Little Free Library

This morning our second grade class went to Mrs. Van Nice's house.  She had a Little Free Library in front of her house.  We got to pick out a book for FREE and keep it!  After we finish reading our book we can take it back and trade for a different one.  If we love it and want to keep it that is okay too.  We can also get another book from her if we visit again with our family. 

SD and RD choose a book from the Little Library.

After choosing books we took a picture of everyone with their books.

Mrs. Van Nice spoiled us rotten with books, bookmarks and yummy treats.
Thank you Mrs. Van Nice! Happy Thanksgiving Mrs. Van Nice!

Turkey-ish Drawings

After reading this wonderful book, Ish by Peter H. Reynolds, students drew Turkey-ish Turkeys!  If you are looking for a way to help your child or children you work with be confident when they draw this is the book for you.  It is a wonderful story about a little boy whose brother makes fun of his drawing.  A surprise awaits him as he chases his little sister into her room after she grabs one of his crumpled drawings.  This book will be on everyone's favorites list!

Students used oil pastels to create these masterpieces!

Sand! Comparing and Contrasting Pacific and Atlantic Sand

Today we have been comparing and contrasting sand from the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.  We observed each specimen with the naked eye, by touch and beneath a microscope.  Here are some of the things we noticed:

Pacific Sand is:

-fine
-colorful: yellow, orange, red, silver-gray and clear grains
-sparkly
-hard
-sticky

    

Atlantic Sand is:

-coarse
-hard
-colorful: gold, red, dark brown, orange, gray and clear grains
-sticky
-sparkly

We give looking at sand under a microscope two thumbs up!

S.D. discovers that a book he was reading had a picture that looked similar to what he was seeing under the microscope.

Second grader's feel the difference between Atlantic and Pacific Ocean sand.

Oceans!

Wow!  Can you believe we are nearing the end of September and we haven't even made one post!  We have been super busy in second grade learning our classroom routines and as much as we can about oceans!  We began our study locating and naming the worlds oceans and continents.  We needed some perspective for our class discussions.  We used atlases to help us locate and name the continents and oceans and worked together in small groups to create these awesome maps.

We have also been learning about wind and waves.  Did you know waves are formed in two ways?  Most waves are wind waves but there are also waves that form when earthquakes or underwater landslides occur beneath the ocean. These waves are called seismic waves and can be very dangerous.  A seismic wave is also called a Tsunami. You can learn more about Tsunamis by watching this great video.  

After we learned about Tsunamis we made these cool diagrams so we could explain what a tsunami is to our parents.  Next we will be learning about the Water Cycle and the oceans important roll in this incredible process.

Dinosaurs!

We are currently working on creating a question and answer book about dinosaurs through guided research. Today we will try to find answers to the questions we have collected from our reading.  We will be using some really fun iPad apps as well as these websites here!

Create your own Playlist on LessonPaths!

Pacific Walrus

Today we are learning about the Pacific Walrus!  We are going to learn about and observe walrus behavior by watching this video.  We will then take careful notes in our Arctic Journals.
)

Polar Bear Adaptations

Today we watched this video and recorded what we learned about polar bears adaptations.



Here are some of the facts we learned:

Did you know that polar bears have fur everywhere?  Even in their arm pits!

Polar bears have long, narrow noses so they can fit their heads into small spaces...to get those seals!

Polar bears grow quickly.  Their mother's milk is 30% fat. 

An 8 month old polar bear can weigh up to 200 pounds!