2nd

     HAPPY SUMMER READING!  A BOOK IS A GREAT COMPANION AT HOME OR ON THE ROAD.  LOVE YOUR PUBLIC LIBRARY AND HAVE FUN.

May 23rd - We sang a song called "In the Good Old Colony Days" to get in the mood of the time of hornbooks and finished the project we started last week.

May 20th - We talked about schools in colonial times and about the differences with today's schools.  Students recalled what they learned at the Seneca school house.  We viewed a powerpoint about hornbooks - the hand held primers used for 400 years from the 1500's to the 1900's in times with less paper and fewer books.  It is amazing to think of processing a cow's horn until it is transparent.  We shared The Adventures of Obadiah by Brinton Turkle that included a scene in Obadiah's classroom.  Then we cut out a facsimile of a colonial hornbook that included prayers as well as the alphabet, and started making our own hornbooks which we will finish next week.

May 9th - The book today was Finding Winnie, another title in the narrative non-fiction mode.  It has two true stories wrapped in a true format - The author is the great granddaughter of a Canadian soldier who bought a bear cub on a train station while on his way to fight in WWI.  That cub grew up to be a bear in the London zoo where Christopher Robin Milne played with him and decided to name his to be famous bear after Winnie (short for Winnipeg).  The photographs of the actual people and bear in the book make a good story even better.  This was this year's Caldecott Medal winner for the best picture book.  Fun!

May 6th - We had  a short class following the wonderful 5th grade play.  We read and talked about a spiritual theme book for the May theme, Courage, Precious and the Boo Hag by Patricia McKissack.  Little Precious really has to keep her wits about her to stay safe.

April 25th - This is voting day - we read a few more and then cast our ballots.  A friend who is on the Black-eyed Susan  committeee and who is a lively and fabulous elementary school librarian in Catonsville had a facebook post of her students voting online and chanting - "Tell me what democracy looks like, This is what democracy looks like".  The SSFS and state winner was Dog vs. Cat, but our votes showed a wide diversity of opinion.


     

April 21st - Favorites are starting to emerge - will today's titles go to the number 1 spot?  It is fun to have a mix of fiction and non-fiction.  Elizabeth, Queen of the Seas is an example of what is being called narrative non-fiction, and it is a lovely story about a real elephant seal.


    

April 11th - more of our wonderful nominees -

           

April 8th - Some of the titles are available as Brainhive books - students can read online from any device with an internet connection, and there is a reader app for phones and tablets.  We projected a couple of the Black-eyed Susans that we can get through their system.  Kids login with a username constructed with the first five letters of their last name and the first two of their first name, and the password is friends.

     

And we shared one in traditional book form -

March 28th - We began the season of reading picture books nominated for the state kids choice contest, the Black-eyed Susan Award.  We'll share 15 titles (or as many as we can fit in before the voting deadline in a month), and each student can vote for the one they liked the best.

     

March 18th - Aldona shared stories from the Emerald Isle that tied in with the Integrity and Honesty spiritual theme while Elizabeth was away on intersession;  The Ring of Truth, Fiona's Luck and The Leprechaun's Gold. Does Fiona has it right that being able to be clever is a way to be lucky?

              

March 7th - We looked at pictures from our friend, T.K. in Nkwanta, Ghana, the place where we are sending books to start a library.  We wondered and looked up some answers about what is the same and what it different between our two places.  We looked at the map and saw the many countries that make up the continent of Africa,  Then we shared a book from the Spiritual Theme shelf, The Hungry Coat, a retelling of a Nasreddin story by Demi.

February 22nd - we had a short libray time today due to play practice.  We talked about remembering to bring in the Books Change Lives slips each week to keep fueling the Wildebeest's trip to Nkwanta Ghana.  The general SSFS expectation is that students will read at least 20 every day, and that it was almost impossible to have a 0 for any day, because all reading counts - practicing your script, seeing a magazine or newspaper, looking at your cereal box at breakfast - those minutes mount up without even thinking about it.  And if you take the time to think about it, and enjoy it, and let us know about it, we are sure to meet our ambitious goal.  I shared that The Cat in the Hat was a book that changed my life, because it was the first book I read all by myself.  There was general agreement  that Dr. Seuss held that wonderful place for many with The Foot Book, Horton Hears a Who and others.  Curious George and Where the Wild Things Are were also named.

