On Monday we had fun with our Thanksgiving Celebration. It was a huge success. The second graders had fun, were so polite, and learned a few things about the history of being a child around the time of the first Thanksgiving. We began our celebration in the morning with stations. Our stations included: a Native American stick game, ring toss, making horn books, studying proverbs, making wampum necklaces, writing acrostic poems, playing a penny colony game, and reading a mini-pages article about being a pilgrim child. Check out our video of the celebration below. Later, we had lunch all together in the classroom. Everyone shared what they were thankful for, and we enjoyed the meal. I brought in corn bread for the students to try their butter on. We also enjoyed a tiny slice of pumpkin pie. Once again, thank you to all of the volunteers that made this year a wonderful success! See below for the recipe on how to make butter...it is so simple and would be a fun project to do at home. Happy Thanksgiving! So thankful to be the teacher for this amazing, sweet, hard-working group of second graders. Make your own butter: To make your own butter you will need: a glass jar, whipping cream, and salt. Pour whipping cream into jar. Add salt to taste. Shake the jar vigorously for a long time...and you have butter!! Enjoy! On Wednesday the Science Museum of Minnesota came to Kennedy! The second grade presentation was on water. The students learned about the state and properties of water (how water can change), the importance of water, and how to keep water clean. The students practiced observing, making a hypothesis, and coming up with conclusions. We are excited for our field trip later this school year.
Our class read the poem "My Neighbor's Dog Is Purple" by Jack Prelutsky. The first time I read the poem I left off the last two line, and the students created a drawing of their mental images and used the text to guide them. After that, I read the poem with the last two lines and the second graders did a second visualization. After our visualizations we worked together to create a video to practice our fluency. We used ChatterKid, and realized that we only had 30 seconds. This resulted in several attempts before we got it right! We were all laughing! It was a lot of fun, and great fluency practice. Our reading comprehension strategy has been visualizing, or making mental pictures. We have been reading poems and creating drawings of our visualizations. After creating the drawings, second graders are expected to use evidence from the text to support their visualizations. One poem we read was called "Raccoon".
Our class had a lot of fun on Halloween. We dressed up in Wacky Tacky clothing, had math stations, played BINGO, and had a snack. Students also made pumpkin lanterns. It was a great (and VERY FAST) day.
One of our Grade 2 Social Studies units is on the voting process. During this unit the students watch a short video, read a book (Can I Vote?), and discuss the process. To make the process more authentic, the students participate in an election.
Here is our process: 1. Identify the candidates (cookies!!) 2. Research and learn about each type of cookie. To do this the second graders are assigned a cookie and need to create a commercial to convince the rest of us that their cookie is the best. The used the app ChatterPix to create and share their commercials. 3. Register to vote. 4. Participate in a cookie election! 5. Enjoy the winning cookie (Oreo was the winner!!). Because of the election this year, Kennedy also hosted Kids Vote and all students were able to participate in a mock election for president. It was a great tie in with our voting unit. |
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