Second Grade with Ms. Gannon

What is Leap Day?

2012-02-28T18:44:00.000-08:00

Here's a great article explaining the whole thing:
http://www.highlightskids.com/stories/year-confusion

And a cool website dedicated just to February 29th:
http://www.leapyearday.com/content/kids-page http://www.leapyearday.com/content/kids-page

AND another cool website for kids:
http://www.kidsgeo.com/geography-for-kids/0021B-understanding-time-leap-year.php

This poem is SO helpful when you are trying to remember just how many days each month has...

Thirty days hath September,
April, June and November;
February has twenty eight alone
All the rest have thirty-one
Except in Leap Year, that's the time
When February's Days are twenty-nine

Super Spellers

2012-02-20T10:41:00.000-08:00

I have several students who are incredible spellers so keeping them challenged is always, well, a challenge. Here are some websites that provide some spelling fun:

http://www.spellingbeethegame.com/

http://www.bigiqkids.com/SpellingGame/SpellingGameContest.html

And for vocabulary on the same website:

http://www.bigiqkids.com/VocabularyGame/VocabularyGameContest.html

http://www.visualthesaurus.com/bee/

http://word-games.pogo.com/games/tumble-bees

Challenging words to practice:

http://www.myspellit.com/need2know.html

Rock Collection Project

2011-12-18T16:29:00.000-08:00

Vacations are a wonderful time to spend with the family but sometimes all that family time leads to parents who never get a break. ;) If you are looking for something educational and fun to occupy your little one, why not consider starting a rock collection?

In class, we recently read If You Find a Rock written by Peggy Christian. We enjoyed thinking of rocks as skipping rocks, climbing rocks, wishing rocks and splashing rocks. It gave new life to something we encounter all the time and provided us with a fresh perspective. It also got us talking about rock collecting.

To get started, you may wish to visit Salt the Sandbox, a website created by a parent who has two very curious boys. The site details how his boys go about finding, collecting, naming and playing with their rocks. We visited the site together at school last week and the children were excited about the ideas presented. I offered extra credit to anyone who wanted to create a collection and share about it when we return to school in January.

In addition to the ideas on the website, children also have fun sorting rocks (and lots of other items, for that matter.) They can be sorted by color and size or grouped like they were in the book we read, but here are some photos from rock sorts my students have done in the past to give you some other ideas:

However you decide to approach the project, I hope that it will be fun for your child and maybe even fun for the whole family!

Please note: this is not a mandatory project, just a suggestion.

Raz-Kids is here!

2011-12-11T11:22:00.001-08:00

By popular demand, we're now online with Raz-Kids! Thank you so much for the generous contributions you all made to help with the purchase of a year-long license, especially during a time of year when every penny counts. The children are so excited about using Raz-Kids and it's great to see their motivation (especially related to SCHOOLWORK!)

Your child may access Raz-Kids at school or at home so this makes for an ideal learning activity during weekends and vacations. I will put a card in your child's binder with his/her login information on it in case s/he forgets any of it. I will be opening up the Rocket Room during vacation and about once a month so that the kids don't spend too much time in there during school hours. If you'd like me to provide access at other times, just send me an email and I'll take care of it.

Night Under the Stars ~ Happy, Happy Kwanzaa

2011-12-11T10:57:00.001-08:00

Are you familiar with Kwanzaa? "Based on African harvest festivals, this holiday celebrates African-American people, their culture and their values." During our Night Under the Stars performance, LdVCS students will be singing songs that honor several different holidays celebrated at this time of year and the sense of togetherness that makes this such a special season.

