2010 Memories

Because I haven't scrapbooked since 1999 I decided to pick my favorite photos from 2010 and make a Smilebox. Doing this made me realize that my New Year's resolution needs to be to take more pictures of my boys.

Happy New Year!!

Mrs. Bell and The Bell Boys

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Happy Holidays From Room 131

Pictures from our holiday party:

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Santa Claus is Coming to Town

Santa Max during free choice:

The cutest Santas ever! I saw these scrapbook Sanata at First Grade Parade and knew right away that I wanted to make them. These Santas are so adorable that I want to take them home with me. I will be sad to take them down, but look forward to replacing them with more amazing art work created by my students.

Create A Gingerbread Man

This is such a great end to all of our gingerbread activities that we have been doing. Look What's Happening in Room 102! posted a link to this fun Gingerbread Man site. Check out some of the gingerbread men that other people have made in the gallery. Make your own Gingerbread Man and send it to me. I am looking forward to seeing what you create.

The Gingerbread Man With Everything

GIANT gingerbread boys and girls

After reading several versions of the Gingerbread Man, we wrote about where our gingerbread boy or girl would run to and then created these adorable giant gingerbread boys and girls.

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Gingerbread Babies

We read the book Gingerbread Baby by Jan Brett

and painted our own gingerbread baby.

growing patterns

We have been working on creating growing patterns...

We made growing staircases patterns with tiles,

growing ice cream cone patterns

and growing caterpillar patterns after reading

The Very Hungry Caterpillar.

Prancer, Rudolph and Blitzen

Three of Santa's reindeer showed up during free choice this week:)

Beginning Sounds

We have been practicing identifying the beginning sounds of words or matching words that start with the same beginning sounds. We have been playing the following games on the Smartboard. Click on the name of the game to play at home.

Read Between the Lions Fuzzy Lion Ears

Primary Games Beginning Sounds

Professor Garfield The Chicken Coop

Letters To Big Bird

Happy 15th Birthday Jack!

Jack is 15 today!! I have one year to get ready for the day that he will drive off behind the wheel of a car by himself. So proud of the amazing young man that he has become.

Happy Birthday my little kurmudgeon!!

Gingerbread Houses

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Feeling Thankful

On my list of things I am thankful for is being a teacher in this amazing community. Hope everyone enjoyed Thanksgiving with their family and friends.

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Turkey Facts

We made adorable turkeys with scrapbook paper feathers...an idea that we got from our neighbors, Mrs. Rider's Class. I love how each one of them looks different. We have been reading lots of nonfiction books about turkeys and chose our favorite turkey fact to write on the back of our turkeys. These turkeys are hanging in our room, ready for our Thanksgiving Celebration on Monday.

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Everyday Heroes

Our 2nd graders are focusing on everyday heroes throughout the year. Our school had an assembly to honor some of the everyday heros in our community and school...our crossing guards, reading volunteers, the men that built our new football stadium and a student that persevered after an accident. One of these everyday heroes was my mom who volunteers in my classroom and our school and makes quilts for our school auction. Casey had the honor of introducing her and my class was so excited that she was honored. Hip, hip, hooray for our everyday hero, my mom, Mrs, Dempsey, who a few students like to call grandma:)

What Are You Thankful For?

We wrote about what we are thankful for on this turkey's feathers. Ask your child what they wrote on their feather.

Our Community

The children listed places in our community that they had visited, I took pictures of these places and then they drew them. Enjoy these illustrations of our community.

Madeira Elementary and Municipal Building

Cho Cho's Restaurant and Kroger

Madeira High School

The Bookshelf and the Mad Potter

Ted's Toys and Madeira Middle School

Dawson Park and Walgreens

Coffee Please

Domino's Pizza and The Madeira Post Office

The Fountain, Subway, CVS and Starbucks

The Madeira Library and Fire Station

We also walked to visit the police and fire station as part of our study of our community.

Fruit Patterns, Yummy, Yummy!!

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Pennies for Planting

Here are the pennies that we collected to plant our tree. All of the kindergarteners are voting on what kind of tree we should plant and where it should be planted this week. How much money to you think we collected? Leave a comment with your guess. Stay posted to find out the true amount and what kind of tree we will be buying...

Our Totem Pole

Room 131's Totem Pole

We read the story Totem Poles by Jennifer Frantz and decided to make our own totem pole. We read about how each family of the Haida people would pick an animal to represent their family. The totem poles were like a coat of arms. They told who the family was. We also read about how when they raised a pole they would have a feast called a potlach and that the man that carved the pole would do a special dance. Enjoy this movie of our potlach. Each "family" of students chose an animal to represent their group and did a little dance when they placed their animal on our totem pole. We also watched some great short videos about totem poles on YouTube.

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Extra! Extra! Read All About It....

Our newspaper articles about what we will be doing when we grow up...

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monster books

Here are some of the monster books that we read this month: