Where in the world is...Peppermint?

Our elf, Peppermint has been busy at night traveling around the world.  This week he traveled to England and Italy.  We learned about Christmas traditions in each of these countries.  In Italy, they believe that a good witch named, La Befana, brings gifts for children.

In England, one of the traditions is that a yule log is burnt in the fireplace and decorated.

We have found Peppermint is some funny places this week too.  

In math this week we are preparing to add and subtract 2 digit numbers.  We started by adding and subtracting 10.  We practiced changing the tens place value when adding and subtracting.  Then we moved on to adding and subtracting 100.  Next week we will begin adding 2 digit numbers using a number grid and base 10 blocks before learning the traditional addition algorithm.

Our essential question is reading this week was "What do we love about animals?"  We read several poems about animals and discussed what the author of the poem loves about that animal.  In one of the poems, the boy had a pet crocodile and he loved him so much that he wanted to keep him in his bathtub when he grows too big.

This week the students all entered a school wide writing contest.  This year our school reading theme is "One School One Author."  Our featured author this year is Patricia Polacco.  We have read several of her books throughtout this year.  In the writing contest, the students were asked to write about their favorite Patricia Polacco book.  Winners of the contest will be announced at an assembly on December 23.

Today was our annual Christmas concert.  The second graders have been practicing their songs every day and sounded great singing at the concert.  I hope you all got a chance to come out to our concert on Thursday night.

Did you see the snow????