Our class will be singing Happy, Happy Kwanzaa so we've been learning facts about this holiday and discussing how the values that are celebrated during Kwanzaa relate to all of us. We have also been comparing the holiday to other holidays we are familiar with. Here's a link to the interactive website we've been using as a part of our study: http://teacher.scholastic.com/activities/holidays/kwanzaa/

The song we'll be singing can be found on iTunes. Here are the words:

Happy, Happy Kwanzaa

Chorus

Happy, Happy Kwanzaa
Light the candles one by one
Happy, Happy Kwanzaa
Can be celebrated by everyone

The 1st day of Kwanzaa stands for unity
We are one big family

The 2nd day of Kwanzaa
Self-determination
We make our own way under the sun

Chorus

The 3rd day of Kwanzaa
Responsibility
We can do it together
Joyfully

4th day of Kwanzaa
We buy from each other
Sharing with our neighbors
Is helping one another

Chorus

The 5th day of Kwanzaa
Our purpose is to know
Whose shoulders we stand on
And that is how we grow

The 6th day of Kwanzaa
Beautify your world
‘Cause we’ve got special talents
Each and every boy and girl

Chorus

The 7th day of Kwanzaa
Believe with all your heart
If you believe your dreams come true
Each day’s a brand new start

So let’s celebrate this Kwanzaa
Like one big family
We can change the world together
You and me... Everybody

Chorus

Clap your hands, everybody
Stomp your feet, it’s Kwanzaa
Do your dance, be happy
Sing it with me, come one now
Touch your heart, can you feel it
Close your eyes, can you see it
See your dream, make it fun
Now reach for the sky

Happy, Happy Kwanzaa (Pass it on everybody pass it on now)
Light The Candles One By One (Light one everybody light one)
Happy, Happy Kwanzaa (Pass it on everybody pass it on now)
Can be celebrated by everyone

Cause an UPROAR for the Big Cats!

2011-11-13T19:56:00.001-08:00

On Halloween, our class was able to collect $65.00 to help the big cats *YAHOO!* and we will be receiving bracelets from National Geographic soon as a thank you. But our work doesn't stop there! When we return to school after the winter holidays, we will continue our focus on animals and we'll be working on letter writing as well. We will participate in the Letters to Lions campaign as a way to practice letter writing with a purpose. (See below for more information.) Tomorrow begins NatGeo's Big Cat Week and they have lots of great educational shows scheduled that you may want to watch with your family.

One of our second grade writing standards is letter writing:
2.2 Write a friendly letter complete with the date, salutation, body, closing, and signature.

National Geographic Kids website offers a great opportunity to practice this form of writing while doing something good! From the site - "Lions are in danger of extinction across Africa. Filmmakers and National Geographic Explorers-in-Residence Dereck and Beverly Joubert want you to help save lions! Write letters to lions and the Jouberts will deliver them to African leaders to let them know how important lions are to kids everywhere. And we may feature a few of them in a gallery on the National Geographic websites and in print!"

For more information about these beautiful animals, click here. Nat Geo Wild will be supporting National Geographic's Big Cats Initiative with Big Cat Week starting December 11th. Check it out and cause an uproar!

Scholastic Book Club Ordering

2011-10-02T13:40:00.000-07:00

This week, I will be sending home book orders - our first of the year. The children have varied abilities in reading so I like to provide book orders for all levels. You'll see that there are several different flyers.You can order using the order form on the flyers or you can order from the Scholastic website. http://clubs.scholastic.com/ Our "Class Activation Code" is DL6GB - you'll need this if you order online.

Orders for this round will be due by October 14th. The books usually take just under 2 weeks to arrive.

Frequently Used Websites

2011-09-25T08:33:00.000-07:00

In the classroom, there are some websites we use a lot. These sites are available to students for quick access from our school computers, but they may want to visit them at home as well.

http://everydaymathonline.com
This is the online component of our math program. Your child will have login and password information in his/her binder, attached to the Math Letters sleeve.

http://www.worldbookonline.com/kids/home
LdVCS students have access to World Book Online. There are five different options to allow access by all levels of learners. We primarily use World Book Kids but World Book Student is another great option for more advanced readers.
Login: sdcoeldv
Password: library

http://wonderopolis.org/
Learning is happening everywhere, all the time! We have bottled a little bit of that learning in each Wonder of the Day®. Experience a daily dose of time with your child to make the most of each and every moment together — learn something new, try out an idea, create a masterpiece, imagine possibilities. It’s easy. It’s fun. But the learning is big!

