Christmas Around the World

Christmas Around the World

The students love to learn about traditions around the world. We complete scrapbooks, have suitcases, passports with stamps for our countries, maps, and country powerpoints.

Beanie Baby Strategies

Cafe and Writing Strategies with Beanie Babies

During our literature circle time we have been learning our Cafe strategies. The beanies help us remember the strategies and make a connection. Skippy the Frog - Skip the word and come back, Chunky Monkey - find the chunks in the word - these are accuracy strategies.

Research

2nd graders are expected to do research and be able to write informational texts.  This was accomplished during our science unit on habitats. Each student picked an animal to research. The students looked at the internet and books to write their papers. Each student then used the word program to type their report and add pictures. This was added to a poster along with their tri-folds that they have been completing as they read non-fiction texts. These tri-folds helped the students learn how to use text features to better understand non-fictional texts. Once these posters were put together for display the students each gave a presentation on their project and answered questions about their chosen animal. The projects accomplished many of the expected Iowa Core for 2nd grade in writing, research, literature, and speaking. Please go the the website to see pictures of each of the students with their poster.

Voting

We had our own presidential ballots and did our voting for the election.  The students did receive their "I voted stickers" after each cast their vote! We then did an unofficial count for the very close race.

Halloween Week

We are able to learn through investigations during. We make predictions and then check our predictions.  We checked our understandings on pumpkins sinking and floating, seed counts, circumference, and weight. We then graphed our results. Our pumpkins provided us writing, science, and math for the week.
Be sure to check the website picture links for October pictures to see some great costumes from Halloween. 

Group Work and Presentations with Non-Fiction Texts

The Iowa Core requires 2nd graders to be able to:

Comprehension And Collaboration

• SL.2.1. Participate in collaborative conversations with diverse partners about grade 2 topics and textswith peers and adults in small and larger groups.
• Follow agreed-upon rules for discussions (e.g., gaining the floor in respectful ways, listening to others with care, speaking one at a time about the topics and texts under discussion).
• Build on others’ talk in conversations by linking their comments to the remarks of others.
• Ask for clarification and further explanation as needed about the topics and texts under discussion.

 We continue practicing these skills by working in cooperative groups, speaking, and presenting to the class all of our learning. This week was no exception. The students completed two activities to work on collaboration. We started by learning how to look for text features when we read to deepen our understanding and comprehension of a text. We then worked in groups with a non-fiction series from Pebbles on Animals in Australia. Each group took turns reading the text and using the text features. Then, each group talked about the animal they studied and the text features that helped them. At the end of the week we again broke into groups to study different attributes of the Polar Region when studying the Arctic Habitat. The groups presented what they learned. We then used this information to show how a word web can organize our information to put into an informative writing piece. This informational writing will be practiced and put into action next week!

Field Trip

To complete our science unit on animals we were able to have a field trip to Langwood Education Center with the Louisa County Conservation. The students enjoyed making casts of animal prints, going on a scavenger hunt, hike, playing prey and predator, digging up bones and reconstructing the skeleton, and learning about owls. We finished by snacking on hickory nuts that were gathered on our hike. Sally the salamander was a big hit and one student commented that this was the best day of his life. I know he meant at school!!! Parents, don't forget that all the pictures are posted in the picture links on the classroom website. Here are some really cute pictures.

Me on the Map

In Social Studies we have been learning about needs, wants, consumers, producers, and maps. We had a fun activity that we used with the book, Me On The Map. The students enjoyed putting this activity together and seeing where they fit in our community, state, country, and world.

Daily 5 Check-In and Interactive Poster

Some new things this year that I am having students do differently is checking into our Daily 5 stations. It always seems to take more time to plan and go to our Daily 5 stations. This year I added a chart that students pick at the end of the day the order of their stations for the next day. This has cut down on wasted time and is working well as long as they put only one name card at each rotation. I am also using the interactive poster idea I found. I post a question and the students use their sticky note to answer. We have been using it to post a strategy we are using. They posted an interesting word they tuned into and what accuracy strategy they used to figure a word out.

Magic Storyteller

Our PTO provided an anti-bullying presentation from the Magic Storyteller,  Chris McBrien.  He gave a fun and informative talk about character traits for the Pre-K - 2nd graders that had us all laughing and learning how to treat others as he used magic, puppets, and students in his stories.

