Surprises!

What a fun and exciting week full of surprises!

On Monday we had an unexpected snow day!  It sounds like everyone had a fun and relaxing day off.

On Tuesday morning we had an assembly.  Jay Berschback from 13abc news was here to talk to us about weather.  We learned about different types of clouds, what causes different types of weather, the water cycle, and different types of weather instruments.  We even made it onto the news that night!  In class on Tuesday we worked on our vocabulary packet, began practicing our Readers Theater scripts, and were introduced to comparative adjectives (adjectives that use -er or -est to compare two or more nouns).

On Wednesday we continued working with vocabulary.  We used R.A.P. to answer questions about our vocabulary words.  We practiced our Readers Theater again, and we made flip books showing comparative adjectives.

On Thursday the morning group got to blog again.  It went much more smoothly this time, and I was very impressed at how easily some of the students navigated their Weebly site!  Some students have even changed their background design, added author information, and even posted from home!  The afternoon class finished up their vocabulary packets and made a flip book to review vocabulary before they took the test.  Both classes read and performed their Readers Theater scripts and took the comprehension test.

On Friday the morning class reviewed vocabulary with the flip books that the afternoon class had made on Thursday.  They took the vocabulary test as well.  The afternoon class got to blog on Friday.  Both classes reviewed comparative adjectives and wrote Star of the Week letters to Cullen (for my homeroom) and Cole (for Mrs. Myerholtz's homeroom).

Next week we will be reading a story called A Chair for My Mother.  Our focus skill will be plot, specifically problem and solution.  Robust vocabulary words for next week will be bargain, delivered, spoiled, boost, comfortable, and exchanged.  We will introduce our new grammar skill - verbs, which we will be talking about for the next five weeks.  We will begin with present tense action verbs.  We will begin planning and writing a leprechaun story.  Spelling words for next week will have the ou and ow spelling patterns.  Words are:
out, town, count, crowd, ground, now, found, crown, sound, down, surround, without, cowboy, powerful, cloudless, light, thought, head, under, story
Challenge list:
surround, without, cowboy, powerful, cloudless, bounce, shower, eyebrow, amount, pouch, coward, crowd, growl, grouch, downtown, light, thought, head, under, story

A few needs:
We are running very low on some of our classroom supplies.  We are completely out of glue sticks, and are very close to being out of erasers.  Donations of either would be greatly appreciated.  Also, please check with your second grader to see if he/she has received a second box of crayons from me or needs a second box purchased.
We have $10 for our carnival basket.  This is a joint project with Mrs. Myerholtz's class for the carnival on March 23, and we need your help to make our basket worth winning.  The theme is sports - a note went home on Tuesday with specifics.  Any donations of items or cash to help us buy items would be great!

Our specials schedule for next week will be:
Monday - library (we have lots of overdue books, so please check at home!)
Tuesday - music
Wednesday - computer
Thursday - art
Friday - music

I now have a Weebly site that is up and running (though still very much a work in progress).  The site has classroom information, a blog that I'm using to give helpful tips on how to use Weebly at home, and eventually links to each student's blog.  Check it out when you get a chance at mrslawniczak.weebly.com.

Enjoy the weekend!