Friday Fun!

Today was a busy day!  We were really trying to pack it all in before October slipped away!

In Literacy we reviewed story elements by reading the book The Plot Chickens.  We retold the story Hennrietta, the chicken, wrote.  See if your child can tell you the story.  

We wrote a paragraph about The Great Lakes in our Symbol and Landmarks book.  We had to do our best to draw a picture of The Great Lakes.  

While we had no formal math lesson, we did make calendar pieces for November.  We have to make the pieces and then make a pattern.  We will be exchanging our pieces with another Second grade class.

Then, we built and flew parachutes as a part of our Science unit all about Air and Weather.  We had to follow multistep directions to build the parachute and then be very careful as we flew them.  It was so much fun!

At the end of the day we had a fun directed drawing activity!  Ask your child what they made!

Happy Weekend!

Thursday

This week we have been learning about Non-Fiction features in preparation for our research about The Great Lakes.  Today our library lesson was to learn about how to research and how to take notes.  Ms. Z was very impressed with our skills and ability to take notes.   We are very official with our research notebook, questions and bibliography. 

Researching The Great Lakes in Library today!

Ms. Z showing us an ebook about The Great Lakes.

 

This afternoon we went to Mrs. Kath's class to learn about Balloon Rockets and how they use air.  See if your child can tell you about the experiment.

Science Switching

This week we are doing Science Switching.  Each day this week the students have been traveling to another Second Grade classroom to learn a different science lesson.

Tuesday  - Mr. Nelson taught the students about the moon and night sky.  Ask your child what they learned.

Moon Phases Chart.

Today - Students went to work with Miss Olson.  She read them a book called Cloudette and taught them about the types of clouds.  They also made a cloud flip book.

Cloud Book

Indoor Recess

Today we had indoor recess.  We have had a few of these so far this year.  While it is hard to stay inside, we make the best of it by taking a break from the day.  Usually, we also use the website gonoodle.com to get a little movement break.

Here are some things we do:

Watch a movie!

Play games like . . .

Rush Hour Junior

Square by Square

Rush Hour

Tip Over

We also use the Pattern blocks to make designs or buildings.

We use cubes to make patterns or designs.  Sometimes we even make a super long train!

We Love Reading!

Today in Library we learned about Bookflix.  This is a site that your student can use at home on a computer or iPad.  Ms. Zbacnik shared with us how to get to the site through the Brimhaal webpage, Media Center and then to the bookflix button.  She also sent home the username and password for you to have at home. 

Bookflix has many fun and educational options including a fiction and nonfiction book and puzzles and game to go with the book.  Please note that your child can have the book read to them or read the book to themselves or someone else.  You can change the setting by turning the read along off or on.  

We continued to talk about Asking Questions as we read to ehlp us better understand what we read.  We practiced asking before, during and after reading questions with the book This Is Not My Hat by Jon Klassen.  As we read, if a question was answered, we wrote it on a post it note and put it by the question.

We also practiced this strategy early this week with the book Charlie Anderson by Barbara Abercrombe.  Ask your child what was special about this cat.  

Unity Day and Parents on the Playground

Today we celebrated Unity Day!  We talked about how we can show that we care about each other in our Brimhall Community and ways we can show unity throughout the school day and on the playground.    We are focusing on being kind, accepting and inclusive.  We watched a power point that talked about ways to show and be accepting, inclusive and kind along with recognizing bullying and ways to stop it when we see it.  

We introduced our Buddy Bench concept and talked about why we might visit the buddy bench and how to help someone who has chosen to use the Buddy Bench.  

Many students wore orange as a part of the Unity Celebration!  

Parents and families joined us on the playground to see what happens at recess.  It was a very fun time and the kids enjoyed having extra recess!

How to and Air Under Water

Today we continued talking about our How to project.  I modeled, with guidance from the students, how to write How to Brush your Teeth.  I actually brushed my teeth!  It was quite funny and surprising to see what happened when I followed their directions.  Students had to write their version of directions for how to go down a slide.  Tomorrow, we will go outside and try out some directions for how to go down a slide.  

This afternoon we had the chance to discover and experiment with air under water.    Students used vials to learn about how to trap air in the vial under water in order to keep a paper towel dry.  There was some trial and error, but most students were able to figure out how to keep the towel dry.  Tomorrow, we will learn about the power of air.  

Monday

Today we started talking about our next writing project.  We will each be writing step by step directions for how to do something that we know about.  We read each of the books below to get some inspiration for our writing.  We will learn more about how to do this later this week!  Please talk with your child about what they could write about for the fun and informative project.

We also started talking about AIR!  Ask your child what we did with these items and how we used them to study air.

Closing Circle

Each Friday before we leave in the afternoon we do a Closing Circle activity.  We each complete this sentence: "This week I really liked it when _________________."  Each child has a chance to fill in the blank with what they liked about the week.  Then, if we have time, we go around again and share "This weekend I hope to ______________________."   Each person has a chance to speak and the rest of us practice our listening skills.  We pass the talking apple as a signal of who is speaking.  It is a great way to build community in our classroom.

I appreciate this time to share and reflect.  The students love doing this each week and will remind me if I forget.  There has been more than one time that we have been finishing up after the dismissal bell. 

Toothpaste and Kind Words

We have finished our first unit in our Second Steps curriculum on Empathy.  Today we did an activity involving toothpaste, popsicle sticks and a book.

First we squirted all the toothpaste out of the tube and onto a plate.  It was fun!  We took turns and worked in groups of four.  It was super easy!  The tubes were flat by the time we were done. 

Next we had to use the popsicle sticks to try and put the toothpaste back into the tube.  This was super hard, even with the sticks to help us.  It really did not work.  We even tried working together to get the toothpaste back into the tube.

Then we read the book  How Full is Your Bucket?  In this book the grandpa introduces his grandson to the idea that each of us has an invisible bucket above out heads.  Throughout the day the bucket is filled when someone says something kind to us or does something helpful for us.  At the same time, when someone says something unkind or hurtful or does something unkind to us one drop of water goes out of the bucket.

Last we had a discussion about how the words we use are like the toothpaste.  Sometimes they easily come out, even hurtful words.  However, like the toothpaste, words are hard to take back.  You can't put your words back into your mouth just like you couldn't put the toothpaste back in the tube.  We need to be kind and gentle with our words.  We need to fill the buckets of others. 

Frames and Arrows

Today in math we started talking about a concept from Everyday Math called Frames and Arrows.  In short, it is introducing students to the concept of algebra specifically solving for the unknown. 

First, you start with a set of frames connected by arrows.  There is always a rule that is used to connect one frame to the next.  Usually there is the first number in the set of frames and you apply the rule and go from there. This seems simple enough.  To make things more complicated, sometimes the starting number is not the first in the frame and sometimes you have to figure out the rule based on given numbers in the frame. 

We also stated a new theme in Literacy which involves learning about the moon and the phases of the moon.  To see a moon phases calendar for this month and future months click here.  We are entering a time of the New Moon which, as we learned, means no moon is visible in the sky. 

Friday Fun!

Today was Bengal Pride Friday!  Here we are showing our best Bengal Pride clothing and paw!  Go Bengals!  GRRRRRRRR!

We also had and special, Second grade Picture Book Swap Switch.  Each Second grade teacher picked their favorite picture book to share with the entire grade level.  Each class got to rotate through each classroom to hear the stories.  It was so much fun!  Ask your child about the books that were read by each teacher.  (Here are a few hints.)