Author: lisavance

The Lower School at Laguna enjoyed a very special Thanksgiving celebration. During this time, each class shared a brief song, skit, poem, or message of gratitude. The second graders worked collaboratively to create a one-of-a-kind class poem that celebrates the traditions, customs, and events that make each  Thanksgiving unique and memorable. Our messages of love and kindness were recorded and combined into a heartfelt video. Click the link below to enjoy!

A Recipe for Thanksgiving

A Recipe for Thanksgiving
By The Second Grade

Add a teaspoon of dogs getting all they can eat – Cielle
Add a dash of family or friends – Simone
Refrigerate for 20 minutes – Rio
Pour in a cup of curiosity – Jacob
Mix in a cup full of hearts – Sophia
Add 13 pounds of turkey – Sebastian
Simmer it with lettuce and ketchup, then put in three ounces of kindness – Tadhg
Bake a pie for family and friends to eat – Natana
Pour a cup of family and friends around the table – Chloe
Hire a hedgehog to do the work and tell it that it is cute – Kellar
Serve with Grandma’s special jello – Kora
A pinch of thanks – Simone
Mix in a cup of Grandma’s kisses and garnish with Dad’s famous orange rolls – Cielle
Whip up with explosive hugs – Kellar
Blend in some nice kindness – Sebastian
Pour in a cup of love – Chloe
Mix in a cup of care – Izzie
Add a tablespoon of acts of kindness – Rio
Add a cup of music and stir it all around – Kaila
Don’t forget to dice up a load of friendship – Jacob
Roast it all with a barbeque for 20 minutes and flip it over to roast the other side – Tadhg
Enjoy it with the ones you love! Happy Thanksgiving! – All

 

 

For World Kindness Day, the second grade celebrated by sharing over 100 acts of kindness and filling our kindness jar for the first time this year. The kindness jar is our way of recognizing and showing gratitude for thoughtful gestures, no matter how small. Every day, we close the day by thanking friends for specific kind-hearted acts that were experienced throughout the day. Typically, students thank their classmates, but occasionally they thank teachers, former teachers, family members, and friends outside of our school community.

Wow! What a day! Second graders were able to enjoy many fun and festive activities for our Halloween celebration. We started the day with an amazing craft activity with step-by-step instructions shared by Simone and her mom via recorded video. The spooky haunted house scenes were a complete hit! During math time, students each selected a pumpkin of their own to use in measuring and estimating activities. At the end of the day, the entire school joined together for our traditional Skeleton Square Dance, led by our very own Coach Robitaille which was then followed by trick-or-treating all around our beautiful campus. Spooky and silly smiles graced the faces of everyone involved.

 

Our classroom is filled with amazing fall artwork! Check out our polka-dot pumpkins inspired by artist Yayoi Kusama as well as second-grade silly pumpkin stories. And, how about some glow-in-the-dark dog and cat chalk art for Dia De Los Muertos? The creativity is astounding!

The second grade has enjoyed a fun-filled Spirit Week celebrating our fabulous school. We exercised and celebrated with dress-down themes such as Tropical, Western, Rainbow Colors, and Sports. Coach Robitaille kept everyone moving and grooving in our green gear. It feels good to be active and to support Laguna Blanca!💚🦉

Students have been learning about world geography, geographical terms, and mapping skills. Each second grader has been hard at work creating a 3D world continent clay map complete with a legend, a compass rose, and a cartographer’s signature, all housed in a pizza box for safekeeping. We are about to embark upon our virtual travels around the world. Excitement is in the air!

 

Second graders outdid themselves by taking Flat Stanley on amazing journeys at home and all throughout Santa Barbara. From stuffy hangouts to neighborhood bike rides and apple picking to Los Banos Pool, Stanley certainly made the rounds. Stanley even watched a baseball game, got brain freeze from a vanilla shake, and watched a pumpkin light show! He was lucky enough to tour the pumpkin patch and a construction site, boogie board at the beach, and participate in a hermit crab race!

Students shared their journals with partners and with the whole class. We even had classmates join us via zoom so everyone could enjoy the experience! When literacy is connected to real-life experiences, students are motivated to read and write expressively. I was incredibly proud of the presentations as well as the attentive listeners in our captivated audience. Another fabulous job from our creative second graders.

 

 

Today was a special day for Laguna Blanca Lower School students as we celebrated the re-opening of our main playground area.  Due to the County of Santa Barbara relaxing some restrictions for this type of group play, our campus was allowed to open the popular play structure commonly referred to as the Big Toy!

Class cohorts still rotate among several outdoor play areas during recess times, but now group play on the Big Toy will be an added rotation. I got a bit teary-eyed watching our inclusive second graders run, slide, swing, climb, and laugh to their hearts’ content and enjoy a group game that they had created way back in kindergarten. What a joy!

Our class is reading Flat Stanley by Jeff Brown. As a culminating project, second graders are invited to take home Flat Stanley for one week and have him participate in family activities.

With each new home adventure, students are to write a journal entry describing the details of Flat Stanley’s experiences. Students are encouraged to include photos, illustrations, or small tokens to accompany each journal entry (such as a seed if Flat Stanley helps in the garden, or a shell if he visits the beach).

Students will use the journal templates provided to guide their writing and use descriptive language, neat printing, as well as their best spelling and punctuation.

We will share Flat Stanley’s home adventures in class together on Friday, October 16th.

I am eagerly looking forward to Flat Stanley’s many adventures with his second-grade friends!

Sincerely,
Lisa Vance

 

Once a week, second graders start their day journaling in their writing notebooks. The very first entry in each student’s journal is a heart map. A heart map is a visual reminder of the most meaningful things for each second grader. The map helps students to think broadly about what really matters to them. In doing so, students move away from writing about superficial topics and travel to a deeper place inside themselves.

Sometimes we use our writing notebooks for more directed lessons. For example, one lesson focused on using Venn diagrams to compare and contrast dogs and cats. Discussing and writing about similarities and differences is a skill that can be applied to many future writing assignments.

Today, students enjoyed a song study. First, they listened to a musical piece and responded to it in writing, sharing what instruments they thought they heard in the piece. They also wrote descriptive words about how the piece made them feel. Then, students later watched a reveal of the amazing marble machine that played the catchy tunes that had everyone completely amazed!  Click this link: Musical Marble Machine

 

Second graders are working hard in all academic areas! Check out our bulletin boards – a showcase of excellence. Students have created reader profiles, shared all about themselves with our All About Me activity, and written about their hopes and dreams for now and the future. Enjoy!