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.

Veteran's Day

Today we learned about how and why Veteran's Day is celebrated.  The students were interested to hear that people in England wear poppies to honor veterans.  They watched the Queen of England lay her poppy wreath at the cenotaph in London.  They also saw photographs of the ceramic poppies which currently fill the moat at the Tower of London.  Finally the students made their own poppies and wore them to celebrate our veterans.

Happy Halloween!

Today was so much fun!  We paraded with our 6th grade buddies around Preisser Field to the sounds of Thriller.  I hope you were able to be there to see all the fabulous costumes!  After the parade, the party started!  The students rotated through all 4 second grade classrooms, engaging in different activities in each room.  In our room, there was a mummy wrapping competition which was very amusing.  The students learned they had to be very gentle with single ply toilet paper!  Thank you so much to all our parent volunteers, who decorated the classroom, and planned and executed the mummy wrapping.

Gooney Bird Greene Day

Carey and I had huge smiles on our faces when we greeted 19 Gooney Birds this morning.  The students, and teachers, entered into the spirit and wore creative, crazy outfits that Gooney Bird would have been proud of!  We had a fun day participating in Gooney Bird inspired activities.  The students used a computer drawing program called Sketchpad to create their own digital image of the book character.  During reading stations, the students wrote letters to Gooney Bird, and thought about ways she demonstrates the Graland Guidelines.  Check out our outfits below!