New Experiments

Celebration of "OREO" opinion letters

This week was a week of new experiments. In addition to having planted our Brassica seeds last week, students are conducting a new experiment involving some odd materials: pansies, water, root beer, hot chocolate, cinnamon, sprite, coffee, and Gatorade. They will have a control plant for which they will do everything they would of a normal plant (give water, sunlight, air). Their second plant is one where they will have changed one of the variables. This week, students came up with the different variables they would change (the food and soil were different categories that they chose to change) in groups, and then we started creating a lab report. On their first page, they drafted questions to ask and hypotheses to test. On the second page, we started making a list of everything someone would need to repeat the experiment. It should be interesting to see what we find out about what plants need and how different food and soil will affect their growth.

Making Helping Hands

Thank You, Volunteers!

Playing Earth Day Bingo

Another project we completed this week was making a poster of appreciation for all the volunteers at PCS, as tonight, April 21st, is Volunteer Appreciation Night. So, a HUGE thank you to any and everyone who has volunteered this year at PCS. Your help and support is so greatly appreciated! I've attached a picture below of our class's project in case you aren't able to stop by the school tonight. Thank you all, and have a wonderful and hopefully sunny weekend!

What will our pansy plants need?

Writing materials lists

Sprouting Knowledge

Getting soil for our plants

Accomplishments this week included (but were not limited to): planting seeds and learning about their life cycles, starting a plant journal, almost completely finishing our opinion letters in writing, learning which pluralized words end in -s and which end in -es, and finishing another math chapter. The kids rocked it! Here are some photos from this week's fun, and enjoy your long weekend! 

Day 1, right after planting

Sharing Time

Writing letters

Starting our plant art project

Day 3, most of our plants have sprouted and started growing!

Rockin' and Rollin'

Twirling

We had a week full of new science experiments, explorations and epiphanies. Students learned about air resistance through the creation of paper twirlers (hopefully those made it home in one piece), and we took part in some of the engineering process by creating rollers that had to move around a corner, move in a wobbly way, or go back and forth. Students blew me away with their attention to the design of their wheels/rollers, and were able to quickly make the connection that wheels will move more efficiently when attached to an axis. We had so much fun with this learning!

Ramen Writing

We also spent time focusing on writing persuasive letters. Students brainstormed different topics they felt strongly about, and after completing a brainstorming sheet together as a class, they did one on their own. The one we came up with as a class was all about ramen, and how it's the best kind of food ever. These second graders have such descriptive language, and continually make me smile with their creativity and hard work. Below you will also see a wonderful learning moment from this week. These students show great care for one another by helping each other out when I am busy assisting one of their peers. Their care and cooperation is inspiring. I'd say this is another successful week in the books!

Our creative Wheels

Showing Cooperation in Math