Life Cycles

     We have our annual raising monarch butterflies to release for their migration and trip to Mexico where they will semi-hibernate.  This year we are also watching tadpoles change into frogs. I found out by the students' writing that feeding the tadpoles also happens to be one of their favorite classroom jobs. Both of these work great when we learn about animal groups in science and life cycles.

Shadows

We have started our unit about the sun and took time to observe our shadow throughout the day. The students worked with partners to draw their shadow with calk and then stand in the same spot two other times during the day and draw how their shadow had changed. We then discussed how and why these changes took place. It was a wonderful way to use inquiry to begin a unit.

We have also been working on double-digit subtraction with regrouping. We began by using a work mat for tens and ones with dimes and pennies. The students would make the two digit number and I would have them subtract a single digit where they had to regroup and go to the bank to exchange a dime for 10 pennies to be able to subtract.  We also have been saying the  regrouping rap to help us to remember when you regroup (more on the floor, go next door, take ten more). They have been doing great and ask every morning during calendar time, fact work for double digit subtraction practice.

Charlotte's Web

We have finished our chapter book Charlotte's Web. The students loved this classic and it lends itself so well to learning about adjectives to keep our writing interesting. The students made All About Me posters (sorry I don't remember where I found this cute page) listing adjectives that describe each of them. Then, they drew and labeled a self-portrait and covered it so everyone has to guess who the poster is describing.  Next, the students picked the best adjective that describes them to have in the middle of a spider web inspired by Charlotte. The posters were a hit and the students loved making their sparkly webs.

Fun with Writng

 We have been using our writing center time to dig deeper with our writing skills. I have been telling the students that I want more details and sentences using adjectives and vocabulary that will be interesting. They have the paragraph down with the topic sentence, three detail sentences, and the wrap-up sentence now they need to "beef-up" their writing to make it more interesting. Here are several of the ways that they have worked on their skills. After reading fiction and non-fiction stories on the groundhog the students wrote in first person about their own groundhog home. For Valentine's Day they tried writing poetry with a FRIENDS acrostic poem. We just finished our week with a fun writing activity about the Angry Birds. They loved making the Angry Birds and most chose to skip Friday Fun Time to make more birds. We have also just finished up our math and adding with and without regrouping. They did a great job with this and continue working on their facts to make these more difficult problems easier to compute.

Hidden in the Snow Writing
The students absolutely loved this writing project. After our read-aloud of A Very Special Snowflake by Don Hoffman, about a cute little white dog who they can't find in the snow, students composed a list of clues for something lost in the snow. Then, they colored picture with their hidden object in it and added a clear acetate sheet on top with paint to hide the object underneath, just like in the pages of Eric Carle's, Dream Snow. The students were so fun hiding behind a partition to create the final touches on their project so no one would see what they had hidden in their picture. Finally, the students read their clues, one-by-one and let one person guess after each clue and then flipped up the acetate to show the hidden object. I even had one student who had to write about a Komodo Dragon and of course a Komodo would never be in the snow and needed to make a "sand" picture instead. Thanks to Mrs. Bainbridge for this wonderful idea!

100 Snowflakes for the 100th Day

The students learned all about the science of snow, snowflake symmetry, and also made a tribute to Snowflake Bently by making a wall of snowflakes that they created on the computer. It is a fun way to celebrate the 100th day with so much learning and creating 100 snowflakes in different ways. We even used science with liquids and solids to make borax crystal flakes. They loved the flakes and couldn't wait to take them home.

Chinese New Year

We learned more about the Chinese New Year by having several read-alouds and then connected a writing project along with making our own paint chip dragons. The students loved writing about their dragon and have really progressed as writers.

Group Projects on National Symbols


The students worked in cooperative groups researching a national symbol, creating a poster, and then giving a presentation. They worked great together as a team and each student had a responsibility. They were given a rubric for their expectations as a group member and for their work.  

January is Here

A fast, first week back in January. We worked on writing our personal New Year's Goals and some goals for home, classroom, school, community, and world. We then displayed them with a picture of ourselves. We also finished up our money unit so we were able to complete a number pie for all the ways to write our numbers.