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!