Celebrating Earth Week!

These colorful projects really brighten up the room during this rainy week!

During Reader’s Workshop last week students have had a blast combining their love of reading non-fiction and Earth Day with multiple hands-on projects! We read multiple non-fiction picture books, including Earth Day- Hooray! We each created our own “protect the planet pledge” of how we can help reduce, reuse and recycle both at home and at school. We transformed the information we discussed into a fun 3-d Earth Week mobile! Throughout the week we also made coffee filter Earths and Earth Week celebration hats! We culminated the week with an all school assembly to celebrate Earth Day and Arbor Day on Friday morning and in the afternoon.

Here are some pictures from our fun week! I hope you and your family had the opportunity to visit Topsfield's Earth Day celebration last Friday!

Students assemble outside around our new school tree to celebrate Arbor Day. Ms. Swanson led us in a song.

Michael and Annalisa work hard to create their 3D Earth Week mobiles!

Emily and Olivia paint their coffee filter Earths.

Everyone got up and danced to the music at our Earth Week assembly on Friday!

Change is Simple

The Change is Simple program came back to visit Room 210 last week! They discussed the importance of trees to animals and plants, and explained the delicate balance between trees and humans. 

We need trees on Earth for more than just paper, we need them for oxygen! Students practiced this exchange between trees and people:

Students act as budding trees.

Students act as trees and humans to show the exchange between oxygen and carbon dioxide.

Our class broke off into two groups. In the first station we learned the difference between coniferous (spiky spruce, hemlock) versus deciduous (oak, sugar maple) trees. We explored each type by comparing and contrasting their leaves. 

In the second station, children created their own homemade paper made from water and recycled shreds of paper. They loved the process, and were very engaged by the tools and procedure! 

Maggie and Quinn use their hands to press the pulp onto the screen.

Rider and Nico use tools to press the pulp.

Students describe the pulp using words like 'squishy' and 'chunky'.

We had to be patient and let the paper dry for over 24 hours!

Check out our Twitter feed next week for a 'final product' picture of what we did with our homemade paper!

Learning about D.A.S.H.!

Throughout the past three weeks we have been fortunate enough to have parent volunteers come into the classroom and teach us about D.A.S.H.- Disability Awareness Starts Here! In Grade 2, the curriculum focuses on teaching the children about the disability of blindness. In our classroom I did some pre-teaching of this concept through our famous people study. We studied Helen Keller and Louis Braille, as well as explored the Braille system.

Here are some photos and captions from our weekly D.A.S.H. activities:

Week 1:

Parent Volunteers teach us about the eye and how it works.

Lee looks through a spoon to see what it would be like to have a visual impairment.

Lucien, Nico and Will look through wax paper to experience a visual impairment.

Students participated in a 'grab bag' activity blindfolded and practiced using other senses.

Week 2:

Mrs. Doumas helps Mark and Rider use their sense of touch to pour water.

Olivia and Sage do a guided walk.

Drew helps Quinn find utensils and eat jello using the clock.

Week 3: 

Students use stylus pens to write their full name in Braille.

Mrs. Dalton helps Drew write his initials on a Braille typewriter.

Gabriele does a blind walk in the hallway using a cane. Rider acts as a roadblock.

Students were able to play adaptive games and even read Braille menus from popular restaurants!

We were so fortunate to have this program in our classroom! Thank you to all the parent volunteers who took time out of their busy schedules to help these activities run smoothly! We look forward to our guest speaker next week!

Polar News from Room 210!

Students have been working so hard over the past month studying polar regions and animals that live there! Throughout this unit, we have been focusing on polar adaptations, life cycles, and habitat. As a culminating project, students created a Chatterpix report about a specific polar animal they were interested in. 
Here are some pictures from the process:

Nico uses a non-fiction book for inspiration and ipad to draw his Arctic animal.

Gabriele researches how to draw his penguin!

Here are our final Chatterpix projects! Enjoy!

Circle Notebook Update (Snow Day)

February 5, 2016

Dear Parents,

            What a crazy winter it has been! Between the warm weather, colds and illnesses, and the concert cancellation this week, students have shown great focus and flexibility!

