2H Class Blog!: May 2018

Monday, May 28, 2018

May 28th News

☀Hello, Sunshine!☀

The beautiful weather gave us plenty of reasons to take our learning outside!

*Dyson Ideas Box: I can now proudly present he 2018 2H Design Engineers! They did it!! They've completed the James Dyson Foundation Idea's Box Challenge! Their innovative designs, resourcefulness, and their ability to persevere, work together, and see an idea through to the end was truly remarkable. They spent this week planning and executing their own invention with the goal of improving or fixing a current device or problem.

After the construction part of the engineering process, it was time to share their invention at our "2H Design Fair". Each designer shared what problem their product solved, how their product works, and what materials they used to build their prototype. The questions they received following their presentation ("What materials will the actual product be built with?") and the comments they received ("The monkey bars are hard for me too so this would be a GREAT solution!") were both thoughtful and insightful. Bravo!

Wow!! That's a lot of creativity! These design engineers were able to experience all of the steps a professional engineer goes through----a lot of work, but a ton of fun!! A huge thank you to the James Dyson Foundation for getting us engaged in this work. We were sad to say goodbye to our Ideas Box, but are left with the reassurance that we can create and do anything we put our minds to!

*Math Workshop: Early this week, building off of our geometry unit, we started to explore FRACTIONS! While we will spend a lot of time reviewing all the wonderful math concepts we've worked on this year, fractions will be our last major unit of our school year. There is a lot of great IXL practice for fractions if you're looking to continue the fun at home.

We're very fortunate to have Eleanor's Grammy join us each week for a math center. Check out the adorable "fraction-atipillars" she helped us make!

*Garden: All this spring sunshine gave us plenty of opportunities to get outside this week! After reading in the garden with our fifth grade buddies, we checked in on the cool weather crops we recently planted. The Owls were thrilled to see that all of them had sprouted! The mixture of sun and rain throughout the week provided the perfect growing conditions. We will continue to monitor their growth for the remainder of our school year!

*Donors Choose: What a wonderful week we had with Donors Choose! Thanks to the many generous donations that came rolling in, from the Rohloff, Mudunuru, Lord, Cooper, and Bourn Families, we are well on our way to having our SECOND project funded! With just $155 left, we are in the homestretch. If you know of a company or individual who'd like to donate, please share with them the link to our project. Thank you so much for your continued support of our school!

Have a great week!!!

********************************************************************************

Questions to promote "School Talk":

-How did your Dyson Invention prototype turn out? What would you do differently next time? Did you put your design on Seesaw?

-Where did we meet with our reading buddies this week?

-Tell me about the Blobfish.

-What Roald Dahl book did we start for read aloud?

-Explain how you used your word study folder and notebook this year. (Yellow folders were sent home on Friday)

-What is your favorite song in our musical?

-What is a fraction? Can you draw me an example?

*********************************************************************************

Coming Up (Lots, and lots and lots of things!):

-PTO 1-2-3 Fun Run: Friday, June 1, 5:30pm

-Grand Luncheon: Monday, June 4th

-Great Bay Field Trip: Tuesday, June 5th.

-Musical Dress Rehearsal: Wednesday, June 6th (school performance)

-Plant Musical: Thursday, June 7th, 6:30pm

-Field Day: Friday, June 8th

-Stratham Hill Park End of Year Grade 2 Picnic: Thursday, June 14th
-Last Day of School: Monday, June 18th

Sunday, May 20, 2018

May 20th News

A Successful "Shel-ebration!"

Thank you to ALL who were able to attend our celebration. These second graders worked very hard and having an audience to share their work with is invaluable. Thank you, as always, for helping make learning fun!

Highlights from our week:

*Shel-ebration: Last Friday, the Owls celebrated the end of their poetry unit in style! It was a beautiful day filled with sunshine. We headed outside to publish a piece of writing where the sidewalk ends.

After the publishing was complete, it was time for our poetry reading. The SMS garden provided a perfect arena for our performance. Each Owl did a FANTASTIC job memorizing their selected Shel Silverstein poem. Memorizing lines and performing in front of a crowd is quite an accomplishment. I am so proud of their hard work and courage!

*Reader's Workshop: Wrapping up our unit on series book clubs, these amazing readers decided to share their great books with others! Using the app Shadow Puppet, students wrote their own scripts to create a book trailer! These trailers try to get a new reader hooked, by providing the title, the author's name, and the problem of the story (with out spoiling how the problem is solved!). You can check out your child's book trailer on their Seesaw account! Here are a few great examples:

After making their book trailers, we wanted to create a way to make these fabulous trailers accessible to other readers. We converted their trailers into trendy "QR codes". QR codes allow individuals with a QR reader (available on smartphones and tablets) to scan and view! Put all this great technology together and....viola! The Owls present to you their READbox!

Ms. O'Connor was so inspired by their work, she asked if she could house the READbox in the library!! She will be showing her classes how to use QR readers to view our book trailers, helping with book selection! WOW! Way to go, 2H!

*Math Workshop: Continuing with our geometry unit, we spent some more time this week describing 2D shapes and their attributes. We also spent the week looking at partitioning shapes (or breaking them apart) into equal parts. This led into a great discussion about finding area (which was a great review of our multiplication work we did earlier this spring). Check out their adorable "Area Robots"!

Next week, we will apply our knowledge of equal parts as we begin to explore fractions (more specifically, how fractional parts relate to the whole of the shape).

*Dyson Ideas Box: Feeling inspired by the upcoming Makerfest, we were back at our design engineering this week. Early in the week, we conducted product analysis, which had us evaluating items to find what works well and what could be improved. Some students chose to evaluate playground equipment ("The slide sure is fun, but it gets very hot on sunny days!"), while others chose classroom supplies ("Whiteboard markers are great because they erase quickly, but they also run out of ink often!"). These evaluations will hopefully spark an idea for the invention they will create next week.

On Thursday, we explored engineering work by simply creating! Paying special attention to which materials work best for sketching, cutting, shaping, attaching, and molding, students were very busy!

Next week, our design engineers will be designing and creating a prototype to improve an everyday object. Talk with your child about what they might have in mind! On Monday we will prep and plan, and on Tuesday, 2H will be put to work building! I can't wait to see what they come up with :)

*Makerfest: The 2018 Makerfest and Art Show was a HUGE success!!! We had a chance see all the magnificent creations on Friday. We, of course payed extra special attention the the wonderful Owl students who put their work on display!