2H Class Blog!: 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!