January 18 - 22

Week 20

A New Friend

As I’m sure that many of you have heard we have a new addition to our classroom family. Mrs. Kerry Howard is an intern from Columbia College who’s aspiring to be a classroom teacher. She’ll be with us on Tuesdays from 7:30 until 1:30. She’s already made some bonds with the kids and they absolutely adore her. She’s married and has 3 children of her own and has a natural way with kids. We are looking forward to having her in our classroom this semester!

Landforms and Erosion

We’ve been working on identifying and understanding the differences and similarities among landforms. We’ve also begun our dive into weathering, erosion, and deposition! Now this is the stuff that gets the kids excited! They are mostly always engaged, but science inquiries get them really engaged. 

Area

We are still working on mastering multiplication and the fluency part of it. So please don’t fear if your child is not reciting their multiplication facts. Also please understand that the regurgitation of their multiplication facts is not nearly as important as gaining the conceptual portion of it. Please be patient with your child as they work through the problems. I know that it is a tedious process, but the conceptual development that they are gaining from it is necessary! We are taking our understanding for multiplication to area. The students are still in the early stages of understanding area, but they are catching on quickly!

Book Buddies

After a very long 3 weeks the kids were united with their book buddies. Our book buddies have published their first books and they shared them with us. The kids were so excited to be an audience for the presentation of their book buddies published book! I think they were more excited to just be able to spend some time with them.

Jordynn’s Birthday Bash

Jordynn’s mom was nice enough to bring in some cupcakes and goody bags to share with the class to celebrate Jordynn’s birthday! The kids had a blast and were happy to have some time to socialize.

On Saturday Jordynn went ice-skating and to the circus to celebrate her birthday with friends! It was a real treat!

January 11 - 15

Week 19

Cursive

As I'm sure that you've all noticed we've been working on our cursive this week! The kids are so excited to learn the letters and even more so, how to create them. We are still in the process of recognizing letters and reading cursive. Hopefully within the next week we will be moving on to begin writing in cursive. I know that many of you are already practicing cursive at home and many of your kidos have been teaching their friends in class how to write in cursive for a while now! It's nice to see students teaching others' something that they have mastered. 

Opinion Writing

We all know that all 22 of the kids have their own opinions on everything!!! Well right now we are working on how to transfer those opinions from verbal to witten opinions. I gave the student a writing prompt in which they learned about a school talent show and a school carnival. The students then picked the one that they would most want to come to Windsor. They then wrote about which event they chose and why they chose it. I knew our kids were great writers, but they really surprised me with their detail in their writing. We also used this opportunity to review some of the mechanisms of writing (grammar, punctuation, voice, paragraphs, commas, and audience). We will continue to work on writing when given a specific prompt, because I believe that this will benefit the kids when they have their end of the year writing prompt from the district and state. 

A Visit from Ms. Layman 

Ms. Layman and I have been talking for a while in regards to how much she misses the kids and how much the kids (both my class and her former class) miss her. On Wednesday we were finally able to reunite the classes with Ms. Layman. It was such a joyous occasion. We FaceTimed her right after the morning show. The kids had so many questions to ask her about Korea and her new life there.  There were many wet eyes after we said our last goodbyes, but it was so great for the kids to be able to see her! 

Club Day

We had our first Club day on the half day Thursday. You could feel the eagerness from every kid in the building, which the teachers fed off of. Needless to say club day was a success. I had a blast and every kid in our classroom said that they enjoyed every minute of their club time. I hosted Zumba club and was only able to get pictures of the kids from my club, but I'll be checking with the rest of 2nd and 3rd grade to see if they have any pictures to add to our collection here on the blog! I believe we are all looking forward to the next half day so we can enjoy our clubs yet again. 

Girls on the Run

Girls on the Run is coming to the WE this semester. I'm attaching the information for registration night which will be held this Tuesday. I'm also attaching the website for Girl on the Run in case you are looking for more information. 

ATTENTION 3rd-5th Grade Girls! 

Remember to talk to your family about GIRLS ON THE RUN! 

Registration/Information night is TUESDAY the 19th from 6-7

https://www.girlsontherun.org

We are looking forward to another great week at the WE this week. Remember if you have time, Please check out our class book review. Each kid wrote their on book review on a book of their choosing. You can access these book reviews at....

http://tinsleybookreviews.blogspot.com

January 4-8

Week 18

WOW!!! What an amazing first week back we’ve had!! The kids have been fantastic. They’ve been so helpful, engaged, and responsible. I can tell that they have really grown up over the break (thanks to you wonderful parents)!

Letters to Korea

Many of you know Ms. Layman, who was a former 2^nd grade teacher here at Windsor! At the beginning of the school year she moved to Korea to teach. Well she and I spent some time discussion our hopes for the year and decided it would be a great experience for our classes to become pen pals. Well we received our first letters the day before school let out for the Winter break; we were unable to dive into our letters until this week. Before we dove into our letters, the kids discussed what they thought it mean to “be Korean” and also some of their customs. I was a little shocked by some of their responses, but over the next few days and weeks we will address these misconceptions.

After the kids read their letters, they began writing their own friendly letters to their pen pals. I will be mailing these off on Monday, so hopefully we will be hearing from our pen pals soon!

Revolutionary War

Before break we finished up our discussion and study of South Carolina culture and how it was influenced by the slave trade and customs of the slaves. This week we looked into the conflicts of the colonists and Britain. I was surprised at the level of interest that the Revolutionary War has brought to the kids! I’m glad that learning about their history brings them joy, because I too enjoy learning and discussing history.

Landforms

We spent some time this week reviewing the different landforms. The kids also used this time to formulate some questions they had about the formation of these landforms. We will use this as a baseline to discuss rapid and timely changes made to our planet this coming week.