Our MVP Haleigh

This is when I am holding my little brother.

I helped my dad pull the big bushes out.

My brothers Jacob and Blake.

That was when I was carving my pumpkin with my brother.

This is my mom and aunt and my little brother.  He was in the hospital because he was sick.

I am sitting with my brother and taking a picture with him.  He has a mohawk!

This is my doll.  Her name is Christine and I love her. 

Literature Pumpkin Patch

 

Thank you to all of our friends and family that were able to attend our Literature Pumpkin Patch last Friday.  What an amazing job each student did on their pumpkins!  I was thrilled to see the creativity shine in their decorating and in their written biographies.  It was fun to see them be so excited to share their biographies with not only their families, but the families of their classmates.  For those that weren’t able to make it – please enjoy our pictures.  :)

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Nutrition Women

 

The fantastic actresses and actors of Rose Theater visited 2nd grade last week to present an on location play:  Nutrition Woman!  The play was a fun way to share with our kiddos the importance of eating good foods and getting exercise each day.  We look forward to visiting with the actors again in May when we attend a field trip to Rose Theater. 

Persuasive Writing With Mo Willems

 

What better model for persuasive writing can there be than Moe Willems and his ever lovable Pigeon?  In all of his books the Pigeon is trying to persuade the reader to let him do something…Stay Up Late, Eat a Hotdog, or Drive a Bus.  As an introduction to our persuasive writing unit we watched several Pigeon videos and read some of the books.  The students had to identify the reasons that Pigeon gave.

We then went on to discuss what an opinion is and had the opportunity to express OUR opinions.  After voting for the whether or not they should have an OREO before lunch, the students had to persuade others to join their side by giving a solid argument.  It was very interesting to hear what they had to say.  Being allergic and not liking chocolate topped the No list and being hungry topped the yes list!  In the end, it was decided that Mrs. Heath should bring OREOS, and she did!!

Visit our last blog post to see the persuasive letter we wrote to Mr. Guthmiller after our introduction to this unit.  It’s pretty amazing!!  :)

Our MVP Trey

My favorite thing is playing games.  I like TV games like Disney Infinity.  On Disney Infinity the game comes with three guys.  With the three guys, you can buy different guys.  You can create your own world or go into different worlds.  The worlds are based on movies.  There is the  Incredibles World and the Pirates of the Caribbean. I like to make my own world  It is kind of like this racing place and everyone has different cars.  You create your own.  There are really cool race car tracks.  It is a fun game.  It is my favorite game. 

Me, hard at work at school. 

Persuading the Principal

This week 2nd grade started on a new writing unit - Opinion Writing.  The idea is for the students to be able to state an opinion and support that opinion with reasons and evidence.  We started by writing an opinon letter to the great leader of our school, Mr. Guthmiller.  It was our opinion that we deserved a third recess.  Here is our argument.

October 23, 2013

Dear Mr. Guthmiller,

    We are writing you today because we feel like our class deserves a third recess for today.  The reasons we feel we need a third recess are:  we have been very good, recess keeps us from being tired, and we have been working very hard in school.  Please continue reading and you will find out why we deserve a third recess.

    First, we have been good all week.  No one in our classroom has gotten a Time to Paws.  During our work time, no one is messing around and everyone is doing what they are supposed to.  Do you know how good we have been?  We have been so good that 5 people in our room got bracelets yesterday!  We are sure that 5 more will get bracelets today!  We have even gotten enough points that we have filled Fred the Potato Head twice since the beginning of the year. 

    Second, recess keeps us from being tired.  Second grade is hard work and we need lots of energy for it.  Recess lets us get our wiggles out so that we are not running around and messing around in our classroom.  It also gives us energy so that we don't fall asleep when we are supposed to be doing our work like writing.  A third recess would give us lots of energy so that we can be working hard all day.

    Finally, we have been working hard in school.  Our writing is so amazing.  We always use our nicest, neatest handwriting.  We did a really good job on our writing test last week.  Mrs. Heath said that they were amazing and we added great details.  We also worked really hard on our math test.  Even though there were some hard problems on there, we did our best.  We made pumpkins and wrote riddles about them.  You could even come in and try to solve our riddles while we are at our third recess if you let us have one.

    In conclusion, we feel that you should allow our classroom to have a third recess today.  As you can see, we have been very well behaved, completed our work, and need an opportunity to get more energy so that so that we won't be tired.  And besides, it’s only for ONE day!  We hope that you will agree with us.

Sincerely,

TEAM Heath

We must have done a good job convincing him, because here was his reply:

 

Team Heath,

Thank you for sending me such a wonderful persuasive essay!  It was very well put together.  You had a clearly stated thesis statement which told me right away as a reader what the point was you were trying to make.  Thank you!  The next thing I always look for in an essay are three reasons that do a good job of supporting your thesis statement.  You had these too!  Great job!  All three of your reasons were very well supported and you had plenty of evidence to help explain why they were good reasons.  What a fantastic essay!

