Three for Thursday

Here are the top three exciting things for our day!

3.  We had Library today!  Ms. Zbacnik read us the first Star of the North Picture Book Award book.  Click here for more information about the award and the nominated books.

Listening to Gaston.

We love books!

2.  In math we learned about the different ways we can represent a number.  We will need to know this skill and be able to do it quickly in our next math unit.

1.  We had a surprise, last minute indoor recess.  Most of our recess was outside, but in the last 15 minutes, it poured!  We had to come in.  We did Go Noodle on the computer.  We tried a new activity, called Cat Party!  It was hilarious!

Science - Wind and Seasons

In the past fews days we have been learning more about weather, specifically wind and the seasons.

Today, we took time to watch a few animation videos of how the earth moves around the sun causing the seasons.  We read a few books that explained the reason why we have the different seasons and we looked at PebbleGo! for some ideas about what happens in the seasons.  We ended the day illustrating a poem that described our favorite season.

PebbleGo!

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.