Themed Week - Dinosaur week!

Last week we had a short week so the grade 2 team decided to have a themed week. We decided it would be Dinosaur Week, where we would link all subjects to dinosaurs. We did several activities for example in math we did dino problem solving, we read dinosaur books, watched dinosaur movies, wrote about being lost in prehistoric times, and much more! Here are a couple photos of the children gluing pasta as dinosaur bones and another of students experiencing how it feels to be paleontologists by discovering a fossil. 

Science - Animal Needs

In the beginning of every year in second grade we learn about animals and their needs in science. This year we made a flap booklet where the students had to write each animal need, draw it, and write a sentence about how it would meet that need. Here is how they turned out...

Phases of the Moon using Oreos

Last year we learned about the phases of the moon. I was looking for a fun and creative way to remember the phases and there was no better way then to use Oreo cookies to demonstrate the moon phases. The students were super excited!!

The students later made themselves as astronauts. They always enjoy learning about anything in space. 

Learning about "Area" in Math

Here we were learning about area and total area in mathematics. A great way to teach students area is by giving them graph paper and asking them to make their name. Later they add up the area of each letter and then add the total area of their whole name. Students loved it because the activity was related to them by using their names. Here is how they looked like...

Flying our kites to third grade! :(

Before the school year ended last summer, students wrote about what they were looking forward to in third grade and what they expected to learn. I'm going to miss them very much! Here is how it looked like... 

Sentences Pocket-Book ( Asking/Telling)

We started the year with learning about punctuation marks and what the difference between asking and telling is. So, we did this little pocket-book activity where the students had to sort whether sentences were asking or telling.

Its a new school year! "This year will be one in a MELON!"

Its a new year 2013-2014, and I am still teaching second grade! We started this year with the students writing their targets for second grade and what they want to do in school. I found this cute idea online and thought it would be wonderful as my first display of the year. 

My latest bulletin board

So this is my latest bulletin board. We were learning about how to save our planet in Social Studies and we just had our musical themed on saving the world, so this was a great idea.They had to come up with 3 different ways to save earth. I found this idea on the internet for earth day and I decided to try it out with my kiddos.

Going back to prehistoric time...

3 weeks ago we were reading the story " Meet the Super Croc" and my team and I decided to do an excite to write day with our students. We put down the blinds to make the class dark, put on dinosaur sounds, and projected pictures of dinosaurs on the board. The students then were asked to close their eyes and pretend they went back to when dinosaurs roamed the earth. We started with a brainstorm, where the kids wrote down whatever came to their minds while hearing the sounds and looking at the pictures. Later they put their brainstorm together by forming a draft. Last they got started on their neat copy. The kids really enjoyed this activity and they were all very engaged throughout the lesson.

Learning about what causes day and night/ Science

We used the globe I had in my classroom with the IPhone flashlight for the kids to understand the idea of day and night. We had 2 volunteers to demonstrate. Well done!

 

Science Fair April 2013

So, my class and I decided that we were going to do the Solar System for the science fair, It is a great opportunity since we are not learning about it in second grade this year. We read books, watched "The Magic School Bus", and watched "Brainpopjr" to get an idea of the planets. I divided my class into 8 groups of 3. Each group was assigned a planet to research. They also had their own science fair journals to record research and observation. Later, we made paper mache planets. Although it was really messy and hectic for me, the kids really enjoyed it. To top it off we decided to make hats to wear to the science fair for when we present out projects. It was a success! It was amazing how much my kids learned about planets! Here are some pictures...

Learning about plants...

When teaching the life cycle of plants, there aren't as many activities that are available to do. Again, I went through my favorite blogs and found a lot of nice ideas that I did with my students in class. It was a great way to support their learnng because they had fun.

Here is also another activity we've done while we were learning about plants. Their called "Sprout houses". I gave each student a ziplock bag with wet cotton and a about 2 kidney beans. We later taped them to the window and watched them grow. Students then started to observe and record their observations in their notebooks about the whole experience. They were so excited to watch it sprout!