After having written such a wonderful essay, I would LOVE to be able to celebrate with all of you at a third recess!  Unfortunately, I have to attend a very important meeting this afternoon at our district Central Office.  L  Please accept this reply as my permission to take a third recess today.  You deserve it!  I will leave the rest of the details up to Mrs. Heath to decide when that will be.

Again, thank you for the letter.  Great job, 2^nd graders!

Mr. Guthmiller

We are looking forward to a third recess this afternoon AND having some more fun with opinion writing!!

 

Our M.V.P. Joshua

When I was out the pumpkin patch I played paintball and I hit some

stuff.  I hit a zombie guy and a hanging zombie that goes up and down and swings.  I also hit a tree and there was a spider on it.  I hit the spider on the tree.  When I was at paintball, it was loud when I shot the paintballs.  I got 10 balls.  When I was shooting the paintballs I couldn't see where they were going.  When I was done paintballing I went to the apple shooter.  After that I went to the haunted house.  When I was in the haunted house it was dark and I thought I heard a gun in there.  When I walked out of the haunted house we went to the corn maze.  Next we went to go get pumpkins.  When we were done getting the pumpkins we went on a hay rake ride back to where all the things are.  Finally we went to eat.  We ate hotdogs and treats and candy.  I really want to go to the pumpkin patch again.

Today's News by Emily

*One option that students have at Work on Writing Time is to write a blog post for our blog.  Today Emily decided to do just that. 

Hi everybody.  How are you doing?  I love school so that is what I'm going to tell you about.  Ok?  Ok!  Let's get started.  I'm going to tell you about one subject and it is going to be writing.  Writing isn't my favorite but about writing.  We are writing our writing test.  We got one hour but we get tomorrow too.  But we have to be done tomorrow.  Bye.

Mr. and Mrs. Benjamin Heath

I would love to share with TEAM Heath one of

my son's wedding picture.  The beautiful Mr. and Mrs. Benjamin and Claire Heath.

 

 

Our Week in Pictures

 We have had a busy, busy week!  I thought I'd give you a peek into some of our learning and activities via pictures.

 In Social Studies we have been studying landforms.  Students helped to invent actions to show each landform (have them show you!) and also created vocabulary cards that show the definition and illustration of  many of the landforms and bodies of water that we are studying.  I think we have some future artists in our room!





We published our first personal narrative this week in writing.  Students chose a story to revise and edit and they then created a published book that included a cover, dedication, author page, and even a blurb on the back telling what it was about!  On Thursday afternoon the entire second grade got together to share their work.

Right now, math is all about geometry in our classroom.  We have discussed 2D and 3D shapes and what characteristics each shape has.  One important compent of our learning and understanding is that quadrilaterals are shapes with 4 sides and that a quadrilateral with 4 right angles is known as a rectangle.  The kids find it fascinating that squares are also rectangles!  This week we have been building rectangles.  Given the number of rows and columns, students were asked to build or draw the matching rectangle.  In the photo to the right you can see us practicing building people rectangles! Our rectangle has 4 columns and 3 rows. The great thing about this lesson is that it was also  a beginning introduction into multiplication arrays.  They will be learning  more about that later! 

We finished up our week on Friday with Popcorn Reading.  Our reading buddies are the 5th graders in Mr. Lowe's class.  This is a wonderful opportunity to build relationships among students here at Hickory Hill and I love to see how those friendships grow and develop throughout the course of the year. 

 Well, that pretty much sums up the week in pictures for TEAM Heath?  And how was YOUR week??

 

Fire Safety Month

As you may know, October is Fire Safety Month.  We were lucky to get 2 visits from Papillion Fire this past week.  On Monday, the fire department brought out several vehicles for us to tour and talked with us about how they use the vehicles in an emergency.  Then on Tuesday afternoon, we got a special visit from Firefighter Borden, Mrs. Borden's husband who is a fire fighter in Papillion.  He spoke to us about fire safety and showed us the gear that he wears to keep himself safe.  He even had Mrs. Miglini dress up in it, which the kids thought was great!  He also challenged all of our 2nd grade families to conduct a home fire drill during this month.  In the event of an emergency, does your family know where to meet?  Take a few minutes one night and conduct a fire drill so that you can be assured that everyone knows what to do.  Papillion Fire Department would love to have everyone join them tomorrow, Sunday October 13th for a free pancake breakfast and fire safety instructions.  It is being held at 146 N. Adams St in Papillion from 8-1 am.  Hope to see you there! 

 

Our MVP Landyn

At recess we have been playing with friends.  In math we have been learning with shapes.  Geometry is another word for shapes.  For social studies we have been learning weather.  We learned that different states have different weather and climates.  For Daily 5 we have been learning with centers that we choose.  My favorite center is ipads.  I like to play language games.  I like school. 

Our Friend Andrew G.

Mrs. Heath is the best teacher in the world.  If I could pick out of every single teacher in the world, it would be her.  She has a great class and she teaches very, very good.  We do social studies and math and writing and reading.  My favorite subject is writing because you get to write a non-fiction story about yourself.  I think it is very fun.