Saturday, May 25, 2013

Chuckle for the Day

     The students are always saying things that make me smile but this gave me a real belly laugh:  We were discussing pollination and I told the kids that we have a real shortage of bees now and that this may effect crops.  Scientists and farmers are trying to figure out why the bees are dying off.  One of the students raised his hand and very seriously said, "My mom killed 3 of them!"  Busted!  
     I did explain that his mom was not the sole cause of our current bee situation.  ;-)

Friday, May 24, 2013

Goodbye Butterflies!

     We had an exciting time watching our butterflies change from caterpillars into adult butterflies.  Every morning the students flocked to the netted enclosure to see what changes had occurred overnight.   


On Thursday we set the butterflies free to enjoy their brief life and maybe even continue the life cycle by laying their own eggs.





We were excited to have our last Reading and Math test this week.  There will be no more vocabulary or spelling words to study :-) .  We will still have our math facts quizzes but we have finished our math series so there are no more chapter tests.  We will still have plenty of work reviewing math concepts already learned such as: counting coins, time, triple digit addition and subtraction, and word problems.  These skills get rusty without practice and we want to solidify the processes before leaving second grade.

We will continue to have Reading with a mix of teacher selected texts and student chosen books.  Next week we will start practicing our end of year plays.  It is quite a project, as the students create all the backdrops and simple costumes.  They come up with the ideas themselves and make whatever they feel we need to present the play.  During the last weeks of school we perform the plays for other classes.  I will let parents know when the performance is scheduled in case you would like to join us.

  Happy Memorial Day!  I hope you enjoy the long weekend with your families.


 

Friday, May 17, 2013

Difference between butterflies and moths
Above is a link we watched today and then we organized the information with a Venn diagram.


Our butterflies are still in their chrysalises.  We hope they will wait until we get back on Monday before emerging. 

We finally finished and photographed the Tangram book we started long ago.  Enjoy reading it below.



















We also finished up our realistic fiction books this week.  They are pictured below with our butterfly life cycle in pasta.



  

Thursday, May 16, 2013

Field Trip!

We had a great time at Kelkenberg Farms.  It was such a clean, well run farm with lots of young animals running around.  One of the chaperones was kind enough to take photos for me to put on the blog site- Thank you!




There were newborn goats running around for us to pet.





One of the chicks was born the day we got there and Mrs. Kelenberg named her after our Grace because it was Grace's birthday!


Every child got a pony ride!



In "Goat Country" we roamed amongst the goats and could even pick them up.



Sunday, May 12, 2013

Happy Mothers' Day!

I had to share the "garden" that the class made for Mothers' Day.  I hope you all have a wonderful day with your children. 
See full size image
Our Painted Lady butterflies have formed their chrysalises and we are waiting for them to emerge.  We were lucky enough to observe them forming the J and creating their chrysalises  on Friday. 

Thursday, May 9, 2013

Thank You!

Thank you to my wonderful class for these beautiful potted flowers.  They look great on my front porch!

Good Causes

There are two great events coming up that some of my school families are involved in.  The CF for cystic fibrosis walk is May 18th and the Tour de Cure for diabetes research is on June 8th.  Though I don't post names on my blog, most of you know the families that are affected by these diseases.  The strength and faith of the children and their families as they live with these life changing diseases are an inspiration.  If you would like to help out by donating or participating but you don't know who to contact please email me and I would be happy to give you the info.

Wednesday, May 8, 2013

Insects

This is a fun site we looked at today.  It has great info about insects.
http://urbanext.illinois.edu/insects/15.html

Monday, May 6, 2013

Math Magicians All!

We have finally all achieved Math Magician status!  We congratulated each other today and celebrated with a small treat.  We will continue to have a quiz every Monday on an addend between 1 and 10 to strengthen our skills.  Keep studying!

Sunday, May 5, 2013

Everything's coming up....

     To go along with our Living Things unit we planted seeds this week.  For the first time, I decided to have the students plant herb seeds instead of flowers.  The students picked from basil, rosemary, chives, thyme, and parsley to plant.  The students will have fun observing the differences between the plants.  If the seeds sprout we will send them home for you to enjoy.


We've been enjoying the chapter book, Young Canaller by Gerry Stafford.  It's a realistic fiction story about a young boy who works on a packet boat on the canal.  The students are enjoying hearing about the canal from long ago.  If you have never gone on the canal boat tour I would encourage you to do that this summer.  The students are all excited about learning some of the history of Lockport.