This Friday is the annual Civil War Game between the Oregon Ducks and Oregon State Beavers. To celebrate, yesterday was Civil War Day at Cherry Park! It's a big deal at Cherry Park because one of our favorite things is the rivalry we have between our teachers! :) Everyone was encouraged to dress in the colors or gear of their favorite team. Ironically, no students in our class dressed in Beaver gear or colors! And I promise, I didn't influence them at all..... :)
Here are some pictures from the day!
Cherry Park's 2nd Grade Team...Mrs. Zurcher, Mr. Soule and Ms. Senthirajah
Xiao, Leilani, Kyra, McKenna, Andrea and Nayanna
Ms. Lalande and I met when we were both students at the University of Oregon.
Mrs. Straub and I are big Duck fans! But she has to root for the Beavers a little because her husband went to OSU.
Mrs. Zurcher, Ms. Senthirajah and Mrs. Barker
Lots of Duck fans in our class!
Hopefully we have some happy Duck fans after Friday's game! GO DUCKS!
Today was our November Spirit Assembly at Cherry Park. It was an exciting assembly for us because 2nd grade was responsible for teaching the entire school about the new Student of the Month trait! We worked super hard all week, practicing for our skit to teach the trait of being Attentive. These students gave up some of their recess time each day to practice and get ready for our skit.
Here are some pictures from our rehearsals:
Mr. Soule discusses the trait of the month.
Our wonderful actors getting ready to practice.
Malena and Joelle (left) and Bella, Lang and Tre (right)
We had 9 amazing (and very brave!) 2nd graders who participated and presented our skit to the whole school. From our class, we had Leilani, Amir, and Joelle. The students from Mr. Soule's class were Bella, Rose, and Lang. And from Mrs. Zurcher's class, we had Malena, Tre, and Aighlee.
Here is a video of our skit teaching the December trait of Attentive:
(make sure the sound is turned all the way up!)
In addition to the skit, our November Students of the Month were recognized. November's trait was Helpful.
Taverick and Alyssia were chosen as the helpful students for our class! Congratulations to these two very helpful students!
Their pictures will be displayed on the Student of the Month bulletin board for the next month.
Our next assembly will recognize our December Attentive Students of the Month. We are looking forward to that assembly and recognizing more Students of the Month!
Today Ms. Robertson came to our classroom to talk about bully prevention. At Cherry Park, we follow 3 simple rules when it comes to bullying.
Ms. Robertson went over with our class what to do if someone is being bullied, whether it's happening to them or they see it happening to someone else.
First we practiced the "STOP" signal. Then we talked about the "WALK" step. We know that walking away and removing ourselves from a situation sometimes is enough to solve the problem. The last step is "TALK." If walking away doesn't solve the problem, then talk to an adult.
We spent time talking about what to do if we see bullying and how to use these 3 steps as a bystander.
And...we also talked about if you are the bully and are asked to stop....
We ended our lesson by watching the following video, which is called "The Meanest Girl in Second Grade."
This lesson was a great reminder to help with bully prevention at our school! Thank you, Ms. Robertson!
This morning, Ms. Keller's 5th graders visited our Walk to Read class. Each student brought an adventure story that they had written and shared it with our class. Below are some pictures from our fun morning...
Bella reads her story to Malena.
Daeton listens as Erin reads her story.
Faith shares her story with Zainab.
Austen reads his story to Tim.
Kyra listens to Jaden's story.
We really enjoyed listening to the stories written by the 5th graders! And it was fun for me to see the stories written by Austen and Jaden because those two were in my very first kindergarten class at Cherry Park! :) We're looking forward to hearing more stories written by Ms. Keller's class during the school year!
Every year on October 31st, Cherry Park celebrates Crazy Hat and Hair Day! It's always fun to see the creativity of our students and staff members on this day! Here are some pictures from this year's Crazy Hat and Hair Day...
Maddi, Nedel, Nayanna and McKenna (from left to right)
Kyra, Tim, Alyssia and Leilani (from left to right)
Lily, Taverick and Andrea (from left to right)
From Mrs. Zurcher's class...Tre, Daeton, Malena and Maddie (from left to right)
From Mr. Soule's class...Elaine, Bella, Matilda, Amellia and Erick (from left to right)
And...our awesome second grade team...Ms. Senthirajah, Mr. Soule and Mrs. Zurcher
Our monthly spirit days are always so much fun! We're already looking forward to our November spirit day!
We've basically reached the end of October which means it's time for Students of the Month to be recognized! Today we had our monthly spirit assembly where two students from each class were recognized after being chosen by their teacher. Parents were notified ahead of time so they could be at the assembly. Students, however, were not told who had been chosen for each class. Our character trait for October was Cooperative.
Congratulations to Tim and Maddi who were chosen as our class's October Students of the Month! They received certificates during our assembly this morning.
Following the presentation of certificates, the 3rd grade teachers put on a skit to demonstrate the November character trait: Helpful.
Our class watches as the third grade teachers demonstrate November's character trait, which is Helpful.
After the assembly, Tim and Maddi had their pictures taken for the Students of the Month bulletin board which is in the main hallway between halls 1 and 2. Their pictures will be up all month until our November Students of the Month are recognized.
And because a spirit assembly means it's spirit day at Cherry Park...
Kyra, Zainab and Andrea showing off their school spirit with their matching Cherry Park shirts!
Our next spirit assembly will be Friday, November 22nd. In addition to November Students of the Month being recognized, the 2nd grade team will be in charge of teaching the rest of the school about our December character trait. More info to come on that soon!
We are lucky enough to have access to a wonderful website where students can work on reading skills.The site is called RazKids and, with internet access, our students can use it at home as well as at school.
Every student has their own login and password. Those were sent home earlier this week. You can log in to the website at
www.raz-kids.com/login/senth2. Then use the information on the login card.
I have set up every student at their current reading level. For each book, students listen to the story and then read it on their own. After that, there is a comprehension quiz.
Students earn stars for every book they read and listen to as well as for the quizzes they pass. Stars can be used to "buy" items in the Raz Rocket section so that students can personalize their rocket. It's a fun "incentive" for students as they move their Raz Kids stories.
Below are some pictures of our students in the computer lab this week. Clockwise from top left: Nedel, Kyra, Taverick, Lily, McKenna and Alyssia
They love Raz Kids! I strongly encourage your child to use this website at home! This can even be used for our weekly homework reading log up to twice a week. Please let me know if you have any questions or need your child's login information again.
Last week we had our first fire drill of the school year. We reviewed in class what to do in case of a fire, which was then followed by our fire drill.
It was good timing because the fire drill came right before the start of October which is Fire Safety Month. We spent a week discussing different aspects of fire safety. We learned about the importance of working smoke detectors and of having an exit plan as well as a meeting place. Everyone was encouraged to go home and talk to their families to make sure an exit plan is in place in case of a fire.
We ended our fire safety time by creating a book that contains different fire safety rules. Our finished product looked like a book of matches with the safety rules written inside on matches.
Clockwise from top left: Joelle writing rules on the matches, Tim cutting out his matches, and Kyra gluing her matches into the matchbook.
The final products were taken home to share with families and keep as a reminder of fire safety rules.
I hope that every family was able to discuss what to do in case of a fire and have a plan set and in place in case of an emergency.
