Our First Day of School!

Hi families. Here were some of our favorite things that happened on our first day of school written in students words:

-We played with puzzles (as a cooperative learning/team building activity)

-We made new friends. 

-We got to go to art!

-Recess!!

-Lunch because it was very yummy.

           -Yes, the pizza was yummy.

           -Don't forget the hot dogs, too.

-Reading. I liked my book on sharks.

-When we go to the classroom to learn new things.

-I like learning to read better.

-When Ms. Petzold made us have fun.

-We read Elmer and First Day Jitters (We also did a writing activity with each of these stories -- one should have made it home today about what students were nervous about on the first day, the other was about what makes them unique like Elmer in the story -- these are hanging in our room and if you come to open house you will get to see them!) 

Stop by again soon to see what else we are learning!

Smiles,

Ms. Petzold's Class

Welcome to Our Classroom!

Hi Families!

Welcome to our class blog. I am Ms. Petzold and I am so excited to be your child's second grade teacher for the upcoming school year! It is going to be a year full of growth, friendships, learning, and laughter. 

Meet Ms. Petzold: I'd love to take a few moments to introduce myself to you! This is my second year teaching second grade at the Tenney. Prior to coming to the Tenney I taught at Polaris Charter School in Manchester, New Hampshire. I love teaching in the Merrimack Valley again as this is where I was born and raised. I completed my undergraduate degree at the University of New Hampshire and am currently working on my Masters of Education degree in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) at Framingham State University. I love the fact that I am still learning and growing right alongside my students (they love hearing that I have homework, too!) I love to read, swim, hike, and spend time with my family and friends. Ok... that is enough about me! Let's talk a bit about our classroom and the upcoming year!

Our Curriculum: This year we will be using Eureka math as our math program district wide, Lucy Calkins as our writing program, and a reading workshop model to help instill the skills and practice your child will need to hopefully become a lifelong reader! I will speak more in depth about these programs on Thursday, September 10th at Tenney lower school's open house. Please save the date! I would love to have you there to answer as many questions as possible and let you spend some time in our classroom. I will send more details about the timing of the event as soon as I have it. 

Our Class Blog: I love technology and enjoy getting it into the hands of the students I have the privilege of working with. My goal for this blog is to have the kids be in charge. Over the next few weeks, we will learn how to add a blog post and blog as a class or a small group at the conclusion of each day. My hope is that by the middle to end of September, the students will be able to take over. Each day, one student will be responsible for posting about something that happened during the day - it may be something they learned, a question they are pondering, an achievement they'd like to share, really anything they want to write about. Please be patient -- to begin with I expect these postings will be short, but as we blossom into stronger writers together I hope you will get to visualize our growth right alongside us. It will be fun if you comment on the children's postings -- encouraging, asking questions, showing excitement in all that they are learning! Learning to type and express ideas on the computer is an essential skill that our children are going to need going forward and I am so excited to present it to our class in this fun, hands on, way! (You will see a permission slip coming home soon to give your permission for your child to blog.) 

I cannot wait to work alongside you to make your child's second grade year a great one!  Please, please, please e-mail me with any questions, concerns, or thoughts whenever you may have them at cypetzold@methuen.k12.ma.us. 

Smiles, 
Ms. Petzold