Impact Crater Discovery

Today in science we were exploring the idea of impact craters.  We were trying to figure out how velocity (speed), angle of impact and size & shape of an impactor (meteorite, asteroid) effected the size and shape of an impact crater.

Jakob, Justin, Jaden and David discovered that not all impactors created the same size crater. The large, not solid, baseball they used created a shallow crater. They thought that if the baseball was solid it would probably make a deeper crater.

Tanner, Taylor, Greyson and Terrell noticed that the faster the impactor was thrown the more central uplift they got. In addition to this they discovered that not all central uplifts were big. They also noticed that when you throw small impactors fast (high velocity) you get big craters.

Collin, Kami, Lydia and Falisha figured out that if you throw a small impactor slow (without much velocity) you get a small crater and if you throw the same impactor faster (increase the velocity) you get a bigger crater.  

Tomorrow we will continue our research and analyze our data.

Our Busy Life!

This week in second grade we have been incredibly busy!

We have been studying about planets this week. We are researching to get a lot of information to share with our classmates

During math we have been studying the area of shapes.  We used different units of measure. One unit of measure was a green pattern block triangle.  The next day our unit of measure changed and was 1 square unit.

At Word Study time we played a game called Vocabulary Rock and Roll.  We had to draw a word card and roll the die to find out what we had to do with the word.  Sometimes we had to draw what the word meant. Sometimes we acted out the word. Acting out the word was one of our favorite jobs.

We have been doing opinion writing. We're learning how to convince people to agree with us. Writing a worthwhile introduction that grabs the readers attention helps. Another important thing to do is support your reasons with evidence. 

This month we have been reading The One and Only Ivan by Katherine Applegate. Yesterday we drew pictures to make protest signs. We finished the book today. If you haven't read this book we highly recommend that you do!

Geometry and Space!

This week we have begun studying Geometry and Space! We wrote letters to martians explaining what a triangle is. We learned about the Solar System and galaxies using the Kids Discover Galaxies App and studied oi/oy words, taking pictures and writing complete sentences defining some of those words. We also worked hard to try and recreate the rocket our teacher made using one square of paper cut into four pieces. It was tricky!

Weather Watchers

For the past week we have been watching the weather around the world. Each group chose a city on one of 6 continents; North America, South America, Africa, Europe, Asia and Australia. We checked the weather each day using the Weather+ App on our iPads and recorded the high and low temperatures as well as the weather conditions. At the end of the week we used the data we collected about our cities to make line graphs.

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.

Happy Birthday Dr. Seuss!

We have had a busy week celebrating Read Across America and the work of Dr.Seuss. We focused on three of the 8 Keys of Excellence as they related to stories written by Dr. Seuss. They were:

This Is It!...Did I Ever Told You How Lucky You Are?
Speak With Good Purpose...The Big Brag
Ownership...The Lorax

We also made a poster to thank our custodians for helping to "make our school shine!"

Water Cycle in the Bag

Last week we observed the water cycle in action. We used zip-lock bags to create mini water cycle environments. Each morning we observed what was happening inside our controlled environment. Condensation formed inside our bags and we noticed cloud-like fog on the inside of our bags. Some of us realized that we see the water cycle occurring in our very own homes when we take a hot shower in a cool bathroom!