What's the Matter?

Science is one of my most favorite things to teach my second graders.  We are learning all about Matter and its properties.  They are really enjoying the different learning experiments we are doing.  I am looking forward to making a fun slime that is both liquid and solid after the holidays.  We have learned that everything we see and feel is made of matter. 

The states of matter are solid, liquid, gas, and plasma (which we don't really learn about yet, but we know it exsists!) 

For matter, we do a fun project that is sent home and they need to find 5 pictures or create their own of each state of matter.  Then we  share our projects.  They enjoy sharing what they've found or created on their own.

For the experiment in class, we used magazines to find pictures and then decided if they were a liquid, solid or gas.  Before we started, we decided to list some of the properties of each state of matter. 

Look at the pictures to see what we found out through becoming a scientist and learning about Matter!

We discovered that the liquids and solids were EVERYWHERE... but we couldn't find a lot of pictures that had gases in them.  They decided that gas was clear, but it is everywhere, even though we cannot see it. 

They did a great job of working together to do a wonderful job on this activity!

 

December Already???

Well, so much has happened in a month!  We were out the whole week of Thanksgiving which is always so nice, but it has been a blur since!  My family and I spent the week in Disney World, which is always fun, but exhausting as well.  I have been playing catch up since we've been home.  I am sorry for the delay!  I am hoping that after the holidays, things will slow down and we will get back on track!  Until then, these are the things we have been learning in class!!!

I know you have been wondering why you had to send in all the black picture frames, but I am so proud of these, that I have to show them off!  Our school has a HUGE art show that would make most museums look bad!  The teachers here are all so amazing and talented, and we are all just over achievers, so it has to be the best!

The theme we have this year is multicultural art.  So I decided to do something with my camera, since I love taking pictures.  We learned all about different settings and how to set a backdrop and how to focus the camera.  So, to throw in the multicultural, I thought I would do fruit from around the world.  The kids LOVED it and they did a great job!  We first did them in black and white, but decided to do them again in color and I am so glad I did.  I hope you can come to the Art Show Thursday night and see all the great works of art!  Here is a sneak peak because I have the best mom in the world who came up here with me Sunday night to put up all the pictures with me.  That was no easy task!  So we stayed up here until around 10pm on my birthday night to get them up, but I LOVE THEM!!!!  Thank you mom!  You didn't know what you were getting into when I asked you to come, but you did a great job!  If you don't know by now, if you ask to help, I will put you to work!  :)

 I don't want to take them down!  I know, I know... they are yours and yes, they will be going home later in the year.

Aren't they beautiful?  Just wait to see them close up!

We talked about PRONOUNS and how they take the place of a noun.  I found a great teacher site that had the perfect activity to go along with pronouns, so I have to give credit to Mrs. Lemons over at Step Into Second Grade!  Thank you for the great activity!  The kids loved it and a special thanks to Savannah's mom for helping put up the tree!  I wouldn't have gotten it up without you.

In math we are working on double digit subtraction with regrouping.  For homework tonight, I gave a review sheet for them to do.  Keep working on this!  They will get it! 

But... looking through my pictures, I found a cute even and odd activity we did earlier in the year.  We made a town outside our room and we had to put the house numbers in order and put all the even houses on one side and the odd houses on the other side, just like our own homes.  They had to use base ten blocks to show their number and make a house of it.  They are so crafty and really got into it!  I thought I would share your child's work!  They are some smart cookies!

I hope you are having a wonderful week and I am sorry that I haven't been keeping up with this like I promised!  I promise I will do better!

 I still can't believe it is December!

My Hope

I can only hope my students see me as this kind of teacher...

The Heart of a Teacher

This video was a great inspiration to me.  I thought I would share it with you.

While teaching, my motto is: ENGAGE, TRANSFORM, and ACHIEVE.  Not only do I want all children to ACHIEVE, I want them to know they are cared for and loved in my classroom.  I want them to feel that my classroom is a safe place for them to learn and grow as individuals.  I love to see a child get excited about something new and see the love they have for learning. 

This was a great reminder of why I love doing what I do!

Woo Hoo!!!

Not only do I have some awesome readers in here, I have some ROCK STAR students that are rocking with ROCKET MATH!  I want to give a big WOO HOO to Jackson for flying into subtraction in Rocket Math.  He completed the whole addition rocket from A-Z!  Just look at that sweet face!  Keep studying those math facts each night!  I want all my students to fly off into subtraction!  I know they can do it!

The AR Brain Beads have been a big success in my class so far!  They are LOVING the beads and they are coming up with all different kinds of patterns and designs to put on their necklaces.  When they reach their goals, they can wear the necklaces around school and hang them back up when they are done!  I am so proud of these kids!  They are really trying hard with AR! 

Don't forget that tomorrow we celebrate Veteran's Day.  We have talked about it and read a story called, "The Wall."  It helps them understand why Veterans are so important.  Tomorrow we will have a play in honor of Veteran's Day.  If you are or have been in the Military, I want to give you a personal THANK YOU for your sacraficies and all you do for our nation.  You are our HEROS!

Around Town and More

We started our next unit in our SRA Reading series, Around Town.  With this unit we learn about our comminuty and everything that goes along with it.  They love coming up and writing on the board and on the interwrite pad, which is hard for them, hence the fact that I NEED the SMART board!!!  But this is a game we play and they come up one at a time and write their idea on the web and then they choose someone who is sitting quiet to come up next.  They are so quiet during this activity... I can't imagine what it will be like if/when we get a SMART board! 

They all came up with excellent brainstorming ideas.  The story we did last week was "Red Light, Green Light, Mama and Me."  It was a story about a girl going to work with her mom at the library.  We read many books about the library, my favorite was "Library Mouse."

