Door decorating contest

In art class students read "A Bad Case of Stripes" and made individual faces with patterns and lines. We decided to add a large version to our door.

Plant Projects

We have been studying plants. Our culminating project was to create a 3D plant with the plant parts labeled. Students had to present to the classroom, explain what they used, tell their favorite part, explain one plant part, and answer two questions posed from the audience. I am always amazed at the totally different projects that come from this.

Bat Webquest

This week we are starting a unit on bats. Here is the link:

Bat Webquest

Rocks and Soil Unit

For the past three weeks we have been working on our rocks and soil unit. First, we looked at different rocks and saw that they can be classified based on size, color, shape, and texture. We watched a movie, read several books, and completed our science workbooks. Students took the information that they learned to make a circle map.

Next we moved onto soil. Students observed different kinds of soil. We discussed how each soil holds water. We found that the best kind of soil for growing plants is humus. We planted a seed in humus, sand and clay. ( We are still watching these as they sit by the window).

Our last part of the unit involved making a flip book about the different soil layers. Last we made a soil layer snack. We used marshmallows for the bedrock layer, cheerios for the subsoil layer, coco krispies for the topsoil and humus. We added mini m&ms for the bugs and a gummy worm to top it off. Students were able to identify the layers from their flip book with the ones in their snack. What a yummy way to finish off rocks and soil!!

  

Science Stations

Science Stations

Students used measuring tape to measure things that were round like their wrists, their heads, and their arms. They also used rulers to measure crayon boxes and pencils.

We used thermometers to measure two cups of water. One was cold and one was room temperature. The cold water measured 40 degrees and the warm one was 70 degrees.

We used pan balances to measure mass of objects. The marker was heavier than the paper clip. The glue stick was lighter than the scissors.

Students used measuring tapes to measure and compare the size of their heads.

Students used a hand lens to observe tadpoles.They could also observe rocks and feathers using the hand lens or the magnifying box.

At each station students had to record what they observed or measured and draw a picture.

Students thought it was fun!

Fundations

New to second grade is Fundations. Fortunately the students did this program last year so they are the experts. This is a program that is funded by the Learning Alliance and is part of our "Moonshot Moment" to have at least 90% of third graders on grade level by the end of third grade. It teaches phonics, spelling rules, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension. We start the day with drill sounds that includes doing all sounds - including digraphs, glued sounds, etc each morning. Students are so well trained that they can actually be the drill leader for the day. This also makes it easy for me to watch the children repeat back and see their mouths making the correct sounds. Next we read trick words - words that cannot be sounded out. We have a variety of activities that we do after that - building words, word of the day, composition, echo find letters and words, make it fun etc. It leaves no room for errors in spelling as the rules are directly taught. Sometimes when we are older we forget why we double the s in miss or why c or k comes at the beginning of a word  - with fundations the rules are explicitly taught.

Students take turn being the drill leaders.

 

 

 

Students are taught the rules for spelling and how words are constructed.

 

 

We (teachers) have overwhelming support from our reading coach and the Learning Alliance.  They are on hand to answer any questions that we may have as we begin this program. 

Science M & M experiment

We have been studying the inquiry skills of a scientist. It's no fun to just listen to what scientists do and how they think, so we actually thought like scientists and did a quick experiment.  We discussed why m & ms melt in your mouth and not in your hand.  What a great discussion!!  There are certainly lots of budding scientists in our room :)

We then predicted what might happen if we place m &ms in water. Students had to write their predictions down. We discussed what might happen to the water?, will we ever see the chocolate?, will the crispy shell fade away? Then each table got different colored m & ms and told to put them in separate areas of the bowl. Students had to note their observations on their science paper. We also walked around and looked at other tables.


Colors are starting to fade.

















The colors have faded and now the crispy shell is white.

The kids were excited to see the "m" from the crispy shell actually float to the top of the water. Look carefully above the red m & m and you can see the "m" has separated. Now you can see the chocolate.