Living Biography Wax Museum

Our Living Biography Wax Museum was a HUGE success last Thursday.  Each student did an incredible job teaching us about their historical figure.  The project linked reading, writing, social studies and character education together.  Our local newspaper came out and created a wonderful video of our students.  Thank you Mr. Baxter!

Letter Writing

Since the beginning of February we have been writing letters to our parents at the end of each week.  It is important for us to make sure we include all the parts of a friendly letter when writing to our parents.  Here is the self-evaluation check-list we use after writing our letters.  This form helps us see what we are doing well and where need to focus more attention.

Biography Research!

Since our return to school after the winter break we have been working really hard on a big research project.  We are learning about biographies and studying about  famous historical people.  We are trying to answer four big questions:

1. Why is it important to remember people in history?  
2. What makes a person famous?  
3. How are famous people similar or different from myself?  
4. What kinds of personal qualities do famous people have?

Sharing in small groups what we have learned so far about our historical figures.

A paragraph describing the contributions made by Crazy Horse.

A venn diagram that compares a student with their historical figure.

Making notes about what we discovered when we compared ourselves to our historical figure.

A Facebook page for a historical figure.

A classmate drawing her historical figure using Infuse Learning.

Next week we will present what we have learned at our Wax Museum. 

Skeletons and Monster Verbs!

This week were busy putting together our paper plate skeletons and labeling the bones.  We could not have done it without the help of Valerie, Mrs. B and Mrs. Van Nice.  Thank you so much!

Last week we were introduced to our skeletal system and extended our learning this week by putting our skeletons together and digging a little deeper to learn the names and functions of each of the major bones from our feet to our skulls.  While we were putting our skeletons together we listened to and sang Dem Bones.

We have also been learning about adjectives and how they describe nouns.  We made some cutie pie monsters and followed the pattern from the book That's Not My Monster.  After we made our monsters we rotated through stations that contained 2 or 3 of our classmates monsters.  We chose a monster that wasn't ours and then picked a noun and described it with an adjective.  It was kind of tricky because we couldn't change the structure of the sentence Mrs. Williams gave us (That's not my monster.  Its_______ are too _______.  The last sentence was; That's my monster.  Its ________ are so______.).  When we were finished with this part we copied the entire piece of writing in our most beautiful handwriting.  This lesson helped us learn about writing complete sentences, using adjectives to describe nouns, sentence structure and provided some spelling and handwriting practice.

Alphabet Scavenger Hunt

To complete this activity you will need to find one item for each letter of the alphabet.   Remember to think "outside the box."  For instance, the item you find might look like the letter rather than start with the letter. 


There are a couple of ways you could go about doing this scavenger hunt.  First, you could print out the Alphabet Scavenger Hunt record sheet below to record what you find for each letter.  Just write the name of the item you find for each letter and then sketch a picture of it.  Or...if your parents will let you use their digital camera (or you have one of your own) you could use the record sheet to keep track of the things you find and then take pictures rather than sketch.
Alphabet Scavenger Hunt



What should you do with all these awesome sketches and/or photographs when you are finished?  Create an alphabet book of course!  You could do this by using this FREE alphabet book template.

Or by creating a digital slide show using a FREE Animoto or Smilebox account.  Don't forget about Glogster EDU!  You could create an awesome poster with all of your pictures.

Happy hunting and please don't forget to share what you find!

Experimental Poetry

Yesterday we tried our hand at some "experimental poetry."   At first we tried following an outline to write a poem about using our senses.  Here are some samples of this type of poem...


Camping


I hear crickets at night.
I see fish in a river.
I smell fish.
I taste food.
I touched a fish.


By: Bryce


Sweet Strawberries


I hear that there are sweet strawberries.
I see sweet strawberries.
I smell sweet strawberries.
I taste sweet strawberries and they taste good.
I touch the small plant that grew those sweet strawberries.


By: Rachel


The Storm


I hear whispering wind.
I see clouds of dust.
I smell fresh air.
I taste the wet rain.
I touch the dust in the air.


By: Ava


Then we tried starting every line the same way: I like, I wish, I am, etc... After the poem was finished we took the first part away...


I wish I was a ghost.
I wish we went to the store.
I wish I rode a horse all by myself.


Now remove the I wish...


I Wish


I was a ghost.
We went to the store.
I rode a horse all by myself.


By: Madison




I wish I could fly.
I wish I could go all around the world.
I wish I was rich.
I wish the sun was shining.
I wish I could do anything I wanted.


Now remove the I wish...


The Dream


I could fly.
I could go all around the world.
I was rich.
The sun was shining.
I could do anything I wanted!


By: Cove Second Grade