Football Math

I love my job!

Today we had so much fun with football math!  I knew it would be a hit with my boys, but the girls seemed to love it just as much.  In fact Piper said, "This is one of the most fun things we've done in second grade!" Be still my heart <3.

 First we got pumped with some football music and warm ups.  :) Then we dove into a rich discussion about this year's Super Bowl.  We found each team's location on our map and then we identified the state where the Super Bowl would be held on Sunday.  Next it was on to roman numerals.  I gave a quick lesson so the children could figure out which Super Bowl it was.  Then we made predictions and created a tally chart and pictograph to represent our data.

Now it was time for a measuring challenge!  I told the kiddos the football commissioner was looking for a perfect design for the Super Bowl and challenged them to create it.  I gave instructions with exact dimensions, paper, rulers, tape measures, and they were off.  Problem solving skills and super team work was definitely evident in room 8.  This was a challenge but the students rose to the occasion and the finished products were indeed perfect!

Last we ended our afternoon with football P.E... who knew passing the ball, and strengthening our muscles could be such a blast!  I loved playing the role of coach and team Lara was totally the dream team!


GOOOO ROOM 8!

The Bald Eagle

Hanging out with the sweetest second graders and learning about cool stuff makes my heart happy! 

This week was all about our national bird the bald eagle.  I introduced this new symbol by asking the students what they knew about the bald eagle and questions they wanted to find the answers too.  After a good discussion, I presented a highly engaging and interactive SMART lesson and low and behold we found the answers to many of our questions.  Next we set up our notebooks so we were ready to record our knowledge about this fascinating and fierce bird.  Students had six, which later turned into seven categories for note taking: appearance, diet, habitat, predators, what they symbolize/what you find them on, interesting facts, and babies.

Students worked in partners and practiced their close reading skills to become bald eagle experts.

Throughout the week we watched a few live bald eagle cams which was an AWESOME experience!  I think all of our jaws hit the floor when we saw the mama fly out of her nest and leave her three eggs.  Not to worry she was back in a matter of minutes to keep them warm from the Minnesota snow.   But those wings... WOW!

Our adorable student of the day waving Old Glory as we sing the Star Spangled Banner and watch our eagle cam.

Then we did a bald eagle fact or opinion sorting game (i forgot to snap a picture).

Next students got busy writing acrostic poems for BALD EAGLE(S).  My challenge to them was to go beyond one word for each letter and write a good juicy fact.  They did awesome and have proven they are super knowledgable about our national bird.

Students final projects turned out Ah-mazing!  They are definitely Winter Art Gallery worthy, but the timing didn't turn out quite right, which is just fine with me because our room is turning into a patriot's dream!

Our American Flag

We have become quite knowledgable about the American flag in our sweet classroom.  After a lot of read alouds and some close reading students wrote informative paragraphs all about the Stars and Stripes.  We also danced (because music and dance makes everything just so much more fun!) around the room and shared our knowledge with our classmates.  Then we got busy applying our knowledge and using our problem solving, math and art skills to create these magnificent flags.

Working hard!

Those stars! Brandon's eye for all things spacial is pretty amazing. What a talent! 

Little patriot :)

We are loving our patriotic song books!  (ummm disregard the mess in the background #ineedamaid)

Suffixes, Wacky Animals, Penguins, and Place Value

As random as that group sounds, we've been having a blast with each of those topics!

Last week we dove into word endings ~ suffixes!  Sounds fun right!? Ha!  Well it was actually super great in room 8. :)  First I read a book called Happy Endings to the kiddos.  In this book the teacher explains that the class was going to tackle suffixes after lunch.  The suffixes were frightened about the thought of the students tackling them so they decided to leave the room and and hit the gym!  When the students came back from lunch the word endings were nowhere to be found. Gasp! As the story continues the suffixes leave clues around the classroom for the children to find them and put them back where they belong - at the end of words.  Well, I stopped reading the book just before this part because I had hidden suffixes around the room and created clues our our kids to go on their very own suffer search.   Fun fun!

We brushed up on our understandings of parts of speech and then the students created super silly Wacky Animal Flip Books.

Penguins! Oh these adorable birds were sure a labor of love!  #justsayin We are becoming very good at identifying informational text features and understanding their importance in room 8. :) In this unit students researched penguins and created their own penguin books.  They also made super cute symmetry art, and wrote sweet Haikus all about penguins.

The weather has been so up and down, but it was just beautiful the other afternoon we had to take our I-Spy Place Value game outside.  I am so proud and impressed by our so smart second graders!