Welcome!

Welcome to our little corner of the internet! I am so excited to begin a new school year together!
We are going to have a fantastic year!

Friday, May 31, 2013

On Staying Focused...

This can be a tough time of the year for students. Summer vacation is thisclose and every cell in their bodies knows it. However, we still have work to do in school. Staying focused can be a challenge. We make sure to review expected behaviors often, but sometimes we just have to mix things up a bit to keep it interesting enough to hold our attention when the warm weather comes and heats up our classroom. This week we mixed things up a bit in math by working in teams to create posters reviewing 2 second grade math skills. The groups got to choose which skills they focused on and we even got to put our new knowledge of non-fiction text features to work by using our Everyday Math student reference book to find out more about our chosen topics. Groups brainstormed ideas, created rough drafts, cooperatively worked on their posters, and finally presented to the group before we sat down to do our last math assessment of the year. Focus was everywhere. Groups were engaged in their work and took pride in their final product. Be on the lookout next week for pictures of our next math project-graphing the dates pennies were minted! (And don't forget to bring in a baggy of at least 10 pennies for Monday if you haven't already!)

Jazie and Sarayu add information about patterns to their poster.




John and Sameer included multiplication on their poster.

Ranjani looked up information in the student reference book.
One of the final products!

Friday, May 24, 2013

Floral Goes Green






Today we celebrated Floral Goes Green, which is our annual celebration of the environment. We all had a great time learning about what we could do to help the environment. Take a look at what we did today!




We learned about Asian Longhorned Beetles!

We made terrariums!

We adding pebbles, soil, and water first.

Adding rocks to a terrarium

Adding soil to a terrarium

We learned what it would feel like to have to carry our water to our village.

And checked out a frog!

We took notes on endangered animals.

And studied a pond ecosystem!

We need to do this more often!

Note-taking in the hallways

One of our class endangered animal posters!

We made projects with our fourth grade reading buddies.

We had a great time at Floral Goes Green today!


Friday, May 3, 2013

Ways to Spread Peace

We had an awesome discussion today after we reread the books To Be A Kid and A Little Peace. Since Friday is poetry day in our classroom, we chose to respond to the books by either writing a poem about their culture or writing a poem about ways they could spread peace. A few friends chose to share their poems with the class and they were so fantastic we decided we had  to share them with you! Enjoy!


A Peaceful Place for Me
by Sarayu

A peaceful place for me is...
No homeless people
No sad homes
That's my peaceful world.

Having at least 3 good friends,
Sharing things
Be kind
Make things
That's my peaceful world.

Everything that I want is $5.00 and a need is free.
That's my peaceful world.

One voice only
Smile at least 3 times
Build things together 
That's my peaceful world.




Spread Peace
by: Bennett

Smile, laugh, hi!
Don't pollute, Be nice, Be happy!
Are you ok? Play! Share!
Make friends, CARES & FACTS!
Act like a kid, Be silly, Be cool!



Peace
by: Carter

Peace is playing and having fun
Smiles are best
So is lending a hand and meditation
Peace is making friends
And being weird.
And saying hello
And a helping hand.


A Big Piece of Peace
by: Olivia

It's like when a child thinks you've given them
a chocolate covered vanilla ice cream cone
when you've only given them the cone.
They smile and talk to you with love 
Even when you two are along.

A big piece of peace.

When you're happy and work hard,
Have a playdate,
Clean up the world, 
And share cultures. Well...

That's a big piece of peace.



Peace
by: Yasmeen

Bringing peace to the world is
work but it brings happiness
Take the animals, find new homes
and keep them safe.

To keep the world how it is
You take care of it.
Don't put trash on it.

To have the space and
Sunny days you must be
thoughtful to keep the cars away.
Use your bike or your trike
to go where you want.

To bring joy you must
stay and have the fun the day brings today
Be kind to nature. I love it too.
Bring peace to the world.

We might have madness.
Let's keep that away
So do things in the world.

If you always use cars we could lose everything
Like our air, our happiness,
We could die and we don't want that so,
bring peace to the world. 
Yes.
Bring peace to the world.



Peace
by: Saket

Be quiet.
Lend a hand.
Pray.
No pollution.
Meditation.
Be nice.
Play.
Be happy.
Say hi.
Be cool.
Don't be mean.
Be a good friend.
Be silly.
Don't fight-be kind.
Smile. :)
Big trampoline.
Kids running around.
Different schools.
Different buses.
Mostly hot.
Rain.