Second grade ended the 2022 year with lots of learning, projects, and fun! Students studied Ancient Greek civilizations throughout November and December. As a culmination to their learning, each student completed a research project covering one famous philosopher, one Greek invention, one of the 12 Olympian gods, and a Greek structure. They all did an amazing job and worked so hard on their presentations. We invited parents and the SJDS community to our presentations and each student gave their presentation to various audiences. Project based learning is rich in problem solving, team work, public speaking, collaboration and so much more.

Our next December adventure was Candlelight. This service marks the beginning of the Christmas season and is a beautiful celebratory performance given by the Lower School students. The Lower School body begins practicing for this night at the beginning of the school year and their hard word always pays off. Candlelight is such a special treat to attend. Lesson Readers are chosen from each grade level and everyone read beautifully. Second grade is very proud of our readers this year!

To end this first half of the school year, we had a pancake and pajama party on the last day before Christmas break. Students wore their pajamas to school and I cooked them a pancake breakfast. It was the perfect way to start our Christmas party festivities.

We ended our Christmas PJ Party with an ornament exchange. The class sat in a circle and we rolled dice with special instructions to exchange the ornaments. When everyone had a turn, we opened our ornaments! This was very fun for the kids and they were all so happy!

Every year at St. James Day School each class is challenged to make a difference in our community. This year second grade sold coffee to our campus community to raise money for our project. The students worked together to create advertising posters and made a list of the items we needed. Each morning for one week students met at the school early to set up our coffee station and sold coffee to parents and staff. We were able to raise over $800. Our classroom was blown away by the generosity of our campus family. The money raised was used to spruce up the flowers beds and repair a damaged fence at For the Sake of One, a local foster care non-profit.

Students meet early one morning to pull weeds and plant flowers in the flower beds at For the Sake of One. Thank you to the parents that we’re able to help with this project!

After the fence repair and flower planting, our class had enough money left over to purchase treat bags for the 67 case workers that serve the Texarkana, AR and Texarkana, TX areas. We gave each case worker a Starbucks gift card and a few treats to carry in their cars as they drive long distances and work long hours. This community service project was a joy so complete. We are so grateful for the help and donations we received and the life lessons we learned along the way.

The past two weeks in second grade have been filled with learning in the most fun ways. We wrote our first opinion pieces about the best food in the world. These second graders have great taste in food! We used a graphic organizer called the “TREE Model”. T = Topic sentence, R = Reason for your opinion, and the E = Explanations and Ending sentence. This writing piece will be used at the end of the year with our final writing pieces to show all the growth we will have.

Tactile Tubs are still a huge hit for second graders each morning. Now that we are deep into our learning, schedule and routines, we have implemented familiar reading tubs into our morning fun. Before a tactile tub can be chosen students have to read from their familiar reading tub for 5 minutes. They have learned to quickly tell time to with the minute hand and are reading 2/3 books before we start our day.

We have experienced the beautiful fall weather during recess this week. St. James Day School playgrounds offer many different play experiences.

Recently we have studied early Asian civilizations and read a folktale about a magic paintbrush. We used our artistic abilities to paint what we would want to come to life if we had a magic paintbrush.

Investigations in science included how heat and light energy can change the way things appear. We left butter in the sun for 20 minutes and recorded the changes we saw from heat energy. We also tried to guess the color of construction paper with the absence of light energy.

Do you know how many ten dollar bills are in $1,000? We do! Second graders used words, drawings, and numbers to solve this problem.

Second graders were invited to Middle School to view their Renaissance Era Presentations. We learned all about the caravel, a small ship from the 15th-17th centuries, the Sistine Chapel’s ceiling, and Da Vinci’s inventions. Did you know your arm span is almost the same number of inches as your body’s height?

Second graders put their sense of taste to the test when trying three different kinds of juice without using their sense of sight or smell. Let’s just say, grape juice sounds better than it tastes and we won’t be tasting juice any time soon.

Small group learning is a huge part of our classroom environment in second grade. You’ll hear second graders talk about math and reading groups on a daily basis. This time during the day is used to hone in on specific learning topics, application of what we know, and intervention of skills that are tough. Small groups are my favorite time of the day because we get to have all the fun with manipulatives and different learning styles tailored to each students needs. Saint James is the place to be!

Wow! What a wonderful two weeks we had in second grade. The students are eager to learn and play each day. Here in second grade we start our mornings with creativity and movement. Something about having the students enter the room, unpack and begin social play sets the tone for a productive yet fun day. Check out these photos of second graders using Tactile Tubs to socialize, create, and play with one another.

Every year, to learn about cooperation and perseverance, students work in groups to Save Fred. Fred is an unlucky worm that is stranded on his overturned boat. His life jacket is under the boat and the students must save Fred from drowning. There are two rules: 1. You may not touch Fred with your hands. 2. You may not injure Fred. The groups worked together to devise plans to save Fred, and through many trials and errors, most groups were able to succeed!

One unexpected thrill for the class this year is their love for learning cursive handwriting. We learn a couple of letters each week and the students get to choose their place to practice in their handwriting books.