Welcome back to school! 1H has hit the ground running. Looping together has proved to be a sensational success! We were so happy to see each other on the first day of school, and even more excited to see our huge new classroom! We felt right at home immediately, because we were together. We did a whole bunch of fun activities to share with each other the many terrific things we did over the summer. The students in 1H and their families were busy bees this summer! Of course being together for another year let us get right to work on the first day of school. We already knew all the routines, so we were reading, writing and doing math on the first day!

During the second week of school, we had a visitor come to our classroom to talk about The US Constitution, in honor of Constitution Day. We learned the story of our Founding Fathers, and a little bit about what life was like back then. It was an interesting dicussion, and we learned a lot!
Of course in the first two weeks of school, we were busy getting ready for Open House. We couldn't wait for our parents to come and visit our new classroom! We wrote letters to our parents, created an All About Me fact sheet for them to read, and we even made ourselves out of paper to trick our parents into thinking we were sitting in our seats when they came to school at night. Our trick worked, because our parents really thought we were there! They loved seeing all of our hard work, and enjoyed writing letters back to us. We had a blast the next morning reading the letters from our parents! 1H parents ROCK!
In the middle of September, our awesome art teacher, Mrs. Gallagher did a peace project with us. Every student in the school made a "pinwheel for peace." On these beautiful pinwheels, each child wrote down their ideas for keeping peace in our world. On National Peace Day, over 500 pinwheels were displayed in the front of our school. It was a beautiful sight! We were lucky to have a gorgeous, slightly windy day, so all of the pinwheels were spinning when we arrived at school. It was an extrodinary thing to see, and we were so fortunate and proud to be part of this important project.
During the month of September, 1H began a study of nutrition and food groups. We were very lucky to have a real scientist visit our classroom to teach us about the importance of good nutrition. He did some really cool, hands-on experiments with us. We LOVED it!

One of the first experiments he did with us was give us a piece of brown paper, and had us rub potato chips on the paper. We began to notice the paper getting very greasy. We were suprised at how much fat we were eating when we eat potato chips. Now we know why this is a once in a while treat! We also did an experiment where we put iodine on bread. It immediately turned dark purple! The iodine was reacting to the sugars in the bread, wow! We put iodine on paper plates, and then rubbed sugar-water on the iodine, and it turned white- it was soooo cool!

Another cool experiment was when we each made a molecule out of toothpicks and marshmallows. That was fun and yummy! Lastly, our favorite experiment was when each table got a jar of heavy cream. We passed the jar around and around our tables, each person taking a turn shaking the jar. After a few minutes, we noticed that the cream was changing. We were amazed when we opened our jars to find that the heavy cream had turned into butter- SO COOL!

At the end of our experiments, we played a fun game where each table got a whole bunch of plastic food, and we had to work together in groups to sort all the food into the five food groups. Some foods were tricky, but 1H did a great job!
The next day in class, we decided to use what we learned about the food groups! We got into groups, and each group was in charge of a food group. We got magazines and started cutting out pictures of foods in our group. It was great fun, especially when we were able to help out other groups by finding foods for their food group!

1H, if you would like to learn more about nutrition, you can click here to find games and ideas for more learning! Be careful leaving Mrs. Healey's website- be sure to have a grown-up with you! Have fun!
Of course, we are busy reading, writing and doing math every day, too. During the month of September we spent time reviewing all the things we learned in first grade. We were reminded how to find "just right books," and we've spent a lot of time reading, since "just right" books for us are a lot longer and harder than they used to be. We have been writing up a storm, too! The authors of 1H are unstoppable- Mrs. Healey can barely keep up! In math we have been reviewing addition and subtraction, and all the strategies we can use to solve these problems. We've been doing word problems, fact families, and playing games to help with our number sense. Bravo, 1H! Phew... we are busy!
Staying together for second grade has been a dream come true for all of us. We are a TEAM, and each one of us feels it. We are each others best teachers, friends, and cheerleaders. Every child in 1H takes pride not only in their own accomplishments, but in the accomplishments of their classmates. Our classroom is a beautiful place to be every day. We are so lucky!!

Stay tuned for our study of our community, pumpkins and Halloween coming up in October.
Many thanks to our amazing 1H parents!

Parents, do you want to be involved in 1H? Please grab your calendar and visit the 1H Volunteer Schedule page to see all the opportunities to visit our classroom. Find a date that works for you and email Mrs. Healey to be put on the schedule- it's easy!
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