I decided to take along books that were family vacation themed. If you are going on vacation, try one of these out! If you are staying home for the summer, maybe one of these can help you imagine a vacation for yourself. Perfect for a stay-cation! Enjoy, and don't forget to let me know what you're reading lately!
Last week, I did one of my favorite summer activities - I went camping. It was a week filled with outdoor adventures, sunny days on the beach (except when it rained!), and reading good books. I saw a snapping turtle laying eggs on the beach in the rain! I saw a hummingbird for the first time in my life! I stayed up late looking at stars and eating s'mores every night! I love camping with my family! I decided to take along books that were family vacation themed. If you are going on vacation, try one of these out! If you are staying home for the summer, maybe one of these can help you imagine a vacation for yourself. Perfect for a stay-cation! Enjoy, and don't forget to let me know what you're reading lately! I've been meaning to read The Yeti Files, by Kevin Sherry, for a few months now! Taking it on vacation was the perfect time, though. The main character, Blizz Richards, goes on a trip to his family's annual family reunion. His trip was a lot like mine, except of course I didn't have a mean cryptozoologist following me! Oh, and I didn't get to ride on a unicorn to get there! This is a funny book with lots of illustrations. You'll love it! We loooove Daisy Dawson! In Daisy Dawson at the Beach, Daisy and her family go to the seashore for a camping vacation. Daisy, of course, makes some animal friends along the way and helps them in incredible ways! Also, did you know Daisy can surf?! Wow! I think it would be pretty awesome to surf with rabbits and meet sea creatures like crabs and dolphins. Too bad I can't talk to them like Daisy can. Oh well, with this book, I could use my imagination! If you have read The Critter Club series before, you probably know that each of the four friends in the Critter Club likes different things. Liz loves the outdoors, so Liz at Marigold Lake was a great pick to take camping! In this one, Liz invites the rest of the Critter Club to her family's cabin for a weekend. They do lots of cool outdoor things, but the other girls don't always enjoy them as much as Liz hoped they would! This is a good story about friendship, trying something new, and acceptance. Oh, and of course there are animals to help! The Pain and The Great One: Going, Going, Gone is a fantastic book about family vacations, annoying siblings, and special memories. If you have an older sister who thinks she's so great or a younger brother who is a pain, you will definitely relate to this book! If you don't have any siblings and ever wondered what it's like, this book will help you imagine it! Each chapter is told from the point of view of either the older sister (The Great One) or the younger brother (The Pain). It's fun to see how they each look at things so differently. This would be a good family read aloud!
I went to see Jurassic World this weekend, so I had dinosaurs on my mind! I thought Dinosaur Cove #1: Attack of the Tyrannosaurus would be a fun companion book to read, and boy, was I right! This book has lots of action, without being quite as scary as the movie was! Two new friends discover a secret cave that leads back in time to when dinosaurs roamed the earth. This is a great book for kids who like Magic Tree House, especially if you always wished there were more of them about dinosaurs! There are lots of illustrations and even fact files about the dinosaurs featured in the story. It looks like there are quite a few in the series, so this will be a great addition to your summer reading list! You can find out more on the book series website: http://www.dinosaurcove.co.uk You can also play the Dinosaur Cove game on the National Geographic Kids website here: http://www.ngkids.co.uk/games/dinosaurCove I even found out that Dinosaur Cove is a real place! Can you believe that? You can find out more about the real Dinosaur Cove in Australia and the kinds of fossils that have been discovered there at this website: http://dinosaurcoveaustralianfossilsite.weebly.com/types-of-fossils.html I just love the way Cynthia Rylant writes. Her books always have great characters, like Henry and Mudge, Poppleton, and Mr. Putter and Tabby. If you liked any of those series, this might be one you want to try! The Lighthouse Family books are longer than other series by Cynthia Rylant, so they are probably a better fit for you now that Henry and Mudge. They also have beautiful black-and-white illustrations. If you like stories with animal characters, books about family, or imagining living by the ocean, you'll love this series! The Lighthouse Family is made up of a cat who is a lighthouse keeper, a dog who is a sailor, and three orphaned mice. Can you image them all living together as a family? Well, they do in this series! Not only that, but in each book, they have an exciting seaside adventure with a different ocean animal - and one eagle! The characters in the Lighthouse Family are kind and brave, just like you. I think you'll want to be a part of the Lighthouse Family after you read these books! Hi there, kiddos! Happy summer! As promised, this is the first IMWAYR post of the summer. Here are some of the books I've been reading this weekend: Another great Binky Adventure by Ashley Spires! In this one, Binky is supposed to train a new space cat... but things aren't exactly as they seem! I won't spoil it by telling you what happens- you'll just have to read it to find out! Don't forget, all the Binky Adventures are on Epic! Books for Kids. If you haven't gotten you two free months of summer reading from Epic!, here's what you do - have your parents go to www.getepic.com/promo to sign up. Use the code EpicReading to get two months free! If you ever thought that princesses should do more than sit around in pretty dresses drinking tea, then this is the book for you! Here are three great reasons to read The Princess In Black by Shannon and Dean Hale:
There's even a second book coming out this fall. And in case you are wondering if this book is "for girls", the answer is definitely NO! Unless you think fighting monsters and being awesome is just for girls! :) Lots of boys in our class loved Missy, Daisy Dawson, and Franny K. Stein this year. You will love the Princess in Black, too! Well, that's it for now. This week, once I have the whole classroom packed up and my summer break REALLY begins, I'll have more time for reading and recommending great books! In the meantime, let me know in the comments what you're reading! Have you tried out any of the recommendations on your list yet?
