Visitors and Beautiful Colors

Our day started with everyone in their Spark Stations, ready to do business.

 Except those who signed up to learn how to make a pet bed and were sewing with Mrs. Paris.

How blessed was Second Grade to have our first visitor to share knowledge and talk about her passion and road to a medical career.  As a teenager, Miss Mikayla worked a lot with pigs on her farm.   She told us the most amazing things about pigs. You will have to check out my reading journal where I wrote all the things I remembered about pigs- fascinating.  Miss Mikayla also shared that from a young age, she was very interested in how the body healed after trauma, and her plans to become a trauma doctor!

Mrs. Paris found more clearance deals on plants at Lowe's, so yesterday we planted.  Next week, we will take a closer look at wilted flowers, what they produce, and how what they produce is dispersed.

This morning we made arrays for numbers 1-8, then some went on to 12.
We observed the following patterns-
1 has only one array of equal parts.
2 is the only even number that has only two arrays of equal parts.
Several odd numbers  3,5,7,11 only have two arrays of equal parts.
4 and 9 each have an array that makes a square.
All numbers with only two arrays are called prime.
Wonder if there is a  special name for the other ones?


 Mrs. Engle and Thalia came to share and show some beautiful products handcrafted in India.

We were intrigued by small plastic tubes she brought.  The Hindu faith places great respect on all creatures.  A ritual is to offer, even the lowly insects, an offering each morning.  Beauty is added as each tube makes a beautiful pattern as the rice flour rolls out.

 A beautiful day for some puppy pats.

We continued to talk about matter.  It is interesting how some things can change from one state to another, while other things cannot change back.  Ask me to tell you all about it.  Mixtures are any elements you  mix up, while solutions are mixtures that can't easily be divided back into the original parts.  Erosion happens when water freezes in rock.  The Appalachian Mountains are older than the Rocky Mountains, but not as tall.  One smart fellow figured out it is because of the erosion that has happened through the years.  Tomorrow we will make a mixture that is also a solution.
We ended in the day in our happy place, the creek.

Compare and Contrast

Yesterday,  we read another version of The Three Little Pigs.  After a second reading of the new story, we stopped to compare the stories, creating a Compare and  Contrast chart.  Mrs. Paris was proud of how hard we thought about the two stories and all the things that were the same and those that were different.  After writing all our great thoughts, we divided into two teams. One team was the Compare/Same team and the other team was the Contrast/Different team. Mrs. Paris was the judge, trying to determine if there were more things alike, or more different.  Each of us had to present our case before the judge.  Woo-wee, both sides had some dramatic presenters. Mrs. Paris couldn't decide.

Mrs. Paris read one of her favorite books, Come On Rain.  The rainy afternoon was perfect to share this book.  Of course, we wanted a turn to play in the rain, so on went the jackets and out we went.  When we returned to the room, we journaled about our experience.

While we were out, we stuck a rain gauge in the ground and thermometer in the window, to measure those things.

Friends brought interesting things to share like a cool drawing, a telegraph machine and a thermochromatic spoon.






 
Today we were all very interested in buying some new items from the Pet Store. Some of us will start sewing our pet a bed with Mrs. Paris tomorrow.
In the Space Station, work is being completed on a research paper about Pluto.  The Skyscraper is about to open for viewing.  Our artists are producing some beautiful pieces for the Art Museum.
Many of our pets have been to visit the Vet Clinic.

 We had another visit from our friend Miss Cheryl and her character puppets.



 



 Lots of good things happening.

Little Pig, Little Pig

Reading can be so fun.  Of course, we do the busy work part about story elements and learn character, problem, event, climax and solution. We don't leave out understanding First, Next, Then and Last.  The fun part is acting out the Three Little Pigs.What a great group of actors, actresses and photographers in Room 15.






Then there is the matter, of well, matter. Most of us thought that if you push a cup with a paper towel in the bottom into a bucket of water, a soggy mess would come out.  Mrs. Paris enjoyed the expressions when the paper towel was as dry as could be. 

So each kiddo could experience the way air was trapped in the cup, the rest of class blew their body matter of gas into balloons to play with.

 

We have to write all of our new knowledge in our journals.

 We certainly enjoyed the addition of parents and grandparents on Game Day !

We really got crazy with arrays this week and created arrays for 24 and 36.  We talk about arrays being factories.  Do you know how many arrays  you can make for 36?  Just learning, learning, learning in Second Grade.

Tuesday and Wednesday

Our days are full and so very busy.
On Tuesday, we worked in groups with our math manipulatives again.  We have some math wizards who take math much further than second grade level.  One group. with three sets of nine disks, each set a different color, was able to make fractions.  Another group considered the similarities and differences of a set of 2D polygons and asked about their names.   They learned that in math vocabulary they are vertices and angles, not corners,  and a diamond can also be a rhombus and/or a parallelogram.
In our regular math curriculum, after we've done a simple problem, we create a fact family from that number sentence.  When we illustrate and have equal sets, we know it is an array. Arrays can help us multiply as well as add and subtract.
We are working hard to use our eyes, hands and voices to show what the words in our reading book are trying convey. What a class of dramatic readers.
We are learning all the elements of story- characters, problems, events, climax and solution.

We added "solution" to our Wild Word list because it can mean an answer, or a mixture.

We've got our props for The Three Little Pigs ready.  We will take turns being narrators and actors.

Sometimes we bring in interesting things to share.

On Tuesday afternoon, we had a visitor that will talk  to us for the next few weeks about  character building. We get to take turns using her puppets.

In Social Studies, we talked about the difference in a country and continent.  We thought of signs and symbols of our country.

On Wednesday afternoon, we read a great book about all the life in and around a fallen tree.  Then we headed out to see our own fallen tree. 

Some were catching critters, while others were designing a fairy abode, and another fashioning a cave for a salamander. 

Thanks to a Tuesday pop-up storm, watering can wait another day.