I hear, and I forget.
I see, and I remember.
I do, and I understand.
-Chinese Proverb

Welcome to our Firefly Second Grade Blog

Check out our classroom news and student work as often as you can. We'll update it as frequently as possible.

Saturday, May 31, 2014

Jog-a-thon Day!

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Enjoy our Jog-a-thon Day Slide show!  Everyone really enjoyed this day.  It was so much fun.

I can't believe we only have 2 more weeks of school left together.  Don't forget about our Team Picnic on Tuesday, June 3rd at 4:30 pm.  Bring your own picnic dinner.  We will provide dessert for everyone and celebrate our Summer Birthdays.  Mrs. Garvey will be joining us on this evening.  

Have a wonderful weekend,
Nancy

Friday, May 16, 2014

First Two Weeks of May

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1st Two Weeks of May

The school is hosting Movement May this month.  There is an emphasis throughout the school to incorporate more movement into our classrooms.  Each day our class has been doing Just Dance videos to get up and get moving so our minds are ready to learn for math.  On Thursday of this week, we had the privilege of doing Zumba with Miss Niles.  The class really enjoyed this activity.  The day of the Jog-a-thon we will be learning how to hula hoop.  The students are looking forward to this added activity each day. (Check out some of our photos in the smilebox.)

Last week on Tuesday we had Hands on Nature.  Students learned about the life cycle of a frog, toad and the red newt.  We also learned that each of these animals is an amphibian.  They saw a puppet show, heard different frog calls, broke up in to groups to put one of the amphibian's life cycles in order and then headed outside to see if they could find frog eggs.

We are on our last unit in math.  This unit focuses on change.  In our first module we looked at elapsed time and how long a second is, a minute and an hour.  Then we looked at how numbers change through a homemade change container and looked for the rule of how the numbers were changing.  Now we are moving on to looking at how paper gliders change position.  The last section we will cover at the end of the month is how we have changed since we were a baby. 

In writing we finished our opinion pieces last week and shared on Friday in small groups.  They did a nice job on these pieces.  You will see them in their portfolios when they come home at the end of the year.  This week we began a unit on poetry.  Write now we are learning about how it is written.  Next week we will begin writing some of our own poems.

Next Friday, May 23rd,  we will be going to Shelburne Farms to learn about things from long ago.  This is the unit we have started in Social Studies.  Students will need to bring a lunch on that day as we will be eating at Shelburne Farms.

Have a wonderful weekend,
Nancy

May PTO Notes & News

Join the PTO List Serve - think of this as Front Porch Forum specific to Shelburne Community School, a periodic digest of announcements, help wanted and other topics. It can allow for more timely, easy managed communication within the school and parent community, for key subjects such as upcoming happenings (budget forum, school play, soccer tryouts, get out the vote, etc.),  as well as help wanted (‘we could use a hand with International Pot Luck cleanup’, mentoring volunteers wanted, etc.), among other relevant topics.

The list serve is available for everyone to post to.  If you would like to be added to the List Serve, please e-mail Courtney Tharpe at ctharpe25@gmail.com.

Fundraising Update      
Red Wagon Plant Sale – we had more than 100 families participate and we raised over $1,600!!
Amazon – the PTO has made almost $600 so far this year.  So please remember, if you shop on AMAZON please take an extra step and enter the site through the link on the PTO page.  The PTO will earn up to 15% of your purchases!  Please remember that you need to use this link each time you shop for the PTO to benefit.
Comedy Night was a great evening with roughly 75-80 in attendance from Shelburne and Charlotte!
Shelburne Community Night at the Lake Monsters Game – Friday, June 27th.  Come celebrate the summer with Shelburne Community School students, family and friends!   Tickets will be available for purchase at the end of May.


Help Wanted                                                                                                                                                 
Red Wagon Plant Distributionhelp with unloading and distributing the Red Wagon plant delivery on May 22nd at the school.  Contact Courtney Tharpe at ctharpe25@gmail.com if you are able to help anytime between 12:00 pm and 6:00 pm.
Breezeway Gardens and Grounds we could use some help tending to the breezeway gardens and grounds.  If you are interested, please contact Lisa Williams at lisawvt@hotmail.com
Jog-A-Thon lots of different ways you can be involved from 9:00 am – 1:30 pm on May 27th.  If you are interested in volunteering, please contact Randy Sweeney at sweeneyrs@gmail.com


Highlights from Principals Report
▪ Anti-bullying Middle School Art Display throughout the hallway between Winton and Symphony.  Over 200 individually decorated puzzle pieces represent how we are all unique and yet can come together to play a role in creating a strong, unified community.
▪Cabaret night was a great event, lots of great participation and raised money for the wind ensemble to go to Montreal and for the chorus to travel to NYC
▪Movement May!  Lots of great activities: walk to school Wednesdays! Bike to school Thursday. Zumba before NECAPS
▪Great trip to Montreal for Wind Ensemble: performing in 2 schools and Notre Dame Cathedral
▪ Chorus also traveled to NYC to a festival

Mark Your Calendars     
▪ Walk to School Wednesday’s in May – meet at the Parade Ground
▪ May 22nd – Red Wagon order pick up from 3- 6 pm
▪ May 27th – Jog-A-Thon (rain date May 28th)
▪ June 27th – Shelburne Community Night at the Lake Monsters Game 
 

Our last meeting of the year will be held on June 3rd @ 3:00 pm where we will gather with teachers and peers to celebrate the end of the year.  Feel free to bring some goodies to share with everyone. 

Friday, May 2, 2014

Week of April 28th

Welcome Back to everyone! I hope everyone had a relaxing and fun vacation.

This week we are wrapping up Unit 7.  We were looking at place value this week using dimes and pennies.  Next week we will begin our last unit, Unit 8.  We will be learning about time, and measurement in this last unit.

We are finishing up unit 11 in Fundations where we learned about multisyllabic words and the ending -ic.  Students will be assessed on this unit Monday and then we will begin Unit 12.  In Unit 12 we will learn about the suffix -es.

On Thursday we went and saw "Pilobolus" at the Flynn Theater.  A sheet with questions to talk to your children about the show went home in their Friday folders.  It was a very interactive show of different kinds of unique dance.  Talk to your child about the show.  They really enjoyed it.  Ask them about the table camera and screen dance.  They really loved that one.

In science we finished up our Mechanical Engineering unit.  Students designed windmill blades and tested them to see if they would turn.  If they didn't they would go back and modify them until they did work and then tested how strong they were by adding washers to the cup to see if the blades would still turn with the wind blowing on them.  These windmills went home today.  Check out some pictures below.

Have a great weekend,
Nancy