Second Grade Celebrates 'Johnny Appleseed Day'!

Happy Johnny Appleseed Day!!

 Everyone had a GREAT time on Friday as we celebrated our first theme day: Johnny Appleseed Day! The owls got to visit each second grade classroom and participate in an apple related activity! Earlier in the week we had learned about Johnny Appleseed himself (through reading a Scholastic News article with our 5H reading buddies and watching a BrainpopJr video), so today was all about those apples!
    Their first stop was next door to the kangaroo class to do some apple math with Mrs. Atherton! In there, students found the circumference and diameter of various apples, measured the length of a peel, and estimated how many seeds were hidden in the core.
    After that, it was time to examine apples as scientists with Mr. Saltus! Students got to use magnifying glasses to carefully observe apples and used detailed drawings to record their observations.

Does an apple sink or float?

     After our first two stops, they headed back to our classroom where they worked together to create homemade applesauce! A HUGE thank you to Cate's mom, Mrs. Phelps, and SMS Staffer, Mrs. Jolly, for helping us with this delicious endeavor. Many thanks to YOU all as well, for donating an apple to make this possible!!! Students help core and slice the apples, placed them in the crockpot, added a dash of cinnamon each, and then we set on high for 3 hours (although, we ended up turning the crockpot to low for the last hour!).

    While the applesauce was cooking, 2H headed to their next activity. In Ms. Donlon's room, after watching a musical version of the Dr. Seuss' story Ten Apples Up On Top, they worked hard on completing number models to represent each number 1-10. They then created their own portraits balancing 10 apples on their heads!
    Next up was the Giraffe classroom where students got to closely examine the horizontal cut of an apple and then got to do some apple printing! 

     Welcomed back into our classroom by the delicious wafting smell of our applesauce, in our own classroom, we talked about adjectives. After tasting three types of apples (golden delicious, pink lady, and jazz), we created an "Apple-icious Adjective Tree"!

     FINALLY it was time to take the apples out of the crockpot, place them in the "masher", give it a turn, and enjoy our homemade snack! YUM!!

     I have to commend our Owl Class for all their excellent behavior and hard work. I received numerous compliments from the other second grade teachers. Way to go, Owls! Thanks for making Johnny Appleseed Day such a huge success!!!

Happy Fall!

The Owls would like to wish you a Happy First Day of Fall!

Don't forget that second graders will celebrate "Johnny Appleseed Day" this Friday, 9/25. If possible, please send one apple in to donate to the festivities. Its going to be a great day!

September 20th News

We completed our first FULL week of the 2015-2016 school year! We had such a busy, exciting week full of learning, I'd be surprised if they weren't awfully tired Friday evening!

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After reading The Important Book, we created our own class book modeling the writing techniques of Margaret Wise Brown. It was fun sharing the book as a class and learning more and more about each other. Make sure to check out Our Important Book the next time you're in the classroom!

I think we can all agree, we have had a fantastic week beginning our first science unit! The science curriculum is based on experimental philosophy and gives the children a chance to explore, observe, wonder, predict, investigate and record information. We begin with a unit on magnets! After posing the question, "What is magnetic in our classroom?" the scientists worked together to figure out how to test and discover. They received their science notebooks so they could begin recording their data. We decided that each entry should include the date, the question, as well as an organized format for recording. Michael volunteered the idea of a "T" chart, so we decided to use this structure whole class. I am SO impressed with the neat, detailed information they recorded! Mrs. Jolly was working in our classroom and thought she was in a third grade classroom! Way to go scientists!

 

    Since we'll be working hard as scientists all year, we completed some activities to help understand just what are scientists. What do they do? What tools do they use? How are YOU like a scientist? They're thinking like scientists already!!

   Our Reader's Workshop is fully underway and we completed the first "bend" in our Lucy Calkins Unit of Study. While we continue to build our independent reading stamina, we've reviewed and practiced ALL the great strategies they already know and use! We introduced the use of post-it notes as a way to be able to "talk long and strong" about our reading. We met with our new reading partners and discovered how they can help as "coaches". Next week we'll begin the next bend in the unit which focuses on decoding strategies.

    In math, we continued to focus on number grid patterns, skip counting, and writing "names" for numbers. Name Collection Boxes are used to help students demonstrate a given number many different ways. After creating name collection box posters with their table teams, students practiced this skill independently.

     Our class has their math routines down SO well, that on Friday, we were able to have our first "math workshop" day where students visit three centers (math with a teacher, math with a friend, math by yourself). Bravo, mathematicians! Math workshop allows for differentiation and for each student to be challenged at their just right math level.
For extra practice with the math skills worked on this week, try:
Guess the Number (interactive game, similar to "Number Line Squeeze" played in class)
IXL:
A.4Number lines - up to 100
A.13Number lines - up to 1,000
E.2Review - ways to make a number - sums to 10
F.2Review - ways to subtract - up to 10

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Coming Up:

- Wednesday, Sept. 23rd: Early Release
- Friday, Sept. 25th: "Johnny Appleseed Day"; please send one apple into school (more information to be sent home on Monday!)