http://www.starfall.com/
Starfall.com opened in September of 2002 as a free public service to teach children to read with phonics. Our systematic phonics approach, in conjunction with phonemic awareness practice, is perfect for preschool, kindergarten, first grade, second grade, special education, homeschool, and English language development (ELD, ELL, ESL). Starfall is an educational alternative to other entertainment choices for children.

http://www.abcya.com/
ABCya.com is the leader in free educational kids computer games and activities for elementary students to learn on the web. All children's educational computer activities were created or approved by certified school teachers. All educational games are free and are modeled from primary grade lessons and enhanced to provide an interactive way for children to learn.

http://kids.nationalgeographic.com/kids/
The kids version of the amazing National Geographic website.

http://www.funbrain.com/
Since 1997, kids, teachers, librarians, and parents have enthusiastically turned to Funbrain for its free educational games, online books, and comics. Funbrain, created for kids ages preschool through grade 8, offers more than 100 fun, interactive games that develop skills in math, reading, and literacy. Plus, kids can read a variety of popular books and comics on the site, including Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Amelia Writes Again, and Brewster Rocket.

Teachers and librarians can confidently encourage students to use Funbrain during their free time in class, assured that kids will enjoy an educational, safe online learning experience. Funbrain's games help students build on what they have learned in class and acquire new skills in reading, math, and problem solving.

Word Study

2011-09-21T16:30:00.000-07:00

When you were in elementary school, no doubt you were given a list of spelling words on Monday, a week's worth of homework assignments to practice the words, followed by a test on Friday. This method of learning to spell may work for some students but studies have shown that a more effective way to teach students to spell is Word Study. In this kind of program, students are not encouraged to simply memorize the words but rather, the emphasis is placed on understanding the patterns found in words and in understanding the structures of the language. Word Study includes work in phonics and vocabulary and leads to greater success in reading. Check out this article from LD Online for more about Word Study.

We will spend two weeks on each of our Word Study lists, starting with a basic list of words from our language program, Imagine It! The lists are based on sounds and spelling patterns so that the children may investigate the words and figure out the patterns on their own - much more powerful than if I were to tell them how the words are similar or should be grouped. These basic lists will work well for many of the students but other children may need more of a challenge or a shortened/simplified list. This differentiation helps me ensure that all students are doing work appropriate for their own individual level.

During the first week of each study, we will work with the words together in class. We'll go over the words together and then work with them in many ways, discovering the common spellings associated with certain sounds as we go. The children really are becoming word detectives at this point! We will then try to find other words that fit into the same patterns.

During the second week, the children will continue to investigate and work with the words in class and will practice them at home as well. They will also spend time working with the 5 high frequency words that go along with the list. These words don't fit the patterns we are working on but they are words that second graders will use a lot and should know how to spell.

Spelling & Vocabulary City is a website the children can use to practice their words during homework week or at any time. http://www.spellingcity.com/

More Fluency Practice

2011-09-18T15:33:00.000-07:00

My sister is five years old. She wants to learn to ride a bike. I told her I have an idea. If I have time after school, I will help her. I will run beside her and keep her bike going in a straight line. Have you ever helped someone learn to ride a bike?

See this post for more information about fluency practice.

A Nation Remembers: 9/11

2011-09-06T22:29:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow I will begin some discussions with the children about 9/11. We will talk a little bit about the events that occurred that day but will focus more on the outpouring of support and patriotism that followed. We will talk about what makes us feel better during difficult times and the importance of providing a helping hand to those in need after a crisis. We will also reach out to heroes in our community so if you have any suggestions about people we can contact, please let me know.

Your child may have questions about what we talk about in class or what they see in the media. Here's a great article with some resources and a link to a tip sheet that will help with the conversation.

Fluency Practice

2011-08-28T22:39:00.000-07:00

"Fluency is the ability to read or access words effortlessly with seemingly little attention to decoding. Fluent readers decode words not only automatically but accurately. in addition, fluent readers group words into meaningful units, utilize punctuation to guide their voices, and use expression appropriately to help them comprehend what they are reading."

