October 6, 2009

What a bummer that we couldn't go to the orchard today. We will have lots more fun on a better weather day. We have been doing lots of fun things with apples the past few days. Soon we will be putting all of our apple projects together in a folder to take home before MEA break. Last week we made applesauce. Our room smelled so good! We all helped to cut the many different colors of apples. We boiled them in water and they all turned yellow. We added white sugar, cinnamon, and nutmeg and they all turned brown. This simmered for 30 minutes and then we had applesauce with our snack. This homemade version was much chunkier than the kind students can buy at the store. It was a good thing to try, but not everyone liked the taste. The smell was yummy! We have read Apple Picking Time and 10 Red Apples together. This week we are meeting in book clubs to read the book The Apple. It's a story about a very silly goat and the things he does with an apple. We also added a new book to our book bags. It's called "a present" and all of the pages show parts of a birthday present. Each page begins with the word "a" and many students are able to read this on their own. We have been exploring the sound of Nn and how we put our tongue behind our teeth to make the sound, which comes through our nose a bit. Students are matching lots of pictures that start with Nn. On Thursday and Friday we will match pictures and words that end with Nn. We have read two poems using the letter Nn - one is about Nicholas Ned and his Turnip Head) and the other about Nan Can. We read a fun book called Show and Tell. Our next sharing topic is primary colors; students can bring in sharing items that are red, yellow, or blue. Students enjoy sharing and the question/answer sessions. We're going to limit it to 3 students a day now, since our discussions are getting long!!
We made some beautiful paintings in school. First we did watercoloring painting over our names written in crayon. Our recent project was painting our hands with primary colors of tempera paint and filling in the background space with secondary tempera paint. The hands look like they are popping off the paper with the bright contrast.
Wednesday is Picture Day! Thursday we have a presentation about our fall fundraiser - the family reading program. Friday we will meet our 2nd grade reading buddies! I'm looking forward to visiting with all of you at our fall goal setting conferences this week and next!