A Grateful Teacher

Dear Families~
Words cannot express the gratitude I feel to have the amazing support of my students and their families. The music videos were hilarious and we laughed even harder while watching them again today...such great dance moves! I was deeply touched by everyone's generosity and will enjoy your gifts. The memories I've made so far with your wonderful children are embedded in my mind and heart and I feel so grateful to have the opportunity to help make a difference, thank you for sharing your most precious gifts with me.  So from the bottom of my heart thank you so very much.

I wish you all a joyous holiday and healthy New Year.

Mrs. Madden

Be sure to look below to see all the fun we shared and don't forget to take a peek at our children's awesome dance moves in each of the four videos.

Thank you for helping to make our classroom Book Swap such a great success.

MacLean and her dad are all smiles.

Click on the arrow to see our fabulous dance moves.

Who ever said a bathtub was for taking a bath?

Ciaran and Mom celebrating the holiday spirit.

Boy, do we have the holiday spirit.

Vincenzo and Dad sharing some yummy treats.

It's hard to believe they had just eaten lunch.

Sharing family time and Popsicles during our classroom celebration.

Take a peek at our fancy footwork.

Emma and Dad's smiles help light up the room.

Holiday Classroom Celebration

Dear Families,

I wanted to wish you all a joyous holiday season as the days wind down and a new year is about to begin. If you have completed your holiday shopping and wrapping.... feel free to stop by and join us during our classroom celebration tomorrow, Tuesday, December 22nd from 1:15-2:15 in our classroom.  

Thank you so much for sending your child's book swap book...they are all so beautifully wrapped, it is always a fun surprise to uncover each child's Secret Santa. I also want to thank my Room Mothers, Mrs. Phillips and Mrs. Shugrue for organizing our celebration. I'd also like to send out a very special thank you to all the families who have donated supplies, and delicious treats, as well as donating their precious time to make tomorrow's events fun for your children. As always thank you for your support from home.

Happy Holidays!

Lena Madden

Working Hard in Mrs. Madden's Second Grade Class

Learning to be Cartographers

We have just begun our geography unit and it is very exciting. As another way of learning, we have explored multiple YouTube videos to help us remember our continents and oceans. I have attached the links to two great videos below that we watched in class. They are informative and engaging to watch.

                        Click on the vocab terms to view all we've learned about geography and cartography.

December has been a very busy month so far, the children showed each element of GRIT during their Hour of Code recently. We were lucky enough to work with Mrs. Klipfel in our media center on learning how to write code. The children were given minimal directions and asked to work independently on their task of using code to move their Angry Bird. Hour of Code is a worldwide program and we are very grateful to have experienced it here at Steward. Thank you Mrs. Klipfel.

Please click the link below for your child to continue working on the level of Angry Birds they left off on:

https://code.org/

Mila is all smiles after completing level 5 of moving her Angry Bird.

We definitely have some future coders in our class.

"Computer science ROCKS!"

Today we welcomed a 3rd grade guest into our classroom, who just happens to be the sibling of our friend Madelyn. Her brother Dylan presented his inquiry circle project to our class. Dylan did an excellent job explaining that an inquiry circle requires a lot of work because it involves picking a topic of interest, choosing a "thick" question, and then researching that question to find the answer. He presented a wonderful model of our solar system by explaining a few facts about each planet. It was a very special treat and the class thoroughly enjoyed it. Great work Dylan.

Madelyn is so very PROUD of her brother Dylan.

FINALLY our Halloween stories are complete. The children worked very hard and so beautifully on their writing, that Mrs. Madden and Ms. Hagberg were happy to help publish them. Each child wrote and illustrated their own "personal narrative" with a twist. Although our stories were originally designed to be Halloween personal narratives, the children couldn't resist adding their own creativity. We focused on the elements of a personal narrative including; characters, setting, beginning, middle, endings, bold leads, exciting endings, show me- don't tell me, and similes. We are extremely proud of each child for showing resilience through this time consuming project. These books sure were worth the wait.

Showing off all of our hard work in our first published books of the year!

Nolan and Janey demonstrate pride in their finished Halloween stories.  

Holding them up high for everyone to see!

The Elf Store

The children have been planning and preparing for our recent visit to the Elf Store.  After designing their elves the children needed to budget their 60 cents carefully to fully dress and adorn their special creations.  Moms and dads volunteered their time and supported our students as they cut, snipped and glued fabric, lace and glitter to make their elves come alive. The energy in the classroom can be seen in the smiles of each student!

We shared ideas and at times had to rely on one another... what a team!

I can't help smiling whenever I see the creativity each student displayed.

Madelyn and Ella worked together as they cut out patterns for their elves.

Thank you to all the parent volunteers who helped us create a bit of magic in a most creative way! We want to thank all of the families who had graciously donated supplies, there was an abundant supply of felt, lace, glitter, googly eyes. beads, feathers and pom-poms in every size you can imagine.  The children and I are so lucky to have your support and we are so very appreciative, thank you so very much!

Ms. Hagberg assisted some of the children in making good choices and staying within their budget of 60 cents.

Drew, Vincenzo and Ciaran worked together, shared resources and created a theme for their elves.  Be sure to take a peek at their creations below and see if you can locate the theme.

When we returned to our classroom we continued to practice our money skills by determining how much change each student needed... to total their original 60 cents. So we drew a bar model on the Smartboard and every student counted the amount of change they had left, and then they subtracted that amount from their original 60 cents.  Each student was told that their "ticket to lunch" was to determine the change or difference owed back to them to calculate their original 60 cents.  Boy they must have been hungry because in less than a minute every student had earned their ticket and were on their way to lunch!

We are ready to write our creative elf stories and the magical adventures ahead.