One of the songs from our second grade play is titled "Lotsa Latkes." What better way to bring meaning to the children that by frying lots of latkes in our classroom? Fortunately, Mrs. Morris has a blender recipe and our wonderful parent helpers stopped by to cook. While enjoying the traditional potato pancakes with sour cream and applesauce, the children also learned about a menorah, and played dreidle with Hershey Kisses gelt!
Click on the link to see Mrs. Phillips read this hilarious book of the month!
Happy Birthday Mrs. Morris! Just yesterday we were learning about figures of speech and here we are today learning what 'Over The Hill' means. Just kidding! You are special and deserve a special day! 
Yesterday we used our white board tiles and dry erase markers for calendar math. WOW! Each child got an opportunity to write their own answer. Today we identified the calendar pattern, counted our groups of 5 and 10, showed how to make $.60 using pennies, nickels, and quarters, and other skills. Calendar math will never be the same!
We had a day of orange fun in October. The children helped the teachers clean out pumpkins. We wore orange clothes and ate orange foods (Cheetos, cantalope, carrots, cheese, and Cheese-Its). We decorated small foam pumpkins and played Autumn Bingo. 
We read a book called A Bad Case of Stipes by David Shannon. Then we all brought in a small pumpkin. Last Wednesday we painted our pumpkins in stripes to match Camilla, the main character in the book. In the afternoon we glued hair, a bow, and eyes on our pumpkins and then drew a nose and mouth 0n with a Sharpie marker. Just for fun we germinated lima bean seeds and put them in soil. Our plants are starting to grow! This is important because Camilla became striped in the story when she pretended that she didn't like to eat lima beans when, of course, she loved them! Because she wasn't being true to herself, she broke out in all sorts of crazy things - the stripes were just the beginning. 
We have 32 of the sweetest, brightest, hardworking children anywhere! In just two weeks of school we've read fabulous books such as Mr. Peabody's Apples, Dear Mrs. LaRue, and A Bad Case of Stripes. We've studied plot, characters, and problem/solution. In science class we used all five senses to observe and write about popcorn. In social studies we're talking about the importance of our community and neighborhood. Math has been all about making ten with groups of numbers such as 5+5, 2+4+4, 3+2+4+1, etc. Best of all, we've been adding pictures and ideas to our seed journals for writing. In addition to our academics, our class has been to PE, Music, Art, Character Education, and will visit the Media Center on Monday! WOW!
We spent a beautiful day at the Jacksonville Zoo last week. We searched for answers to our scavenger hunt worksheet and got to see the brand new Komodo Dragon exhibit. In the Wild Florida area we learned about snakes we might find in our own backyard!
Written by the boys and girls in Mrs. Morris and Mrs. Metzger's class
As our unit on China draws to a close, the children have the opportunity to earn some Social Studies extra credit. Our students were encouraged to make a 4 minute presentation to their classmates about the Chinese culture. Many kids wore traditional Chinese dress, others brought delicious food to share, we had a PowerPoint presentation, a timeline of the many dynasties and their contributions, a diorama, and much more. It was a learning experience for all of us!
