Ms. Arnold’s Classroom News (4/15/15)
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What We've Been Up To:
Welcome, Spring!!
*Writing: Thank you SO much to the many, many families that were able to join us last week for our nonfiction, expert book celebration! Your writers have worked so incredibly hard and it was such a treat to have such an audience to share their published pieces!
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| Our group of proud authors! |
Thank you also to the families who donated snack items for us to enjoy at our celebration. What a treat!
After finishing up nonfiction writing, we have switched our focus and aligned with our reading unit to begin fairy tales. Each student is working hard to recreate the traditional tale of The Three Little Pigs and is writing their very own adaptation. Ask you child which "Three Little" story they're working on.
*Science Magic: Second graders have begun their second round of "Science Magic!" This cycle features experiments involving earth's materials such as soil, water, air, and rocks. Our class had a blast exploring which materials could retain the most water (rocks, sand, or potting soil). These scientists are becoming quite familliar with the scientific process and had no trouble creating hypotheses, experimenting to collect data, and interpreting results. Way to go, scientists!
Most scientists found that the soil held the most water, which we concluded to be important for the growth of plants. With all this sunshine we're finally having, we might just have to plant some seeds to test out their results with a real world application!
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| Exploring materials to help form a hypothesis. |
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| Setting up the experiment--sure takes teamwork! |
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| Slowly pouring the water over the material. |
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| Carefully observing until the last drip! |
Our class has also traveled to Mrs. Atherton's class to explore erosion as modeled by skittles and water---that was a tasty experiment! Over the next several weeks they will continue to travel making their way to Mrs. Caporello's room to explore water density, Mrs. Leonard's room to classify rocks, and to Ms. Riley's room to prove a very important question about air: does it really exist?
*Reading: Since the beginning of April, our class has been immersed in fairy tales. This exciting unit is exposing our students to numerous, traditional, wonderful tales. Along with reading classics, we've enjoyed the variety of "fractured" fairy tales out there and have been doing a great job comparing and contrasting the different versions. A bright pink paper was sent home today outlining the upcoming "Wax Museum" project. Please return the paper with your child's top three character choices by Thursday, April 23rd. It is my hope the each child will receive one of their top three choices to use to research and complete their project. If a top three choice is not available, I will work closely with them to select another exciting character! I encourage students to challenge themselves to choose characters they are less familiar with (all the more to learn about!). A list of fairy tale suggestions was sent home as well to help students with their selection. Let me know if you have any questions!!
*Conferences: Spring conferences have been such a nice chance connecting with each of you. It is so nice to be given time to reflect on the year so far and set up goals for the remainder of our year together. As always, I thank you very much for your continued involvement with your child's education. Together we're doing great things!!
*Conferences: Spring conferences have been such a nice chance connecting with each of you. It is so nice to be given time to reflect on the year so far and set up goals for the remainder of our year together. As always, I thank you very much for your continued involvement with your child's education. Together we're doing great things!!
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Coming Up:
- Friday, Apr. 24th: Jump Rope for Heart
-Monday, Apr. 27th - Friday, May 1st: No School-Spring Vacation
-Monday, Apr. 27th - Friday, May 1st: No School-Spring Vacation
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