This morning, as I was driving to work, I noticed that everyone on Hwy 109 was without power. I was hoping that wasn't the case for our school, but turns out, it was. My second graders handled the powerless situation like champs. They got straight to work, right after their eyes had time to adjust. I'm so proud of them for working hard and making the best of this crazy situation! 
This is called an Elmo. It's our favorite new gadget for teaching and learning. It's like an updated version of the overhead projector. You can lay anything under the Elmo, and it will project it onto the white screen. We use it for all kinds of fun things. Our class was lucky enough to get an Elmo, but there are still some classrooms that don't have one. Hopefully, our spring fundraiser will allow our school to purchase a few more. We are very thankful to have new technology like this in our school and classroom! 
We've been doing some spring cleaning and rearranging in our classroom. It was time for a change, and that's certainly what we did! We love our new classroom layout. The entire room has shifted, but everything works much better for our class, and we feel like we have more space to learn. Change is good! 
Our class partnered up with Mrs. Wilkinson's third grade class to read some books. We spent about fifteen minutes taking some time to enjoy the company of students we don't get to see often. It was great practice reading to other students in our J.W.W. family. Hopefully we can do this again sometime soon! 
That's right! Portland's WQKR radio station came and set up in our lobby at J.W. Wiseman. Throughout the day, different students read on the radio a favorite Dr. Seuss book. Aubree and Orlando were some of the lucky readers. They have amazing reading voices and I'm so glad that Portland residents were able to hear them. 
Every March, J.W. Wiseman students celebrate the birthday of Dr. Seuss, a popular children's book author. The kids are encouraged to dress as their favorite character from his books. Some of the kids in our class transformed into characters straight from the books. It was pretty fun walking therough the halls on Dr. Seuss's birthday! 
Michael Shoulders, a popular children's author and speaker, came for a visit at J.W. Wiseman. During his presentation, he read, rapped, and made us all laugh. He is a very inspiring man who loves telling his story to kids and adults. Our school was very lucky to have him for a visit. During his lunch, he invited one student from each class to join him. Orlando (in the green shirt) was the lucky student in my class that got to eat lunch with Michael Shoulders. It looks like everyone had a wonderful time! 
As a part of our Valentines celebration, Aunt Kay and Uncle Chip came and made Valentines crafts with our class. They also read us a book and brought goodies to share. We always have fun when Aunt Kay and Uncle Chip visit! 
Our Valentines party was a huge success! We swapped cards and enjoyed some candy and pizza with each other. Each student created a Valentines box for our February project. Our class came up with some creative and inventive boxes to house their Valentines Day cards. 