This is a guest post from our library media specialist, Beth Redford.
Second graders have been researching, writing, illustrating, and posting blog entries about animals on the new RES Second Grade Animal Blog! The scholars used the PebbleGo.Com research database to learn about animals. Then each scholar wrote the text for his or her blog entry, drew an illustration, and typed the text and added the illustration with the Blogger iPad app. The second graders focused on writing interesting "hooks" to draw readers' attention at the beginnings of their posts; using transition words at the beginning of sentences; writing conclusions at the ends of their posts; and citing PebbleGo as their source.
The second graders had a great time with this short, focused research project, and they were very proud to share their work on the blog. The last few entries will be posted next week and after holiday break. Please leave comments on these posts if you see something interesting or surprising!
It was a wonderful day today with so many activities happening! We spent time with our first grade buddies in Mrs. Lister's class making snowflakes, received a visit from Professor Snow who showed us how to make fake snow, and drinking hot chocolate! It was great to see teamwork, students complimenting each other, and enjoying each other's company. Spending time with our first grade buddies is something we look forward to each month!
We also explored the concept of pitch during our science centers! Pitch can be low or high and we learned how size, shape, and tension can change pitch. The stations we explored were: xylophones, musical bottles, and rubber band guitars. After exploring we shared our findings as a class. Our observations were: if an object is long, loose, thick, or full of water it will produce a low pitch. If an object is short, tight, skinny, or fairly empty with water it will produce a high pitch. We had a great time exploring this sound concept!
Second graders are currently learning about sound in their science unit. Students are expected to answer the following questions by the end of the unit: how are different sounds produced, and how can sounds be changed or altered? Today students rotated through four different stations all exploring vibration. Our stations were: feeling vibrations, vibrations in water, glitter dancing, and vibrations with ping pong balls. Each student was expected to complete the experiment and record their scientific findings! Some student quotes from the experiments: "Wow! Look at this!" "This is awesome!" "Science was fun today!" "I can feel the vibrations on my lips!" We will be completing stations on pitch and volume in the next few days!
Yesterday, second graders started researching animals for the RES Second grade Animal Blog. As part of the Common Core technology standards, students need to research and share their findings in a digital way. Students selected an animal and will be completing blog posts to share with our community. This is a great connection to our writing unit of informational books. Thank you to Beth Redford for all of her support to make this project run smoothly! Stay tuned for the completed blog!
The past week, second graders finished our social studies unit on the Founding Families. We spent time at Shelburne Farms, made a Thanksgiving turkey, cooked traditional Pilgrim food, lead an all-school assembly, and had a Colonial day where students rotated through stations.
While at Shelburne Farms students made candles, fed farm animals, carded wool, made bread and butter and got to explore Pilgrim tools. Thank you to all the chaperones and Shelburne Farms who made this field trip possible! Students made cornbread muffins and applesauce during our cooking day. On Colonial day students rotated through the three second grade classrooms and completed the following activities: stenciling, making traditional Pilgrim games, and participating in a one-room school house. It was great to participate in so many activities that connected to our learning!
On Friday the 13th our class once again joined Mrs. Lister's first graders for a writing celebration. This was no ordinary writing celebration, however it was a mid-processes CAMPOUT celebration! First graders had been busy working on writing "how to" books, while second graders have been focusing on writing catchy introductions to their teaching or all about books. Students read by flashlights and were wearing pajamas for our campout theme. Second graders helped their first grade buddy decide which "how to" book to publish, while first graders helped their second grade buddy decided which introduction grabbed the reader's attention the most. This was a great way to celebrate our writers and everything they have tried in their informational writing to date. Our classes are providing feedback to each other, forming friendships across grade levels, and learning more about the writing process. We ended our campout celebration with s'mores of course!
On Tuesday, all of second grade walked down to Jericho Settler's Farm to harvest carrots! We met Farmer Mark and he explained the expectations and taught us a little about the history of the farm. Then it was time to harvest! The carrots we picked were huge, baby, curled, wrapped around each other; and there were lots to harvest! We also rotated through two other stations which were journaling or sketching, and a relay race of plant vs, animal foods. We had a fabulous time and thank you to all the volunteers that made this day possible!
Today authors shared their published narrative (small moment) stories with Mrs. Lister's first graders! Students were really excited to share their writing and illustrations! Thank you to Mrs. Lister and her fabulous first graders for being excellent audience members! Our next writing unit will be informational writing! We also celebrated the harvest with special treats. Thank you to all the families that donated supplies! I hope everyone has a safe and fun weekend!
Today we launched into informational (non-fiction) reading. We reviewed informational book text features such as: table of contents, captions, labels, photographs, glossaries, index, maps, and bold words. Students had to find examples of these in informational texts from our classroom! We are very excited to start reading non-fiction and become experts in text features!
Today we tie-dyed our t-shirts in our school colors: purple and gold! It was messy and super fun! We can't wait to see what the final outcome will be later this week! A HUGE thank you to Mrs. Aucter who helped organize and let students tie-dye during art class!
For our all school celebration, students are tie-dying t-shirts. This will be taking place during art classes. Our class is tie-dying tomorrow 10-27. Please make sure your child is wearing clothes that can get dirty! Thank you!
We were lucky this morning to have a poetry break from two fourth grade students! These two girls memorized a poem titled "How to Torture Your Teacher" and recited it for our second graders! They did a fantastic job! I only hope that it didn't give the students any ideas!
Today in math our focus was finding the area of rectangles so we could put them in order from biggest to smallest. Students reviewed the definition of a rectangle: it must have four sides and four right angles. Students then worked with partners putting counting how many colored tiles filled in each rectangle. Pairs then put them in order. It was a great discussion and introduction to area!
Today we took a break from writing small moments and took part in some creative, free writing! With the help of Mr. Berry, we took 3-D castle towers and wrote a story on them! Our focus was making sure our stories had a beginning, middle and end! We spread ourselves out and got right to work! We finished our stories and illustrations in fifty minutes! Then when we were finished we put our towers together and created a castle complete with a drawbridge! We are looking forward to our next creative free write in a couple of weeks!
Today we finally met our sixth grade buddies! Students exchanged cards that told about some of their interests then buddies drew Mayflowers together! It was a great time, and we are looking forward to getting together with them soon!
Don't forget, tomorrow (Friday, Oct 2nd) second graders in Ms. Darling's class earned EVERYTHING day! Everything day includes: wearing our pajamas, bringing a stuffed animal, crazy hair and a special snack! Please only bring one stuffed animal that can fit inside your child's backpack. Second graders worked hard on following directions to earn this day! I can't wait to celebrate with all of you!
On Monday, second graders reviewed what partner reading looks like and sounds like. Students learned a poem to help remember "elbow to elbow, knee to knee, book in the middle so both can see." Each student takes turn reading a page of the book. We also learned that partners can ask questions during reading such as: "what do you think will happen next?", "this reminds me of...", "what was your favorite part?". Reading is thinking!