"Fluency develops over time, and students should be given repeated opportunities to practice fluency with a variety of texts. Repeated readings increase rate, accuracy and comprehension by providing students with multiple exposures to words and spelling patterns. In addition, it helps students improve their ability to break sentences into meaningful phrases and to use intonation. It is effective with both older and younger students. Repeated readings involve the students reading segments of text between 50 to 200 words, depending on students' ability. Students should practice repeated readings with a variety of different text types."

~SRA Imagine It! Program Appendix

We will be practicing fluency with short pieces of text on a regular basis. All students can benefit from extra practice with the text at home so I am going to include the text on our class blog. Your child should work on being able to read the text without making mistakes, paying attention to punctuation and with appropriate expression. You can time your child and count the number of mistakes made, then reread and try to beat that time, making fewer mistakes. Have your child make a chart to keep track of his/her progress - they love to see their improvement on paper. :)

I have a pet dog. His name is Dash. Dash knows many tricks. He can sit and fetch. Dash and I are kind to each other. I brush his fur and give him baths. He licks my face when I am sick. Dash and I are best friends. How are you kind to your best friend?

Welcome to Second Grade!

2011-08-22T22:24:00.000-07:00

Hello Families!

I am excited to welcome you to our second grade class! As one of the founders of the school, I am very passionate about LdV and am so pleased that you have chosen to send your child to our amazing little school.

You’ll soon learn about all of the wonderful things we’ll be studying this year and what makes LdV such a unique charter school. Look for your invitation to our “Back to School Night” (coming up on Wednesday, September 21^st) where you’ll get all the details.

Please note that your child will not report directly to our classroom in the mornings but rather line up with the rest of the class in the lunch arbor area. Look for a sign with my name on it and have your child wait there until I arrive to walk them upstairs to our room.

Children often bring a wide array of supplies to school with them so I wanted to let you know ahead of time that most of the things your child will need at school will be provided for her/him. Toys and valuables should always stay at home. If possible, please send in the following:

· pencil box

· crayons – box of 24 is a good size

· water bottle (we don’t have a water fountain in the classroom)

· toothbrush with holder (we brush after lunch)

It is very important to me that my student’s families know that this is not my classroom, but our classroom. Parents are always welcome to come watch presentations or just see what we’re up to. Also, I will be sending home a volunteer sheet during the first week of school if you are interested in volunteering your time. Please note: for the safety of the children, volunteers need to have TB and fingerprint records on file with our front office before helping out at school. If you’d prefer to donate items for use in the classroom, a list of needs is available here: http://signupgenius.com/go/classroom446

Should you have questions for me before we meet again, feel free to contact me via email: erin.gannon@davincicharter.org or phone: 271-2777 x111. If you’d like to come in and talk face to face, I’d be happy to set up an appointment with you.

Again, welcome to second grade and room 11! I look forward to working with you this year.

Sincerely,

Ms. Gannon :)

Grade Change

2011-08-12T16:09:00.000-07:00

I am officially switching back to second grade! It was so much fun to loop my students and work with them for two years. We learned a lot together and I return to second grade with a better understanding of what to do to prepare them for third grade. School begins in a little over a week. I can't wait to meet my new group and begin my 14th year of teaching. My how time flies!

Toys From Everyday Objects

2011-07-05T15:26:00.000-07:00

I just watched this fascinating video of Arvind Gupta and his ideas for making play things out of ordinary items. It got me thinking about all of you creative kids who are always using the tools I give you in new ways... :) As a teacher, that has sometimes frustrated me but this video made me think about it differently! Time to explore and create new things is so important. Check out this video and see what it inspires you to create...

Please email me or comment below if you come up with something you'd like to share. Hope you're staying cool and enjoying vacation! :)Ms. G

Pack your bags for Camp What-A-Wonder!

2011-06-23T13:55:00.000-07:00

Wonderopolis became a favorite website for our class last year. This summer, they aim to combat 'summer slide' and keep kids' brains engaged all through their vacation with Camp What-A-Wonder. Here's some information from the site:

Wonderopolis® is putting a new twist on an old tradition this summer. Created to combat summer learning loss, a troubling trend of children forgetting a significant amount of what they learned during the school year, Camp What-A-Wonder is a free virtual program to engage families in learning while school is not in session.