Bring in your slips each Friday so the beest and the books can make it to  Ghana!

February 8th - Thinking of Valentines Day and Wee Mail, we read Somebody Loves You, Mr. Hatch by Eileen Spinelli with pictures by Paul Yalowitz.  It made us think about last week's book about filling your bucket.  Mr Hatch was completely transformed by just thinking that someone loved and cared about him and when he was kind and thoughtful, everyone did love him.  We  made some puffy origami hearts to celebrate the season.  Here's where I found some directions.

Great story and pictures! 

February 2nd and 3rd - We talked about Books Change Lives, our 2016 reading program. 2nd graders will keep track of their reading times outside of school and bring in their slips each Friday.  Our first story was a folktale from Ghana called "Half a ball of Kenki" from the book Misoso: once upon a time tales from Africa, a collection of stories from all over Africa retold by Verna Aardema with illustrations by Reynold Ruffin.  It is a funny story about Leopard and Fly searching for brides and how Leopard got his spots after fighting with some corn meal mush (Kenki).  Then, thinking about the Week 1 bonus for doing a random act of kindness, we shared Have You Filled Your Bucket? by Tom Rath and Mary Reckmeyer and illustrated by Maurie J. Manning.  It is amazing how being kind to others makes you feel good, too.  It reminded us of the 3rd grade play of Oliver Button and how little things can hurt or heal.

           

January 11th - We heard Butterflies for Kiri, written and illustrated by Cathryn Falwell and folded our own butterflies.

A good story of perseverance.  

January 8th - We did the folding that went with the Rainhat story.

December 14th - We heard the story and made an origami book that retells the adventure of When Mindy Saved Hanukkah by Eric Kimmel with pictures by Barbara McClintock.  We

"You don't have to be big to be mighty"

December 11 - Christmas shared time with paperfolding - Steven Kellogg's great story The Christmas Witch celebrated the season and Elizabeth showed a paperfolding story she learned at Brownie Scout Camp called "The Rainhat".

December 4th - we had a short book exchange class to make up for the two classes cancelled during Thanksgiving break.  Elizabeth shared a paperfolding story called "Paper Flower"  that she learned from a book called Joining In by Teresa Miller in our library on the adult resources shelf in Tanglewood at 372.64 JOI.   

So many participation stories!

November 16th - We began the unit on paper folding stories with "The Brothers Short and the Brothers Long"  and then all folded a rectangle into a treasure box (or, if you prefer, a hat).  Remembering the story is a way to remember the folding steps.  This fold really works well with magazine covers, they are a good weight to make a box, and often very pretty.

November 12th - Library was right after the 3rd grade play about Tomie DePaola's Oliver Button is a Sissy which everyone agreed was a great show.  We read This Tree Counts!  by Alison Fromento
and some books new to the library.  Michael Chabon's The Astonishing  Secret Identity of Awesome Man elicited many laughs and some very good analysis of the illustrations done by Jake Parker.



October 30th - In honor of Halloween we shared one of my favorite stories of the season - The Vanishing Pumpkin by Toni Johnston, illustrated by Tomie dePaola.  It has fun participatory refrains like "They went as fast as an 800 year old man and a 700 year old woman could,  In fact THEY  FAIRLY FLEW!"  We also watched the National Geographic film about the weevil referenced in the last post - some students found it rather horrible; just in the spirit of the season.

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October 19th - First we looked at a larva that had come out of one of the acorns and found out that it was an acorn weevil.  Elizabeth projected a picture of the adult bug it would become.  (for more information watch this video about these creatures)  Then, we found our felt lozenges, cut them in half and found acorn caps to fit them.  Those who chose to put a string on their acorn had a hole drilled  in the cap and then the inside of the cap was covered with glue and the felt put inside.  Beautiful!  And no weevils waiting to come out.

