Busy day in second grade today.  On Thursdays we have both music and gym.  Today we also had to squeeze in picture day.  Still, we got in lots of learning!  Our math lesson today focused on telling time.  We talked a lot about the hour hand placement at half past the hour.  The hour hand "travels" to the next number as the hour progresses.  It keeps asking "are we there yet?" 
We read a story titled Bigmamas by Donald Crews in writer's workshop.  Crews wrote about a special place he would visit when he was growing up,  As writers, we can also write about places we have visited.  There was some great book talk going on as we read Bigmamas.  It is filled with great vocabulary and takes place many years ago when people often traveled by horse and buggy and drew water from their wells. 
Later in the day we read The Water Hole by Graeme Base.  I used this book to launch our sharing circle procedures.  We call our carpet area the watering hole.  It is here that we gather to talk, learn and share.  We learned the word "perimeter"too.  We sit on the perimeter of the watering hole when we do a sharing circle. 
The children met Gogo today during our spelling time.  Gogo is a frog puppet who is a bit bashful.  He likes to whisper in my ear.  Gogo eats strange things and gets stomach aches often.  He gives us clues to help us guess what he ate.  Today he ate a chain and a train. 
Tomorrow during reader's workshop we will be starting "read to someone".  Our reading block consists of 4 components: read to self, read to someone, listen to reading, and write about reading.  We are excited about adding read to someone tomorrow.  In anticipation we had a discussion about what read to someone will look like and sounds like and created an anchor chart with the expectations. 
Our day was full and busy.  =)  It was a good day!