Don’t miss Wonderopolis’ weekly Campfire Sessions — a one-hour opportunity for parents to gather and discuss related topics with a facilitator. The topics will focus on the same weekly themes at camp and will take place on Twitter on Thursdays at 8 p.m. EDT. (That's 5:00 for us in San Diego.)

This is a great opportunity for families to learn together and even earn prizes! If you don't already have one, you'll need to set up a Twitter account if you are interested in participating in the online discussions with other parents and the facilitator.

To check out the first of eight sessions, visit Wonderopolis today and learn about poison ivy!

The entry includes a video called "How to Recognize and Avoid Poison Ivy" and a link to an e-book "about your skin and how it works." You can even show off all you've learned by taking one of quizzes. Have fun at camp and be sure to write! :)

Puppet Show ~ June 29

2011-06-22T13:16:00.000-07:00

PUPPET SHOW
June 29th, 3pm Pacific Beach Library (Puppet theatre with rhythm instruments for the audience)

ZOMO the Trickster Rabbit from West Africa presented by San Diego Guild of Puppetry. Colorful puppets leap out of the welll-loved book by Gerald McDermott. Come join ZOMO in his search for wisdom!
Performed by Iain Gunn & Mindy Donner

I wanted to share this opportunity to see our friend Mindy Donner perform. She is a member of an organization called Storytellers of San Diego. Check out their website for opportunities to see live storytelling all over the county.

Synesthesia

2011-06-21T13:23:00.000-07:00

I came across a video today that made me instantly think of my students so I had to share! If you follow our blog, you may remember that we read a great book called The Name of This Book is Secret. For more about that, click here. Synesthesia was an important topic in the book and the children often wondered if it was "a real thing." Though we discovered that it was indeed real, we didn't learn much more about it - other than what we learned from the book.

Daniel Tammet, who appears in the video below, has linguistic, numerical and visual synesthesia and is further described as a high-functioning autistic savant. He describes how much richer words and numbers can be to synesthetes. The video actually meant for an adult audience so some of it may be difficult for children to follow but I found it very interesting to hear him describe how he views the world. Check it out and let me know what you think by leaving a comment...

Kids - I miss you all and I hope you are enjoying your vacation so far! Hugs, :)Ms. G

Fun With Words

2011-05-29T11:24:00.000-07:00

It's our last week of spelling homework so I thought I'd share a favorite website that I was recently reminded of. :)

From the Wordle website: "Wordle is a toy for generating “word clouds” from text that you provide. The clouds give greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in the source text. You can tweak your clouds with different fonts, layouts, and color schemes. The images you create with Wordle are yours to use however you like. You can print them out, or save them to the Wordle gallery to share with your friends."

This word cloud was created using the words we collected as we read The Name of This Book is Secret. After you create your own Wordle, you may want to save it. You can print it out right away or save it to their public gallery. Another option is to do a screen capture so that you can save the Wordle as a picture file. There's no way to search for your Wordle so be sure to copy the web address before you move on to something else if you want to be able to find it again.

A fun thing to do with Wordle is to create a word cloud without a title and have a friend try to guess what it is about. Here's an example...

Can you guess what the title is?

(hint: this is something we do in class almost every week)

Wordle is a free website so I have a few cautions about it.

Occasionally, the site seems to freeze up or otherwise not work. It may be helpful to type your words into a text file (in Word or a similar word processor) and then copy/paste them into Wordle. That way, you won't lose all of the text if you have problems with the website.
Text on Wordle cannot be removed or censored. It is possible to come across word clouds that have inappropriate words in them - *Parents: see the FAQ section for filtering what your child has access to if you are concerned about this.* I have visited the site many times and haven't seen anything inappropriate yet.
If you post to the public gallery, be sure that you haven't included anything you don't want shared with the whole world. *Kids - this includes using your whole name and anything that gives information about where you live! Always be safe when you are working online.

If you create a Wordle, please share it with us! It's fun to see what others create and gives us great ideas.

