Plants

This week we started our unit on plants.

On Tuesday, we learned a song called "Leaves, Flowers, Stems, and Roots" to discuss the different jobs each plant part has. Then we made mini books that had pictures and explanations about each part.

Here are the lyrics to the song- ask your son or daughter to show you the movements: (to the tune of "Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes")

Leaves, flowers, stems, and roots- stems and roots
Leaves, flowers, stems, and roots- stems and roots
Make food
Make seed
Support the plant
Collect
Leaves, flowers, stems, and roots- stems and roots

Within these next few weeks we will be examining the veins in leaves, watching water move up stems, and acting out and illustrating the steps of the life cycle of plants.

Visitor Teachers

In addition to picture day (the kids looked great!), we had special visitors from Ernst & Young for Junior Achievement Day, during which Lee, Tyler, and Bill taught us about our community.

The students learned about assembly lines and production, government, jobs, taxes, and voting. Here are a few pictures from the day:

Making "doughnuts" - making sure the assembly line includes the milk, flour, and eggs 

Adding the flavor to the doughnuts

Thumbs up from our inspectors

Thank you to our Ernst & Young friends!

Ready, Set, Read

The children have steadily been building their stamina during reading time. Each day we add a minute to the length of the following activities:

1. Read to Self
2. Read to Someone
3. Work on Writing

Today's practice went very well. I was so pleased with them! They really are getting into their books, and some of the students do not want to put them down when time is up. We are currently at 17 minutes for #1, 7 minutes for #2, and 4 minutes for #3.

While the students are doing these activities, I am able to pull small groups of students to work with them on their fluency and comprehension.

They are working hard, and I am so proud of them.


***Please note a book order form from Scholastic Books will go home in the Thursday folders this week. If you order online (information is in the letter), the class earns an extra book, and I get bonus points that I use to buy more books.

A Great Big God

Here is a video of the 2nd graders singing and signing the words to "A Great Big God."

Community Leaders

We are working hard in 2nd Grade this week!

Here are a couple of photos of students working on their community leaders booklets.

The vocabulary terms we learned were:

principal (leader of a school)
mayor (leader of a city)
governor (leader of a state)
president (leader of a country)

We discussed traits of leaders (keep us safe, reward good behavior, make consequences for people who break the law, make rules and laws, etc.). The students wrote describing words for our principal, mayor, governor, and president, and then colored in the pictures. I will send home those booklets next week. They look great!

Guardian Angels

On the first Friday of every month, the 2nd graders pair up with their Guardian Angel class- the 6th graders.

This week we sat together at Mass in the morning, and then we met up again in the afternoon to read our Weekly Reader magazines (this week was about butterflies) and to learn about each other. Everyone worked so nicely together! Please take a look at the photos below:

We are already looking forward to another fun activity next month.

Reventon

Please join the St. Ann community this upcoming Sunday, September 9th, for mass, food, fun, and fellowship.

Fr. Don McNeill will celebrate Mass, which will begin at 11:00am in the church.
Join us afterward in the plaza for lunch provided by Nuevo Leon.
Purchase some raffle tickets for lots of fun prizes.
Take a tour of the school and check out your children's classrooms.