The students are looking forward to more fun projects and experiments having to do with matter!

Teaching Time

Ralph – horses, microscopes

Hayden – how to draw a whale, rocks

Edrich – Rogue weight company, crutches

Harper – Magic Mixie, how to draw a cat

Andrew – fidget devices

Elena – giraffes, zebras

Nora – Telluride, rainforests

Hazel – how to skateboard, magic tricks

J.J. – how to draw a ship

Neelan – Park City, driving from NY to AZ

Caitlyn – ladybugs, whales

Anukriti – Grand Canyon, sharks

Quinn – aqua beads

Kaden – Nile River, chipmunks

What a great start to the New Year! See you soon!

Annie

Hello Families and Friends!

Season’s Greetings to one and all! We just passed our 81st day of school, which means that we have less than 100 days left together…get ready, because it’s going to (sadly) fly by. The second half of 2nd grade is much more demanding as far as the level of difficulty in the curriculum, and also in the area of personal responsibility. By this time, the students should be able to complete tasks on their own without the constant reminders to get the jobs done. They are also expected to be able to better work on projects in collaborative groups in terms of communication and positive participation. I appreciate your support in these areas, and of course, I’m here to support you as well! 

Weren’t the kids wonderful in their holiday performance? That is always one of my favorite events here at St. Michael’s and I was beaming with pride both as a teacher and a parent! BRAVO! 

Thank you to Helen Higa-Campbell and Melissa Dolezal on planning a wonderful holiday celebration for the 2nd grade! Thank you to all of the parents for donating items to the party! Treats were eaten, crafts were made, games were played, and SANTA CAME!!!

Speaking of thank yous, I loved all of the Christmas gifts and cards that I received! I feel like a very loved and special person! My sweet tooth of a husband is especially thankful for the cookies and candies 🙂 Thank you so very much!

Reading

We have been reading several non-fiction texts which have illustrated our theme of responsibilities towards each other. We read, wrote, and talked together about community members far and wide who have done heroic things to help others.  In one story, “Giving Back” by William Albert Allard,  explorer William Allard described how a photo he took inspired people to help a boy in need. “Iraqi Children Get Wheelchairs— and Big Smiles” was a web-based news article which reported about a charity that donates wheelchairs to Iraqi children who cannot walk. These are just a few of the examples of texts we have been reading to explore community responsibility. Some vocabulary words that popped up were: aid, decide, example, generous, heroes, leaders, serve, and support.

Spelling and Language

 We worked on a few different types of words this week:  long o spelled oa and ow, and compound words.  In addition to our spelling word work, we read stories and poems that contained words with these spellings.  Through much exposure, the students will recall the spelling of these words when writing and reading them. We also have been working on subject/verb agreement i.e. how verbs need to change depending on the subject. Example: She digs vs. We dig.  Understanding what parts of language are needed in order for sentences to make sense and be complete makes us stronger writers!

Writing

We have been working hard on writing Christmas stories.  The stories are written in the voice of an elf who has to save Christmas because Santa is sick! We are getting used to organizing our writing better by first listing our beginning, middle, and ending ideas then creating a fluid story using those thoughts. This makes for better stories with smoother transitions which is something that all of the 2nd graders need to work on! We also had fun writing in a different format: we wrote a R.A.F.T. This stands for role, audience, format, and topic. So we looked at a picture of a town getting hit by a blizzard. We pretended that we were snowflakes in that blizzard (role), who were writing to another object in the picture (audience) a letter (format) about the damage that was about to happen to that object (topic). FUN! This is something that the kids may enjoy doing at home…be creative! 

 Mathematics

We have been continuing working on adding multiples of 5, 10,  and 20 up to 100 and 200. A couple of fun games to help us practice are in the pictures below. At home, if you’d like to play these games  (called “Get to 100” or “Get to 200”), simply mark on some dice with a sharpie the numbers 5, 10, 15, and 20. Roll and write down the numbers and keep a running addition problem with each roll until you get to 100 or 200! We are in the process of developing efficient strategies for adding and subtracting 2 digit numbers including drawing pictures, using 10s and 1s sticker strips, using hundreds charts, and good old regrouping. Also, we have been working hard on solving two-step story problems involving larger numbers and money amounts. When solving story problems, the students are given opportunities to explain their solution strategies to another student so that we are all seeing different routes to the same answers. Explaining math reasoning is a tricky thing, but we are all improving in this process!

Social Studies

We are still continuing to work on making and reading maps.  We have been working on different map grid coordinate activities where we either had the goal of finding places with a grid or creating fun pictures with the coordinates.  Now, we need to continue practicing giving directions on how to get from place to place only using the cardinal directions! 

Science

We finished our spider study up by learning about the 5 different types of webs that spiders make. Have your child explain how spiders eat insects. Also ask them how tarantulas are helpers and why we should let them live in our yards!

We completed a Christmas-themed STEM (science, technology, engineering, math) challenge this past week. The kids “Built a STEM Shelf for the Elf!” The students had to build a sturdy shelf for a paper elf using popsicle sticks and a very small amount of clay. These shelves served as wonderful lessons in planning and trial and error.  I was proud of how well the students worked patiently to successfully build strong, tall shelves for their Christmas elves!

Teaching Time

We learned a lot from our peers this week: 

Ralph – Nutcrackers, Santa’s keys

Edrich – trees, the superbowl

Harper – candy canes, Dragon Girl book

Andrew – how RC cars work, rodeos

Elena – phantom jellyfish, Lady of Guadalupe

Nora – jungle cats, Zelda

Hazel – claw machines, lambs

J.J. – Universal Studios, Pokemon

Neelan – Central Park, stockings

Caitlyn – koalas, lungs

Anukriti – pocket watches, Mother Teresa

Zayla – pinecones, Christmas facts

Quinn – St. Bernards, Houston

Kaden – reindeer, Northern Lights

Great job, everyone!

Important dates: 

January 3rd: first day back at school – happy 2022!

January 3-14 – conferences – stay tuned for a SignUpGenius invite!

January 12th: 11:50 dismissal

Blessings to you and yours during this holiday season! See you soon and enjoy the break!

🙂 Annie 🙂

Glowstick dance party with Annie Claus

Kaden representing the camel in the Las Posadas procession!