Area and Perimeter

Last week our math focus was all about area and perimeter.  After my initial instruction and practice together on the white board, students set off to put their newly acquired skills to work.  They rotated to several different shapes I had taped down on the tiles (two things: so glad our room is tiled with one foot squares, and the cleaning crew must think I'm nuts).  The kiddos seemed to really grasp the concept and it was much more fun than a good ol' worksheet!  When finding the perimeter, some measured one tile and took them all for one foot and zoomed off, others measured each and every tile (bless their little perfectionist hearts), and some needed to get up and walk each shape in order to count out the perimeter.  It's so fun to see how their brains work!

We're Lucky in Room 8!

Well it turns out we had a visit from a silly little leprechaun for St. Patrick's Day!  Lenny, our resident green friend, left his foot prints all over the room, and left a fun leprechaun hunt for the kiddos to go on first thing in the morning.  He didn't make a mess, thank goodness!  One sweet second grader said, "He must know that we like things neat in room 8!"  Ain't that the truth!  Here's a little synopsis of our fun and festive day.

Hunting for leprechaun sight words.

"Mining" in desks for precious metals and ores (keeping it academic and fun ;).

Making necklaces explaining copper, aluminum, nickel, lead, opal, sapphire, emerald, and ruby.

Continuing with our study of matter, students turned a liquid into a solid and made ice cream in a paint can.  I am still floored that this totally worked!  Keep it in mind next time you go camping!

Doing Skittle fraction math.

Making leprechaun punch to further explore solids, liquids, and gas.

And with me in the peace and quiet of the classroom (insert happy sigh here), learning all about quotation marks and writing funny comics.

Thanks again to the amazing parents that dedicate their time and talents to our classroom.  This day could not have happened with out you!

Rocks Rock!

We've been having a rocking' good time learning about rocks!  We learned that there are three main types of rocks, igneous, sedimentary, and metamorphic.  Students created informational flip books telling all about the different types of rocks.

Then we cooked up some tasty treats to represent each of the different types of rocks.  Yum!

igneous

metamorphic

sedimentary

Here is a little video where I got the fun idea.  Thanks awesome parents for making this all possible in our classroom!  You're the BEST!

We also had an ah-mazing in house field trip centered all on rocks!  Turns out we are so lucky to be friends with a very skilled rock-hound, Miss Elizabeth!  She came in to share with the students many special and interesting rocks from her collection.   First, she gave an informative talk all about different types of rocks.  She shared many of her favorites and her excitement and passion on the subject was contagious!

Next students rotated through four stations.
1. A rock exploration center.

2. A mining center.

3.  A geology book center.

4.  A chance to check out rocks under our super powerful microscope center.

What a memorable geology day!  

Geology

We have officially kicked off our next big unit of study...GEOLOGY!  The students were so excited to start learning all about Earth and we have learned so much already.  We have been doing a lot of close reading of informational text to learn about the earth's layers and landforms.   After reading and note taking,  students created these neat flip book diagrams describing and illustrating the four layers of the earth.

We also read this treasured book about a child that actually digs a hole through the earth.  I just loved seeing the excitement, wonder, and joy in the children's eyes when we were experiencing this book together.  Such a fun read!

To make learning come to life, the students made a yummy treat to represent the layers of the earth with our awesome student teacher Miss Fekete.  The earth was made with a red hot center for the inner core, a marshmallow surrounding it for the outer core, a mixture of rice crispies and marshmallow fluff for the mantle, and finally a dusting of cocoa for the crust.    Hands on learning in action! 

Ours were tiny and did NOT look this perfect, but here is a picture so you can get a visual. :)

After studying all about the third rock from the sun, we dove into landforms.  First, each child made a wonderful interactive flip book that illustrated and defined key landforms.

I am a huge believer in project based meaningful learning, and this next project integrated social studies, science, reading, writing, and art standards!  Students created an awesome landform map illustrating and explaining notable landforms in the United States. Students worked collaboratively to read an informational text explaining oceans, mountains, plains, valleys, islands, plateaus, deltas, rivers, peninsulas, canyons, and volcanoes. Then they read about U.S. landforms such as: Mississippi River, Rocky, Appalachian, Sierra Nevada, and Cascade mountain ranges, Death Valley, Grand Canyon, Great Plains, and more! We also learned a fun song to help cement learning called "Have You Ever Seen a Landform?"  The teamwork and academic conversations made this project really special -quite possibly one of my favorites!   Our second graders are turning into little scholars!  Ask your child to share all about it!