Have a great weekend, Top Dogs! Thanks for letting us visit The Doghouse today. We had a great time meeting each of you!

Love,
MADI MAE and DUDS

Hey Top Dogs! Have you told your moms and dads about our cool poetry books yet? Our poetry books are where we keep copies of awesome poems! We cut them out, glue them in, and illustrate around them! We have to make sure our illustrations match the words so it makes sense. We will add responses to the poems later on in the year. We keep our poetry books in our book boxes and read them to practice our fluency! So far, we have added one of my favorite poems by Maurice Sendak, September Chicken Soup with Rice. We have also added The Pledge of Allegiance and a Short A poem. Here are some pictures of you guys working hard today! KEEP IT UP!

Love,
Mrs. Delzer

Nice job underlining all the short a words, Ethan!

Brenden is focusing hard!

Kendal, is that a short a word? :)

Nice work, Ava Bean!

These 3 are hard workers! Keep it up girlies!

Nice illustrating, Brea!

Jake and Chris are doing a fabulous job!

Lydia, Kadin, and Annie like the short a poem!

I LOVE THIS SIOUX-PER SMILE!!! :)

In The Doghouse, we use Daily 5 during our Reading Workshop. The biggest part of the Daily 5 is called "Read to Self". This is the time of our day when kids read independently to practice reading skills we are working on. The first day we did Read to Self, we read for about 8 minutes without needing a break. We have been working on our stamina (doing something well for a long period of time without stopping for a break). Today, we read for 20 minutes straight! YAHOO!!!! I am proud of these Top Dogs! Here are a few pictures of Read to Self in our classroom. We will read in cozy Book Nooks around the room very soon!

TTFN,
Mrs. Delzer

Welcome to a fresh week of 2nd grade! I took a picture of a scarecrow project we made on Friday afternoon. Let me tell you something - these kids love their projects!  I think these turned out pretty cute, and they make our room look ready for fall! Way to go, Top Dogs!

Toodles,
Mrs. Delzer :)

PS I will post more pictures of our "Read to Someone" later this week as we keep working on it!

WOW! This week went by so fast! I will be uploading some pictures of some things we have been up to a little later. In the meantime, have you clicked "join this site" on the right side of the page? Join our blog and become a member today! We love getting new members of the Top Dog Fan Club! :) You can also follow by e-mail to get updates sent to your inbox!

Have a good weekend!!

Love,
Mrs. Delzer

Become a member or sign up for email updates over here ---->

We have been learning a few different math games to play with a partner after we finish our work. I wrote a little about Monster Squeeze yesterday - the kids love this one! We also play Top-It and Race to 100. We are learning math skills while practicing taking turns, playing fair, and being good sports. We will learn lots more new games throughout the year. Math games are FUN!

Kendal took a couple of pictures today during math time. THANKS Kendal!

Bryce, Ethan, and I were partners in Top-It today!

I haven't been able to win this game yet this year! :) These guys are GOOD!

See you tomorrow, ToP DoGs!

Mrs. Delzer :)

Yesterday in math, we worked very hard on even and odd numbers! This can be tricky for 2nd grade kids! We made a number line with even and odd numbers, and did an even or odd sort! These were both fun little projects for the Top Dogs. We used the numbers lines today to play Number Line Squeeze, or as the kids like to call it, the Monster Squeeze! Check out some pictures of our work below!

TTFN,
Mrs. Delzer

Dudley was at the school with me over the weekend helping me get our September 11 flags ready to hang up. Do you think he is very helpful? I think your flags turned out great! You were so patient ripping all of the tiny pieces of paper to cover them all. Great work!

Toodles,
Mrs. Delzer

PS Check back soon for a ton of even and odd pictures from math workshop today!

Today at school we learned how to earn SMART BEADS!! Here's how they work: whenever a Top Dog answers a question correctly in class, helps out another child, fills a bucket, or is just having awesome behavior, they can earn smart beads for being so smart in school! At the end of the day, they trade their smart beads in for a slip that explains how smart their child was at school today! I have another post about Smart Beads from last year too, if you want to read more about them!! 

See you tomorrow, Top Dogs! Don't forget to WEAR PINK!!!!

LOVE,
Mrs. Delzer

Here are my 5 lucky winners of Smart Beads today! Way to go Jake, Ava, Kendal, Jillian, and Coby! :) I am SO proud of your smart brain! :)

I can't believe this is my 100th blog post! YIPEE!!!! Last week, we spent an afternoon talking about year-long goals for second grade. The kids came up with a ton of great ideas! Some goals we have are learning how to tell time, learning how to multiply, reading chapter books, and becoming an artist! We will keep our Hopes and Dreams hanging up all year to remind us what we are working towards! Stop by and see your child's hope and dream soon! :)

TTFN,
Mrs. Delzer

Check out our cool sign in our classroom that we hang our STAR work from! It is already full of great work! I am so proud of my Top Dogs! I also had a cool banner made to hang above! I love both of them! :) :)

Mrs. Delzer

I hope you had a super weekend, Top Dogs! Are you ready for your first full week of second grade? You will start lots of new things tomorrow, and even get second grade homework! Woo-hoo!

Here are the pictures I promised I would post about our Classroom Rules (Puppy Promise) and our Chesters. Make sure you show your mom and dads! :)

See you tomorrow!

Mrs. Delzer :)

We all signed these rules, saying that we PROMISE to try to follow them each day! The kids came up with these rules, and I think they are awesome!

Our Chester the Raccoons from the first day of school are hanging above our lockers. They are so cute!

We had a VERY busy day in The Doghouse! We made our classroom rules and jobs, started writing in our writer's notebooks, worked in our handwriting books, and learned about being bucket fillers!

Here is some information about Bucket Filling -

This year we are enthusiastically implementing a character development
program called Bucket Filling. Bucket filling is an easy-to-understand concept: Everyone carries an
invisible bucket that holds our good thoughts and feelings. When our buckets are full, we feel happy and when our buckets are empty, we feel sad. Children quickly understand that they can fill buckets when they do and say things that are kind, considerate, caring, and respectful. They also learn that when they are mean, inconsiderate, uncaring, or disrespectful, they dip into buckets and remove those good feelings. Even the youngest child understands that actions and words can either fill a bucket or dip into it. During this school year we are encouraging, reminding, and recognizing everyone’s efforts to be bucket fillers at home, at school, and everywhere they go. We are excited about this program and look forward to your support. If you would like to learn more about bucket filling, visit the Bucket Fillers website, www.bucketfillers101.com. Bucket Fillers offer a free weekly e-newsletter for parents and teachers.

This is our Bucket Filling Wall. Every child has a bucket to fill.

When we fill a bucket, we can add a warm fuzzy to our friend's bucket. Since being a bucket filler makes us feel good too, we can put a warm fuzzy in our own bucket, too!

This bucket was FULL of warm fuzzies this morning. Look at it now! :)

** I will post pictures of our classroom rules and our Chester the Racoons project this weekend! Remember tomorrow is a Prowler Pride Friday! :)

Toodaloo,
Mrs. Delzer