Second Grade Music Concert

I hope you were able to join us this morning for the second grade concert.  If not, don't worry, there will be a repeat performance at 2:20 this afternoon.  The students sang and played beautifully. It is obvious that they have practiced hard in their music lessons.  They felt both proud and relieved after the performance this morning, and have been talking about ways to make the afternoon performance even better!

Valentine's Day

I hope everyone had a lovely Valentine's Day.  On Friday, students began the day, sharing Valentines with each other and their buddies.  Our party was help in the afternoon, after a hardworking morning.  Thanks so much to Rebecca Ledges for coordinating the organization of our party, and to the other parents who volunteered their time, energy, and creativity!  During the party, the students made crafts, played games, and ate healthy snacks.  This excitement was followed by Graland's annual Faculty V. 8th Grade basketball game.  Definitely a lot of excitement for one day!  

The Road to Research

For the last few weeks, we have been learning research skills using a book on the life of Molly Brown.  Today, the students began to work in pairs to practice these skills while learning about famous Denverites and Coloradans, such as Josephine Aspinwall Roche, Barney Ford, and Robert Speer. The students will read, highlight the important information, take notes to create a written report, and finally produce a small poster to present to the class.   The students were motivated and excited to begin this process.  

Our Field Trip

We all enjoyed our trip to the Molly Brown House Museum yesterday.  The children learned that Molly was actually called Margaret.  "The Unsinkable Molly Brown" was a name given to her by Hollywood after her death.  The children listened attentively to our guide and were very interested to see how the Brown family lived.  Everyone was curious to learn more about how she survived the sinking of the Titanic.  We saw a photo of Margaret's insurance claim after the disaster, and were all shocked to see it totaled nearly $28,000!  We learned about how Margaret worked hard to make a positive contribution to society, helping Colorado become only the 3rd state to allow women to vote, and helping to create the juvenile court system.

United in Orange!

Happy New Year!  We have had a wonderful start to the new year.  Everyone came back eager and ready to learn.  This week, the students have written opinion paragraphs, learned how to measure using meters and centimeters, studied the use of idioms, and posted something they have learned about Denver on their blogs.  If you haven't already seen your child's blog, you can get there from the tab at the top of this page.  Go Broncos!

Happy Holidays!

I hope some of you were able to join us this morning for the 5th Annual Festival of Lights sing-along. The 2nd graders sang The 12 Days of Christmas with their 6th grade buddies.  This song, with actions included, was called the 'song of endurance' by Ms. McCaffrey! Please check out the website for photos.
Carey and I would like to wish everyone a peaceful, relaxing break.  We would also like to say a huge thank you for the thoughtful and generous gifts.  They are greatly appreciated!

Happy Holidays from Mrs. Hall, Mrs. Nyberg, and our 2nd grade class!

Library Search

Today the students learned how to use the Graland library website to search for books at their own reading level.  If you would like to do this at home, the web address is library.graland.org.  Then, click on the catalog tab, and select Fountas and Pinnell from the Reading Programs menu.  Finally, enter your child's reading level, and click Title.  The students wrote titles of books they thought looked interesting and will be taking their lists to library class tomorrow.  If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to ask.