The Name of This Book is Secret...

2011-05-23T14:16:00.000-07:00

We just finished reading another terrific chapter book, The Name of this Book is Secret by Pseudonymous Bosch. We loved it. I can't believe I didn't look for it sooner but I just discovered the website that goes with the books!

There are three more books in the series and I'm sure that if your child hasn't already asked you to buy them, you'll be getting those requests very soon. :) You can buy used copies on Barnes & Noble for as little as $1.99 or on Amazon for as little as $0.96!

The kids did some writing about the book so I thought I'd include some of their reviews here for you to read...

Luke's Review:

The book was exiting and funny! These kids named Cass and Max-Ernest found this box that had different smells and then got into a mystery. After that they went to this house to try to solve this mystery.

More reviews coming soon!

If you little reader loves this series, the Lemony Snicket books are another great series to get into. You may be familiar with The Series of Unfortunate Events from the movie of the same name. Here's the website to peak some interest. Enjoy!

Trickster Tale Projects

2011-05-15T21:31:00.000-07:00

We are working hard to prepare for this week's Education Celebration. It's an opportunity for us to share PBL (Project Based Learning) projects with LdV families and the community. The children in our class will be sharing their Trickster Tale Projects.

For this project, they are working with a partner to retell a favorite trickster tale and will perform a live shadow puppet show to go along with it. Their retells have already been recorded and the kids have been creating puppets and other props to use for their show.

We'll be finishing up the audio portion of the show by adding a bit of music to the beginning and end of each story. We are going to use Freeplay Music to find music that will help to give more information to the audience about what culture the story came from.

They are also working hard to prepare their shadow puppet shows. With all of their shadow makers ready to go, they are selecting just the right lighting and practicing different effects.

Here are a few of the sites we are using to help us understand what the show should (or could) look like:
Kennedy Center's Playing with Shadows
How To Do Your Own Shadow Puppetry Show
Richard Bradshaw: Shadow Puppeteer
Little Fables
Journey to Neverland Shadowography

Can't wait to see how all of this turns out! We'll have videos of the performances to share with you soon...

Here are a couple of quick videos from our experimentation with shadow puppets:

We Love Polar Bears!

2011-04-11T16:16:00.000-07:00

I just saw an interview with John Downer, a filmmaker who used spy cameras to capture polar bears in their natural habitat. You can see his footage on the Discovery channel, coming soon...

We've learned a lot about how animals have to get creative when their food supply disappears. This often means that they get in hot water with the humans that live near their habitats. For more shows on Discovery about polar bears and other kinds of bears as well, click on this link: http://animal.discovery.com/tv/bears/bear-shows.html

More on Tsunamis

2011-03-24T19:02:00.000-07:00

This is a video I found posted on the ReadySanDiego Facebook page:

And here is a link to a video from BrainPop: http://www.brainpop.com/science/earthsystem/tsunami/

San Diego Science Festival

2011-03-24T18:43:00.000-07:00

This event snuck up on me again... I'm sorry for bringing it to you at the last minute! Here's some information about the event from La Jolla Light:
The San Diego Science Festival, the largest celebration of science on the West Coast, returns this March with content-rich, interactive learning experiences for kids of all ages.
Bringing together hundreds of innovative local organizations and individuals, the San Diego Science Festival demonstrates that careers in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) are accessible and exciting pathways to a better future. This festival starts on March 19 and culminates with EXPO DAY at PETCO Park on March 26.

And here's a direct link to the KidZone where you find videos, a great science song and a quiz about the our earth...

I scored 75% - can you beat me? :)

Secret Codes

2011-03-20T19:50:00.000-07:00

For this week's spelling practice, I've added a new box to the Tic-Tac-Toe board that allows the children to write their words in secret code. I have provided a couple of coded alphabets but they are welcome to create their own or use others that they find.

For more fun with cryptology, check out these websites:

Cryptokids from the National Security Agency

Secret Messages for Kids ONLY from thunk.com

Spy Kids on The Youth Online Club

Cypher Wheel from Top Spy Secrets