Thursday, April 2, 2015

Dinosaurs Alive Fieldtrip

After 3 days of training, I came back on field trip day!! Thankful that I have coworkers that I can count on to help me keep things straight!!  My awesome class was totally ready for our much anticipated field trip to Gadsden's Cultural Arts Center (Imagination Place).  


We started off with making dinosaurs out of paper plates!


Then, we toured the dinosaurs with a guide that was very informative!


Next, we spent some time in the free play zone with a ball pit (big hit), slide, dinosaur dig, and dress up area!!


After that, we went into the Imagination Place with creative play in many different themes: fire station, hospital, bank, construction, vet, grocery store and MORE! The kiddos had a blast!!


Finally, lunch!!! Chick Fila delivered and it was wonderful!!

Saturday, March 7, 2015

More of Read Across America

Wednesday and Friday were the final two days of Read Across America Week since we missed Thursday due to the ice storm.  On Wednesday we read One Fish, Two Fish.  We each received a scoop of "fish".  We sorted them by color and them graphed them.  We counted how many we had for each color and then gave a grand total!!  We also read Wacky Wednesday.  I read the book while keeping it under the Elmo (document camera) so the kids could see the pages and find the number of wacky things. They LOVED it! So now whenever we do something different, they automatically say "Wacky Wednesday"!
 Without even a suggestion, Riley began adding his total to his partner's total!!



 And Abraham used the hundreds chart to add up the totals too!



 Can I count the tiny pieces too?  YES!






 See how this graphing activity was a great way to practice even numbers?







 Hmmmm. Does this look like trouble or what?


 We got our grand total 725!!! All keepers too!

 We put the total of the colors in order from least to greatest.

First time using our new watercolors.  The children painted the entire sheet. 

 Then we drew fish and cut them out!


And then put them in our fish bowl!!!



On Friday, we read Bartholomew and the Oobleck (or I should say the app on our iPad read to us!)
And we watched The Lorax! We watched the book version while we crafted our truffula trees with math facts.
I gave out these "cuties" to sit with them today while they worked and they made a truffula tree for him to sit under!





These wonderful drawings of THE CAT got finished up today too!











And then the kiddos made oobleck!! I've made this before with the cornstarch recipe, but this time I used the school glue recipe.  It is much easier to bounce with this way!





 The recipe called for: 1 bottle school glue, 2 tsp of Borax, and 1/2 cup water.  We, of course, wanted it to be green like in the book so we added a little green food coloring!  You start with the bottle of glue.  Then you mix the Borax in with the water and dissolve.  Next, you add the Borax water in with the school glue.  Stir really good.  After that, add the food coloring if you wish.  Stir some more.  (We had to pour out some of our water.) Then divide the oobleck with your friends and have some fun!

 The BIGGEST deal for second graders is to be fluent with adding and subtracting the numbers within 1 - 20.  We practice this every.single.day.  Today we used our student numbers or one assigned to them to show the facts to make that number on our truffle trees.





 Love them!


 Dr. Stoney Beavers came out today to talk with our 2nd grade students about honey bees.  He has  a farm and on that farm he has colonies of honey bees.  Since our Storytown story this week was The Bee, we asked him to come out and share his bee knowledge with us!  It was fascinating (and I've heard him share this before and was still fascinated!).  The students shared with him what they already knew about bees.  Then Dr. Beavers gave them even more information!