Star Of The North Book Award Voting

Today in Library we got to vote for The Star of the North Book Award.

We have read all of the nominated books during our library lesson throughout the year.  All of the books were very good and we liked them all for different reasons.  The books are a good mix of fiction and nonfiction and represent a variety of cultures.  If you would like more information about the award and the nominated books, please find the link on the right side of the my blog. 

Here is a video that includes a summary of each book:

Ask your child which one they voted for and why they picked that particular one.  We will know the results of the vote here at Brimhall next week when we go to Library.  Ms. Z will find out the winner from the entire state of Minnesota on April 23.  She will also find out about which books are nominated for next year on April 23rd.  We can hardly wait!

Ms. Z and all the nominees.

Ready to vote!

Waiting to vote!

April Fools Day!

Today we had a substitute teacher, Mrs. Anderling.  She greeted the students and taught the class until about 11:00.  She asked the students to write about why they thought Mrs. Anderson was missing today.

Here are some of their responses:

Ask your child what they thought about why Mrs. Anderson was missing.  You can also ask about the funny things Mrs. Anderling did and said.  She did report the students were very helpful and really know the routines of our classroom.

Secret Message

Recently we have been reading books after recess that have a positive message in them.  These messages help us think about our values and how we might think or behave.  We have talked about how we determine the "Secret Message" in each story.  We have also been talking about retelling a story.  See if your child can retell these stories pictured below.  As an added bonus, see if they can tell you the "Secret Message."

The Results Are In!

We did not have enough time to completely finish our Banana study on Friday, so we did a quick wrap up today. 

Today, we started our results section of the experiment and lab book.  We described the experiment, our observations and which method we found to be best for keeping a banana fresh.  It was interesting, the plastic bag kept the banana fresh.  The banana had very little change as the week went on. 

Which banana would you eat?

We cut them open to see how they looked inside.

The Results!

March for Others and The Great Banana Experiment

Today was a great way to end the week!

This afternoon we had our March for Others Assembly.  As a class, we collected 45 items to donate.  As a school we collected 1,809 items!  That is about 800 more than last year.  At the assembly, we each got to place our items on the table in the middle of the gym.  It was awesome to see the generosity of  our Brimhall Community!

This afternoon we also did our final observation of our bananas for The Great Banana Experiment.

Can you tell which banana has been kept where?

Each student has been keeping an official Banana Lab Book throughout the experiment.  Today, they had to write their observation and do the illustration on their own.  We have been working on becoming good observers of things.  Our observations include details in the writing and drawing and do not include things like opinions. 

Marvelous Meteorologists

We have some fabulous meteorologists in our class!

We are finished with our weather research.  Each student wrote a paragraph about one topic within the type of weather they researched with other students.  Then each student illustrated a picture of their weather along with creating a picture of themselves as a weather person presenting the weather.   Last, with the help of some U of M practicum students the second graders recorded their paragraph and Ms. Zbacnik combined their recordings with their illustrations into these short video clips.

They all did a wonderful job working hard and it really shows in their final weather reports!  Awesome job!


Here is a link to the weather reports:

http://weatheranderson.blogspot.com/


Thank you to Ms. Z and the practicum students for their help!

Literacy Workshop

Each day students spend about 30 minutes doing independent Literacy work.  At the beginning of the year we practiced all of the activities including the spelling work, work on writing and read to self.  Each day I assign students different tasks to compete.   I am meeting with small groups, so it is very important for all students to be doing their best on these tasks.   Some days, it is so quiet and everyone is working very hard!

Here are a few samples:

Working on Writing

Spelling work - Illustrate 8

Read to Self

Work on Writing

Small group working on their task!