Last day before break

Students read Aesop's Crow and Pitcher. The crow solved his problem by not giving up. It raised the water level by adding stones. The second graders tried this process. They predicted how many marbles it would take to raise the level of water. Then they found out. Students also read and illustrated A Christmas Tail while listening to me play my hammered dulcimer. Each student tried it out.

World Study

Students worked on learning about other continents and countries. Guest speakers shared information, language, books, cookies and pictures about Sweden. I shared power points about Japan and a windows movie about India. Working with a partner students used the computers to find out basic information and report their results to the class.

Math Activities

On Thursday mornings students work through centers focusing on various math skills. We have been learning to play games from around the world: Shut the Box(French), Wari(African), and Parcheesi(Indian). They also practiced telling time with flash cards and matching games.

Learning about the World

Students are learning vocabulary like continents and countries. They are learning a few facts about each continent. Many students are learning that countries have different kinds of governments, laws, money and languages. Even though there are many differences between countries, children everywhere love to play games. Students made a tossing game found in various versions around the world.

Christmas Music and art

Students sang their songs with third graders for the school. They have enjoyed some Christmas art.

Around the World

Students will be learning about other countries. They will memorize the continents and identify them on a map. We started learning about our continent North America. Students listened to a Christmas story from Mexico about pointsettias. During activity time they practiced naming continents using a map and with computer games. They looked at books about different countries and worked on an art project.

Indoor playtime

When it is too wet or cold, we have indoor recess. Students enjoy building, designing patterns, modeling with playdough, drawing and coloring, or working on computers.

Birthday Celebrations

Birthdays are always special. To celebrate in our class, the birthday person comes to the front of the class and calls on classmates to name an action or noun. If the student is 8, she calls on 8 different students for their suggestions. Students might say march, run in place, or act like a dragon, motorcyle, or princess ponny. Then all students stand up and do an action that represents that word. They keep moving until I count to the birthday number and ring a bell signaling students to freeze. One rule is that they cannot touch anyone else.

Students often make the animal noises that represent the nouns.

They enjoy creative movements and consider this activity a nice celebration.

However, they all agree that my birthday will not be celebrated this way. It would take us all day.

After all the creative movement, we sing Happy Birthday and get on with learning.  Before school is out for the summer we make sure all who have a summer birthday get to celebrate.

Math Activities and Bremen Town Musicians

Students really enjoyed reading Bremen Town. I divided them into two groups and randomly assigned parts. Students enjoyed reading the play and singing the chorus. We have been studying early American history. Students made dream catchers and necklaces. They completed a "clicker quiz" using a set of classroom responders I earned by completing a technology project with the state department of education. Students played games with an Indian theme during math center time. On Thursdays, we have time to have rotating centers for mathematics practice. This week students played the pumpkin pie game. I labeled pie plates with numbers from 12 to 21. I made about 48 pumpkin cut outs with numbers from 1 - 10 using 1 and 2s multiple times. Students take turns choosing pumpkins to place on the plate. The student placing the last pumpkin that adds up to the number on the plate wins the plate. The winner of the game is the one with the most pumpkins.

Students are working on understanding regrouping so they played a game with a number cube. The student rolls the number cube and takes that many ones. He continues rolling and taking ones until he has ten and can regroup or trade for a ten stick. Play continues until he can trade or regroup to a 100 block.

Students played a board game, I constructed, that has trails to follow leading to an Indian dwelling. At various places on the trail are drawn feathers that are color coded. Students roll two cubes, decide which cube to use, and which trail to follow. If they land on a space with a feather they take the matching feather. The winner of the game has the highest score, determined by the number and color of feathers they collected.

Another group of students played an Indian Stone Game. To play this game they roll three stones with special markings and determine their score by matching the marks to a chart. They continue adding up their rolls until someone reaches 100 or they move onto the next activity.

The last center or station is the computer. At this station they play whatever they choose on firstinmath.  They are doing well since our class has scored the most electronic stickers and we have the firstinmath trophy in our room.

All learning teams rotated through all learning stations. It is motivating to students and allows them to practice their math skills and cooperative skills.

 

Low Power Week - First in Math

On Monday we continued our study of Native Americans focusing on how culture is influenced by geography. Indians built wooden structures when trees were available and used other natural resources in areas with fewer trees. Students learned that people of all cultures learned to weave plants to make containers.

 

Student are working hard using the online computer program, firstinmath. Our class scored the most "stickers" for last week so we have the trophy in our classroom.

 

Since we have missed so many days due to the power problem- half the circuits off so that no power in bathrooms, half the classrooms and no heat--, we will continue reading Brementown Musicians and working on plural words for spelling next week.

Halloween Party

Students enjoyed getting dressed up.

The second grade boys dressed in my class while the girls dressed in the other classroom.

After dressing student identified their costume characters. Sushi, pirates, witches, princesses, Star Wars warriors filled our classroom.

What a crew!

Students walked through the school and around the playground on a lovely warm day.

Chaotic fun!

Students had cupcakes, fruit, vegetables, dip, chips, a drink, and an ice cream cup. While they ate I read them a scary folk tale. I had told them another version of this tale Tailey Poo in the morning. We compared the versions. Students enjoyed the party very much. Thank you parents.