Until next week, Happy Reading! Welcome to Room 3! I am so excited to have you in my class this year! We are going to learn a lot, and we'll have lots of fun along the way. Last year's students, who are in third grade now, left you some notes about being a second grader. Read them in the comments below! They wrote advice, encouragement, or just some things you can expect in second grade this year. Have fun reading them!
See you on September 2nd! Love, Mrs. Freeman We began a new unit in social studies this week called “Jobs and Money: What is the Economy?” As part of the unit, we are exploring how things are made. Students learned about assembly lines by simulating a toy factory in the classroom. Each worker was responsible for one job, and when everyone had finished their part, they had a finished product – a maze! Next came quality control to check each maze and make sure everyone did their job correctly. Afterward, we made a chart of what the class saw as pros and cons of assembly line production. Students are excited to continue our learning with this blog talk! Please follow this link to learn more about how things are made. Please pick one video to watch (you can choose to do more than one if they want). Then, leave a comment to share your thinking about what you learn. Use the Connect-Extend-Challenge routine in your comment. Here are some sentence stems to help you get started: Connect: This is like what we did in school because… Extend: Something new I saw was… Challenge: Now I am wondering… Have you ever been able to party with the president? We have! We didn't really see him in person, but it was still awesome! The president was almost on air. Everybody around the world was watching. We were watching it to on our SMARTboard!!! We were sooo excited! We had popcorn, popsicles, and smarties. Suddenly, it started. Everybody got the chills. It was awesome! We actually got to see the president on air! It was MINDBLOWING! President Obama was giving an interview about books and people and what he read. People asked some questions on Twitter. We asked him some questions, too, but he didn't answer them! There were SO many questions! He said that he likes books. We think he likes them as much as Mrs. Freeman does!
One fine day, Mrs. Freeman announced that we were meeting our buddies again. Isn't that cool? We thought so! We were so excited that we were meeting our buddies again. This time, we had a special plan. They were having a big test, so our plan was to cheer them up. Just so you know, they were verrrrrrrrrrrrrrry nervous. We brought them bookmarks to encourage them for the test! We wrote encouraging words on the bookmarks like "You can do it!" and "You are going to rock this test!" and "I believe in you!" We also watched an encouraging video before we left. Then we all said bye and we would miss them until next time we meet.
We were going to go to Virginia for Christmas and spend time with my family. First we had to pack the gifts. My mom and dad did that. I wrote the notes. The notes were also a puzzle. For the puzzle I wrote a riddle. I thought the puzzle would be hard for them. Right when we were ready, we set off to the car. First I got a book, the car rode off and I started to read. Right now we were going on a mini trip to my mom's friend's house. When we got there, we said hi to Nivesh. We played with Legos, my mom told us a story, we played meet for three and house for three. After all that playing we opened the gifts. One was from my auntie and uncle, and three were from my mom. Me and Karthik got a Lego Chima set, Karthik and Nivesh got a Lego Batman set, and I got a Rubix Cube. After that we gave Nivesh a Lego Chima poster. Then we left for Virginia. It took nine hours to get there. On the way I finished the chapter book that i took. When I got with my cousins, we went to the creek, went real rock climbing, and did firecrackers. (I got soaked once!) Lastly, we exchanged presents and left. I was really sad. Well, I hope you did what I did, too!
Our student teacher, Miss Alkass, was leaving. It was so sad. We had a party to say goodbye. We had a cake made out of school items that we each brought in secretly. By the way, if you want to know if we ate the cake, the answer is no! It wasn't actually a real cake, but we did have cupcakes! We felt sad for one thing: it was Miss Alkass's last day! She was so nice, and she was so fun. She helped us with anything if we needed help. This week, when we came to school, our class felt like we were missing something. And it was Miss Alkass. We miss her so much. We know she will be a great teacher when she has her own class.
We have been learning about Troy history in social studies. We've learned that the period from 1900 - 1950 was a time when lots of things were changing! Troy went from a small pioneer town to a growing farming community. Cars, railroads, and electricity came to Troy during this time, and we are imagining all the ways those inventions must have changed people's lives! In fact, today we learned about several inventions from this time, like the assembly line, the airplane, and the pop-up toaster!
What else was invented during the early 20th Century? Your job is to find out about one item that was invented between 1900 and 1950. Use the internet to find a picture of it. Then, leave a comment describing the item, when it was invented, and how you think it changed people's lives. Don't forget to leave a link to the website you found it on! That way we can all learn more about it. Have Mom or Dad help you! |
AuthorThis blog is maintained as a collaboration between all students and myself. Each week, one student has the classroom job of "Blogger". That student helps decide subjects for our posts, as well as writing one blog post about him/herself. Archives
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