Five for Friday - November 1, 2013

I'm linking up with Doodle Bugs to share some highlights from my week. 

1. I started out the school week with our school's annual Trunk or Treat event last Sunday evening. I dressed up as Ms. Frizzle from The Magic School Bus! We had quite the crew with my amazing student teacher as The Magic School Bus, another friend as Liz, and two teachers at my school were D.A. and Keesha. We handed out candy and books to anxious and excited trick-or-treaters! 

2. We read some fun books this week: 

Click, Clack, Boo by Doreen Cronin

Diary of a Spider by Doreen Cronin 

Notice a theme here? Doreen Cronin is one of my favorite children's book authors. Her books have my students laughing hysterically every.single.time!

Another fun one was Mostly Monsterly by Tammi Sauer. 

3. The students worked together with partners to draft, revise, proofread and publish Halloween acrostic poems. I love it - they all have their mini dictionaries and thesauruses out on their desks and are putting them to good use! 

4. Halloween party fun!

We made popcorn and candy corn hands: 

And played Halloween BINGO: 

They all LOVED when I passed out the free homework pass: 

5. My students are currently obsessed with making homework for me, their friends and our student teacher: 

How was your week?

Martin Luther & The Reformation

We've been busy learning all about Martin Luther and the Protestant Reformation this week. 

We began our study by reading Paul Maier's book Martin Luther: A Man Who Changed the World. It's a great book that teaches about the life of Martin Luther. Reformation, recant, indulgences, translated, Wittenberg, Theses - these are big words for 2nd graders. The book does a great job describing what was happening during this time in history. 

They were excited to learn that A Mighty Fortress is Our God was written almost 500 years ago by Martin Luther and we still sing it today. After reading the book and learning the song, we moved on to learn about Luther's Seal. 

We found two Luther Seals in our school: 

And then learned the significance of each part: 

Each child picked five interesting facts to write about the life of Martin Luther: 

And they decorated a brown piece of construction paper to look like the Wittenberg church door, where Luther posted the 95 Theses on October 31, 1517: 

I love how different they all turned out. This student had fun writing all the way to 95: 

The church doors served as the book cover for our Martin Luther project. 

When the book was opened there were 5 facts (we're working on distinguishing between fact and opinion) about Martin Luther, Luther's Seal and an explanation for each part.  

Hopefully it won't be another 2 months until I blog about what's happening in my classroom. Lutheran school teachers: What are you doing to teach your students about Martin Luther and the Reformation? I would love to hear your ideas!

Heather