See that hole?  That acorn won't grow since a weevil ate the insides

October 16th -  After we looked at some pictures of wool fibers magnified so we could see the scales and talked about what felting is, we began a craft project to make our own acorns to remember those oak tree songs.  We wet felted lozenges of colored fleece by getting small balls of fleece wet in some soapy water, gently patting them and then rolling them around and around between our hands.  When they started to felt and get hard, we rolled harder and faster.  At last we made them into the lozenge shape that would give us two acorns each by rubbing them back and forth between our palms.  Then we marked them with names and left them to dry so we could finish them on Monday.

rolling around and around

Just about ready

Ready for the next step when dry.

October 5 - We extended our understanding of the story from last week by repeating it in the form of a readers' theater.  Each child had a part as a narrator, character, or member of the chorus.  Hector, the cat, always gave the rest of us a laugh with his many different ways to say "Meow".

October 2 - Johanna Cowie substituted for me and read Button, Bucket, Sky by Jaqueline Briggs Martin and illustrated by Vicki Jo Redenbaugh, a book about setting things right in the world by planting and tending oak trees.  "Acorns are shiny brown buttons with oak tree songs inside", says the old woman at the center of the story, Annie Livemore.

September 21st - We learned more about how to use the computers to look up books.  We shared the imaginative story of Otto the Book Bear and talked about storybook characters we would like to meet if they could come alive.  We meet next a week from Friday, on October 2nd, a green Friday.

What character would you like to meet?

 September 18th - 2nd grade finally had a green Friday!  We toured the library to see what has changed and talked about the way things work in the Tanglewood space.  We enjoyed Wild About Books, an adventure with a bookmobile in a zoo by Judy Sierra with illustrations by Marc Brown written in the style \of Dr. Seuss, to whom the book is dedicated.  New shelf markers were made and books were checked out.  Next library time is on Monday.

 

WELCOME TO THE 2015-16 SCHOOL YEAR!

SECOND GRADE LIBRARY TIMES ARE GREEN WEEK FRIDAYS (2B FROM 9:35-10:20 AND 2A FROM 10:20-11:05) AND GOLD WEEK MONDAYS (2A FROM 9:30-10:15 AND 2B FROM 10:15 TO 11:00.  I CAN'T WAIT TO GET STARTED WITH THE LIBRARY FUN.

Did you like reading about William and his windmill?

         

What would you like to invent?

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June 2015 - What we are reading:

To go with the fiber theme in 2nd grade, we read The Red Wolf written and illustrated by Margaret Shannon about Princess Roselupin, locked in the tower until a mysterious golden box of wool arrives for her birthday with the message "Knit what you want".  That was followed by Diane Stanley's funny story of Rumplestiltskin's Daughter where there is some knitting as well.  Next week would be our final library class of the year, but second graders will be learning all about silk from the amazing Renate Maile-Moscowitz.  All books are due back on Monday, June 10th.












Continuing on our theme of "Africa, Amazing Africa"  we shared two great stories from the continent, The Greedy Zebra by Kenyan author Bruce Hobson aka Mwenye Hadithi and Anansi and the Strange Moss-covered Rock retold by Eric Kimmel. 














We have been reading Atinuke's book about Anna Hibiscus, a girl who lives in "Africa, Amazing Africa"  We watched a couple videos of the author - one where she is reading in the voice of the narrator of her other series, No. 1 Car Spotter, and part of one that is an interview with her where she tells why she decided to write Anna Hibiscus and why she set it in just Africa rather than Nigeria.

 
















4/21 - We finished reading the last few Black-eyed Susan titles nominated this year and voted for our favorites -  the SSFS winner was Lion vs. Rabbit

4/13 - 

4/6 -  Three more nominees:

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3/31 -






Here is Kai with the three books we read this week for the Black-eyed Susan contest.

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3/10 These two titles, each with a story about a creature as well as a lot of interesting facts, started off our Black-eyed Susan children's choice contest for this year.