Thanksgiving at WHE

We have been working on many activities to celebrate Thanksgiving at WHE. We have learned about a day in the life of Native American boys and girls and have seen life through the eyes of both Mayflower travelers and Pilgrim explorers. We tried a Mayflower meal of dried meat and dried fruit. Most second graders agreed that they like "their own" food better.

Unit Two of our reading series concluded this week. It was a review and testing week as we looked at our recent writitng strategies and covered all of our spelling words. We look forward to our next unit and discovering new reading treasures.


We are really moving forward in our math skills. We have been looking at units of measurement. We've measured everything in our room and estimated everything from weather measurement to weight measurement. Math seems to be an area the class really excels in. Our series is very hands on and the class has the opportunity to relate to concepts up close.

Parent/Teacher conferences are next Monday and Tuesday. We look forward to showing off our work and meeting with everyone.

Veteran's Day Celebrated at WHE

White Hall Elementary celebrated Veteran's Day this week. Mrs. Little had a great idea for a school Veterans tribute. The second grade sponsored a wall in the "short" hallway which featured our stars. All of the grades participated in placing their veteran stars on our wall. The wall was completely covered with over 100 veteran's stars. What a great idea and a great way to pay tribute to our veterans.

The second grade was also honored by a visit from a real veteran, Mr. Jim Rogers of White Hall. He spent a morning with all of the second grade and did a great job explaining what it is like to be a soldier. Thanks Mr. Rogers.

School dismissed early this Friday for a school improvement day. All of the teachers gathered at the High School and discovered some great new teaching tips. Our Superintendent, Mr. Les Stevens, closed our meeting with some great ideas to keep all of you informed about your students and our school. We look forward to open communication lines with all of you and this blog may help in that.

I hope all of you enjoy our blog as we discuss our class and events at WHE. Speaking of that, we had a fun week in our second grade class. We read about joining a team and discussed a lot of new vocabulary words like coach, tryouts, practice, exercise, and uniform. We have been working on the long O sound and our spelling tests went really well. We look forward to next week as we start a unit on Pilgrims and Native Americans.

On a sadder note, our class pet, Buddy, didn't make it through the weekend. We did receive an anonymous donation of a tree frog which now inhabits a small aquarium in our room. Our ants are multiplying and their home is a site of constant interest. We are going to have a "Mayflower Breakfast" next week and look forward to our new discoveries.

First Quarter Completed

Our reading series took us on a non-fiction journey this week. We read "A Visit to the Emergency Room" as the class discussed hospital workers and wrote about a personal experience with a hospital. We shared a lot of stories and we had some great writing.

The class is really moving forward as we grow in our writing. We have been studying different kinds of nouns throughout the first quarter. It has been challenging as we discussed possessive nouns, plural nouns, pronouns and proper nouns. We have decided that there are just too many "P"'s when it comes to nouns. We finished our weekly assesment on Friday and our writing is really looking good.

Friday was also our Halloween party. We had a lot of great "Mom" help as we enjoyed a lot of treats and few tricks. We have a life size teaching skeleton in our room and he helped us celebrate. We had a Fall Fest and Halloween parade on Monday. Check out some pictures on the WHE page. I picked up the dreaded stomach flu on Monday but the other awesome second grade teachers led the crew as the "Pirates of the Reading Treasure."

The first quarter is over and report cards went home. The class did very well and many awards also went home. We had several on the effort honor roll, the star wall, and perfect attendance. We look forward to the next quarter and making many more second grade memories.

Our class pets are doing well. We have enjoyed our new ant farm. We have watched these busy workers as they move sand and dig tunnels. Buddy the frog is growing and as one student commented - "isn't near as much fun to watch as those ants". We plan to write a compare/contrast story about the working ants and the "lazy" frog.