Exciting April Happenings

During WIN time, groups performed their Reader's Theater plays for one another!

During Reading Workshop, children read fairy tales on their own and recorded the elements in a chart.

More work with fractions and area in math

We looked at several rectangles and arranged them in what we predicted would be the smallest area to the largest area.  Then we measured.  We were surprised by the results!

                     Prediction:                                                         Actual:

Next up, a return to story problems!

We had a whole School Morning on Wednesday.  Students had voted on what charities we would donate our pennies to.  We had 4 finalists.  We spun a wheel to decide-COTS!

Team Time celebrating our pennies earned!

Learning how seeds travel-wind, water and animals carry seeds.

We made helicopters, spinners and gliders.  We learned that helicopters needed wind to not land in the "zone of darkness".  Ask your child what the zone of darkness is.

Seed baggie updates-some of our baggies had too much water and our seeds rotted.  Some had just the right amount and are growing very cool looking roots.  We have redone baggies for those that rotted.  Wonder what we will see after the break!

And for fun...Magic School Bus Goes to Seed

At the end of every month, we list the highlights of the month.  Children then choose 1 or 2 to write about.  It will become a Second Grade Memories Journal.

Cinderella Around the World

During Reading Workshop this week we traveled the world through Cinderellas stories.  Each day we read a story as a team, discussed it and then worked on a follow up activity. 

Some of our activities..

Venn Diagramming:

Creating fish and slippers using tangram shapes (inspired by Yeh-Shen):

Focusing on character traits (inspired by Princess Furball):

Making "Talking Bulls" (inspired by the Irish Cinderlad):

A Flynn Companion Workshop!  Thanks to Alice Tregasar and the CCS PTO for helping us cover the cost of this amazing opportunity for our students!  We will be attending the Flynn on Monday, May 2 to see a performance of Mufaro's Beautiful Daughters.

 

During WIN time, we started our Readers Theater!

Math-more metric measurement and then on to fractions!

Monday we had a presentation for grades K-2 by the National Humane Society.

Seed Exploration

First we sorted dried seeds.  The students were surprised to find out they were ALL bean seeds!

The next day we had what one student said was "the most delicious science class ever!"

Thank you for your donations!

We noticed that the seeds were always in the middle of the fruit-except for the strawberries.

 

 

                         

Another day we examined dry and wet Lima Beans to learn even more about seeds.

We placed some soaked Lima Bean seeds into baggies on a wet paper towel and taped them to the window by my desk.

What do you think will happen?

Commenting on Kidblog-first we wrote to one another.  Thank you for joining in the conversations!

Then we began a dialogue with another second grade classroom in Vermont.

 

This month's Four Winds was all about owls-it was so cool!!

The children got to open owl pellets.  Look what they found:

We had an awesome presentation on percussion instruments by percussionists from the VSO.  We traveled the world learning about instruments and music.

Our new Read Aloud-a chapter book Chinese Fairy Tale