One of the many webs we made last week!

__________________________________________________

We also got to our Pumpkin Seeds...

They counted them in small groups of 3 and 4 students.  They started counting by ones and found out that they just couldn't keep the numbers straight.  So we stopped counting and I had everyone come up with ways we could count that might be easier.  Guess what they ALL said?  Let's put them in GROUPS OF TEN!!!  Yay class!  Within in about 5 minutes, the 6 groups all had them counted and sorted with a grand number of 644 seeds!!!

I know... I know... I have an amazingly smart and awesome class!

____________________________________________________

The kids were having free time on the interwrite pad. 

Chris is using the interwrite pad showing the students a writing lessons.

_____________________________________________________

Look at these ROCK STARS rockin with AR!  Let's get going with AR!!!!

AR!!!  AR!!!!  AR!!!

Watch out class!  We are doing a wonderful job with AR this nine weeks, but I know we can do better!  I know we are all going to do a rocking job and get their goals.

I have been trying to motivate all the students to get their goals with only 4 weeks left.  I thought that if they see how many points they have, they might try harder to reach their goal.  So with every point they get on AR, they will earn a bead on their necklace.  I can't wait to see how they do with it! 

I think they will LOVE it!

I do want to give a SHOUT out to these students who have made their goal already...

Noel

Nicholas

Taelyr

Tyler

Way to go kids! They even had their names announced on the morning show!!!

____________________________________________________

Saving the best for last! 

 This has been such a life saver for our class!  I have found that tattling takes up so much time with all kids. 

They are loving this TATTLE MONSTER and are really writing great "tattles." 

All kids want to be heard and understood, but unless it is 9-1-1, go tell the "Tattle Monster!"  I read them all and talk with the child if they are not making the right choices.  It has been working out well in my classroom!  The first day we did it, they went through the whole stack of paper! It is slowing down now, but when someone comes up to "tattle" I tell them to tell the Monster! 

Try it at home and see how it works for you! 

Happy Pumpkin Day!

We had such a great time yesterday with our pumpkin centers!  The kids really got into it and even "learned" a lot when they didn't even know they were learning!!  We had many fun things set up for them to do.  We even missed recess and no one asked when it was.  How exciting is that? 

"How many pumpkins tall are you?" was a fun center for all.  We had students ranging between 15-22 pumpkins tall.  We have some tall kids in here! 

I think the favorite center was the "sorting of the candy center."  Thank you for sending in the fun treats for my students!  My favorite was the popcorn hands with the candycorn as fingernails and my favorite cookie dressed as a ghost!  What fun ideas!  Thanks to Savannah and her Grandma and Nicholas and his mom for making those!

Another center was a matching and sorting math.  They didn't get a chance to finish it completely, but they had fun trying to beat their partner to see who could match them the fastest!  They are so smart!  This was a great 'freebie' from a great blogger friend!  Thank you for all the great 'freebies.'  I think I could go broke buying all the things that I really want!!!!

The students had a lot fun cleaning the pumpkin out for me!  This was the first year in a long time that I didn't have to put my hands in the pumpkin!  My wonderful, awesome students all did it, without one complaint!  They estimated the weight of the pumpkin and the number of seeds it had.  The pumpkin weighed in at 24.4 pounds.  They were really close with one winner closest with 30 pounds.  The seeds are still waiting to be counting, because they are taking a very long time to dry and not be slimy anymore.  We will count them tomorrow and then I will take them home and bake them.  They all can't wait to taste them.

They are even seperating the 'guts' from the seeds for me!  They VOLUNTEERED to do this... I promise I did not tell them they HAD to do it!  They loved every second of it! 

For those of you that know me, I am always trying to watch my weight, but... I have a sweet tooth and I LOVE my Krispy Kreme donuts!  I had a very special surprise on my desk yesterday morning waiting for me when I came back from bus duty!  Of course, I couldn't say no!  I loved every bite! 

I hope you all had a wonderful night!  Thanks for letting me have all your ROCK STARS!  They are all doing a GREAT job!!!!



Drug Free Week and Pumpkin Fun

(Click on the pictures to make them bigger!)  What a great week had with our pumpkins!  What a great week to talk about it.  We had fun seeing if our pumpkins were going to sink or float.  For the most part, they all floated, except one... it was just too big for the sink!  We had fun decorating our pumpkins too. 

Not only have we been working on our pumpkin unit this week, it has been DRUG FREE WEEK!  We have talked about what the difference is between bad drugs and good drugs.  We also designed posters to be displayed in the hallways.  Everyday we did something different to show that we are all DRUG FREE!  Look at the picture below.  We passed out certificates with their name on it saying we will always be DRUG FREE!  This is a great learning week and I hope it follows with them throughout their school years and beyond. 

Welcome to my class!!!

Today was a crazy day and I am thinking that it must be a full moon... or the fact that Halloween is only a few days away!  We are not doing a reading story this week, so that left plenty of time to get caught up on fun projects and listening to my students read and write great stories.  I decided that we would do a great pumpkin theme this week and thanks to all the great teachers out there that gave me great ideas and Pinterest, it helps me be a teacher that I enjoy.  I do miss the fun teaching things we used to be able to do in the past, but now so much is on the curriculum that it is hard to find time to do the "FUN STUFF" that kids really learn from!

This week we are working on 2-digit addition with 'regrouping.'  We finally have learned and mastered place value and had a great lesson that included food!  They really enjoyed the activity and seemed to be engaged so much more when there is food involved! 

Well, that is it for now.  I will post more pictures when we have our pumpkin fun!   

Have a great day!!!