This coming Tuesday (pending any snow days) we will celebrate the 100th day of second grade! We are almost 100 days smarter! We will brainstorm and create a "First 100 Days..." chart describing what we've enjoyed about second grade, and what we are looking forward to in the next eighty days of school. We will also do a quick-write about what we would do if we had 100 dollars. Looking forward to a fun day!

Tuesday will also be a busy day because our second grade concert, Please Don’t Melt!, has been rescheduled for that afternoon. We hope you and your family are able to join us at 2:15 on Tuesday for this fun performance. The kids are really looking forward to it! Please remember to have them wear white on Tuesday!

            During Reader’s Workshop this week we continued exploring the characteristics of folktales. We have read many different stories that have origins in the Middle East, Sweden, South America and even Japan! This week we completed our ‘always’ and ‘often’ chart and even created a working definition of folktales. Students tracked the story elements of their own folktale on a graphic organizer in their Reader’s Notebook. We are doing some great thinking and reading in second grade! I am very proud of all their hard work.

Throughout Math Workshop this week, students continued to practice using the standard metric units of meters (m) and centimeters (cm). This week, we practiced measuring the length of curved lines with the help of string. We also practiced comparing lengths of objects, and applied our addition and subtraction skills in real world problems involving metric length. Students enjoyed watching a fun Brain-Pop Jr. video about the metric system and making connections to where they have seen these units in their everyday lives!

In Writer’s Workshop students remained focused when wrapping up the revision stage of our The Day the Crayons Quit opinion piece. We made sure our reasons and opinions matched, and edited for punctuation and spelling. On Thursday we used a special opinion rubric to make sure we included all the aspects of a second grade opinion project. Some students started their cover page as well! We have some very creative and innovative writers in our class. Ask your child about the reasons and examples they added!

            Please keep an eye out for an email regarding our Valentine’s Party next Thursday! Thank you in advance for your contributions! We are going to have fun sharing valentines with each other. Thank you to Mrs. Fullerton for helping to organize the treats. Our class celebrates friendship and mutual respect on a daily basis, and it is fun to have a special day to recognize these important qualities in each other.

 There will be a short homework packet next week that will be due on Friday before vacation. There will also be no Circle Notebook next week. I wish you and your family a warm Super Bowl weekend!

                                                                  Sincerely,

                                                                        Mrs. Ford

Upcoming Events:

·         Tuesday, Feb. 9 – Second Grade Concert – 2:15pm (students wear white)

·         Thursday, Feb. 11 - Valentine’s Day Party

·         Friday, Feb. 12 – Homework Packet Due

The Penguin Lady

Yesterday we had the opportunity to meet Dyan deNapoli, The Penguin Lady! Dyan shared many facts and extensive penguin knowledge with us as we played a fun penguin game show! She showed us photographs she has taken during her research around the world and her large collection of penguin stuffed animals.

Dyan shares some of her stuffed animal predators of penguins.

We took a look at her life-size Emperor Penguin. Compared to an albatross, it has a tiny wingspan! (3 feet) Of course penguins can't fly!

Here are some facts we took away from her visit:

Little blues are the smallest penguin! -Olivia

Penguins have knees! -Nico, Maggie, Quinn

Emperor penguins are the biggest type of penguin. -Sage

Their poop is called guano. -Will

Penguins can shoot their guano up to 5 feet! -Rider, Addison

Grown up penguins throw up in their babies mouth to feed them. -Lana

Male Emperor penguins have yellow on their necks to attract females. -Lucien

Penguins can be saved from oil disasters. -Elizabeth

Penguins can live on the equator. -Michael

Penguins live in Australia! -Mark, Drew

Some penguins can make deep dives and can hold their breath for 22 or up to 27 minutes! -Ava

Penguins sneeze a lot to get out excess salt. -Annalisa

We are so fortunate to have special visitors ad experts come and visit us at Steward! Thank you PTO for your support! 

Second Grade Concert- NEW DATE!

A note from Mrs. Costa regarding the cancellation of the second grade concert on Monday:

Dear Second Grade Family,

Again we thank you for your incredible support and understanding today regarding the cancellation of the second grade concert. We know it was short notice but it was certainly the best decision at the time. In looking at the busy lives of our second graders before the February break (Valentine's Day, 100th Day and more!), the only date that seemed to work was next Tuesday, February 9 at 2:15. We hope to see you there!

Sincerely,
Michelle Costa