Field Day

What a fun week, capped off with a wonderful, beautiful day for our Field Day activities! The kids loved it, and so did their teacher. I'll let the pictures speak for themselves. Enjoy!

Gaga Ball

Water Relay

Hurdles!

Enjoying the beautiful day

Letter Relay

Hula, hula!

More water

Helping our Teams

Long jump

Concentration

Final Full Week

 It was our final full week of second grade this week! WOW! And what a week it was! Thankfully, even will all of the rain, volatile weather and gloomy days, we were able to have outdoor recess every day. This week saw the end of our FAST testing for second grade, and I was SO PROUD of how hard the kids worked, taking their time and really thinking through everything they did. Their scores, although just a glimpse at their year, really showed that growth and time spent thinking and working hard. Way to go! 

This week, we were scientists, observing our wheat seeds (many of which didn't sprout!), learning about photosynthesis, and working on our flower art/science projects. The students are doing an excellent job showing their neatest, best work. Next week we'll move to geography in social studies and learn about maps. 

We had another writing celebration this week as well, where students got to share their lab reports with each other. And cursive is really coming along! The second graders are working on lowercase letters right now, and hopefully we'll finish the whole alphabet before the end of the year. A couple of our students attended the Bike Rodeo this week, and wore matching shirts to school on Friday. What a fun way to show their interest in biking! Next week, we look forward to another strong week of learning, with Reader's Theaters, map projects, and Field Day! Until then!

Playing a Plant Life Cycle game

Working on repeated addition (aka, multiplication!)

The scientists observe

Scientists making observations

Cursive

More News

Measuring our plants

It's hard to believe we are coming down on our final month of school! The students and I have been enjoying our "Friday Fun" videos we watch every Friday morning from now until the end of school. We've watched some Pixar Animation short videos as well as Kid President's "20 Things We Should Say More Often." We also had a "first" for our class this past week--we succeeded in creating a three-ring game of bo-bo-ski-watlin-tatlin during our morning meeting. The kids were excited, so we took a picture!

Last week's highlights included doing final observations on our brassica plants, and a video interview of Megan McDonald, the author of the famed Judy Moody and Stink books, a favorite of many of our second graders. Megan shared everything from writing advice, to funny stories, to the childhood memories that inspired many of the most memorable chapters in Judy Moody. The second graders particularly enjoyed Megan's funny stories.

Reader's Theater

This week, students wrapped up observations on our rye grass and alfalfa, after they learned that, when cut, rye grass will grow back, but alfalfa will not. They planted wheat seeds, and we look forward to seeing their progress after the weekend. They also got to watch Tammy's third grade class put on Reader's Theater productions, which they will start in our classroom the week after next.

Reader's Theater

Boboskiwatlintatlin

Watching Megan McDonald's interview

Final Brassica observation

 

So much Excitement!

Second grade gears up for its all-school performance

What an exciting week! Our highlights in science consisted of starting our pansy plant experiment and seeing our alfalfa and rye grass sprout, as well as watching our brassica get to the mature and flowering stages of its life cycle. In other exciting news, KS95's morning personality host Crisco came to our classroom to present an award and spend some time answering the kids' questions. The kids were especially energetic and excited and enjoyed the visit very much. These incredibly musical second graders also put on quite the show with their concert in conjunction with the 6th graders: Sing me a Story. Carrie does a fabulous job of incorporating story-telling into the music and including all students and ensuring they have an active part to play in the experience. Needless to say, it was a wonderful showcase! And now, we're on to May! Let's have another great week!

Making observations on our pansy plants

What a fun performance with such talented musicians!

Crisco talks about meeting actor Will Smith (none of them knew who it was!)

What a fun opportunity for the kids!

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