Marvelous Math Egg Hunt!

We had a fantastic morning with our Marvelous Math Egg Hunt!  The students worked in teams of four to hunt for their team's colored eggs.  After collecting all eight the kiddos rounded up and started cracking' open their eggs.  In each egg I placed a math problem for the team to solve.  I was able to differentiate math problems by placing students in homogeneous groups.  Team members were able to earn money for correct answers and excellent cooperation and problem solving skills.  Cooperation and team work were hugely important keys to today's fun!  Thanks to my AMAZING parent volunteers each group had an adult team captain to monitor group work and divvy out the money. :)   Here are some adorable shots of the team I worked with.  They worked so well together!

Later in the afternoon the students were able to spend their money at our classroom store!  So much fun and we sure sharpened our math skills!

Way to go second graders!

A Pocket Full of Poetry

We have been enjoying lot's of poetry in room 8!  This week and last, we've read and learned about several different types of poems and the kiddos have been writing their own poems as well.  To tie into our geology unit the students first wrote a poem of their choice (acrostic, shape, free verse, rhyming, haiku, diamante, or rebus) about a volcano.  We kept one copy for their poetry pocket, and turned one into a fantastic art project. 

Next we learned about figurative language and made these mini books as super reference tools.  So far we have covered alliteration, simile, and onomatopoeia.

I have been completely impressed by the way the kiddos picked up on figurative language and are now adding it to their poems!

We also made a fun class book using alliteration!  The students had so much fun creating their pages.  They are guaranteed to make you giggle!

Finally, our poetry pockets are filling up with delightful poems!  I will put them up for display so we can all enjoy them, but I plan to have the students continue to add poems when we return from Spring Break.

Our Week in Math

Spring has definitely sprung in room 8!  But that has not stopped us from having fun and working hard on math!  This week we have been learning about area, perimeter, and multiplication.   During Monday's math centers we kicked off the week playing "To the Moon" which is an awesome multiplication math game.

We also created these informative and helpful multiplication posters.

Our last center focused on finding the perimeter.  Anyone who knows me well knows I am often over ambitious...well thank goodness for do overs because this center was super challenging for the kiddos!  Bless their little hearts for trying so hard (and I owe my wonderful parent volunteer a spa day to relax her nerves)!  But with a little tweaking and recreating on my part, we had a very successful go of it today!  Success!

Last but not least, here are our adorable robots. :)  The students created their own robot and then found the area and perimeter of their creation.   

Woo!  Three more days till Spring Break!  But who's counting... ;)

A Vision of K-12 Students Today

A little somethin' somethin' from my graduate course this morning.
Looks like it's time to step it up!

Landform Art

Check out these beautiful landforms the students created with Mrs. Trudell!  I'm so thankful for our fantastic art teacher who enriches our units through meaningful art lessons.  Can you tell which landforms the students were illustrating?

A Peek at Math Centers

Math centers are a fun part of our math program in room 8 and both the students and I look forward to them!  :)  I like to keep things fresh and change things up in the classroom...so math centers look different throughout the year.  Recently we have been working with a model I learned about from Amy Lemons (I got several of the center ideas from her tpt site!).  Generally we do math centers 2-3 times per week and there are five centers that the kiddos rotate through, so it takes us about a week and a half to two weeks to complete all 5 centers.  Math centers is a time for the students to sharpen the skills we have been learning through games and activities, work with me in a small group, and practice skills on IXL.  Here is a look at what we have been up to with math this week!  

Here we are in action learning about edges, vertices, and faces of geometric solids.

Here's a center on time and one on place value.  I put the recording forms in page protectors to cut back on the CRAZY amount of paper that comes from a week of math centers.  We can just use a white board marker on these.  Once they are checked by me or an awesome parent volunteer ;) the kids simply wipe 'em off and they are ready for the next student to use.  LOVE!

I Certainly can't leave off ixl.  Have I mentioned how much I am loving this site!?  It is such a perfect way to strengthen and enrich my little mathematicians' skills. 

 

And here is the last center for this week.  A great one to practice those measuring skills using an inch ruler, a centimeter ruler, and a measuring tape.  

Everybody Needs a ROCK

We've been having a a rockin' time learning about rocks!
Above you can see the flip books we made defining and illustrating different types of rocks.
During reading centers the students listened to a treasured book called Everybody Needs a Rock by  Byrd Baylor.

 
Then they hunted for their own special rocks and conducted a few scientific observations and investigations.  They measured, weighed, evaluated its appearance, checked for hardness, found out if it  would sink or float, and saw if it reacted with vinegar. 

Next we read another fantastic story titled, Sylvester and the Magic Pebble by William Steig.  We spent a good amount of time with this book and the children really got into the story as they read and responded to the text with a partner.   They are becoming such good little readers there was a few moments when I was able to pause and take it all in.  Each and EVERY one of them was working away happily...and no one needed me!   Say WHAT???!!!

Next, you probably guessed it, we wrote our own stories about finding a magic pebble!