During the weeks of March 29 and April 4, the students are working in small groups to research an ocean animal, choose the facts they feel it is important to teach to the rest of the class, and design a way in which to present those facts. The expectations are that the students will learn the process of sorting through a lot of information to find the most important facts and also, that they will practice working with others to achieve a goal. In these pictures, they are in the research process. Sites were available to them on chromebooks, and books were also available.
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Another great party, thanks to Mrs. Patterson! Thanks to Hannah's and Nyla's moms also for helping out today! What a nice idea to plant a tulip to take home! If you want, you can plant it outside when spring comes, and it will come back next year! The snack buffet table always makes it feel like a party!
Thank you to all who helped or sent things in. The kids had a great time at the party!
Happy holidays to all of our families! There was a lot going on this week, considering it was just a two-day week! Here are a few things we did: We began preparations for the 2nd grade feast on Monday. Each classroom prepared a traditional Thanksgiving dish, to be shared with each other on Tuesday afternoon's feast. Mrs. Thies and Mrs. Mathenia's class made fruit salad, Mrs. Brubeck's class made dressing, and our class made pumpkin pudding (like the pie, only with no crust.) We began on Monday by cleaning out the pumpkins, then cooking the pieces in water and removing the shell. The cooked pumpkin then had to be mashed up with a potato masher. Fun!! That afternoon, we also began working in small groups to 'research' a topic related to Thanksgiving, such as cornucopia, the feast, clothing of the Pilgrims, the Mayflower, and Plymouth. The students used the Chromebooks to find facts, which they took turns recording. They then came up with a way to teach the rest of the class what they had learned. The next morning we worked in groups to make the 3 batches of the pudding, one batch at a time. When the cooking was finished, we presented on our topics. Presentations included skits and demonstrations of models. Lots of creativity was involved! Finally, Tuesday afternoon, the three second grade classes were mixed, and a wonderful feast was enjoyed! Thanks to those who contributed ingredients!
We have been learning a few multiplication facts this year,each accompanied by a little story or chant. Today we talked about Elvis Presley, watched a video of him singing "Hound Dog," and tried dancing like he does! Then we each sliced a half banana into 9 slices and placed them in three rows of three on top of the peanut butter we had each spread onto a slice of bread. Hey, 3 x 3 = 9! Showing multiplication as a certain number of rows of a certain number of objects is called making arrays. We then moved around the room recording multiplication facts that were portrayed as arrays.
We had such a great time at the Halloween party today! Thank you to Mrs. Patterson and to all parents who came in to help and sent things for the kids. They really enjoyed themselves! The strawberries, grapes, and apple slices with peanut butter or caramel were as popular as the cupcakes!
We had a really great time at Cahokia Mounds, finding out a lot about a local Native American tribe, the Mississippians. We saw a movie, visited the museum, climbed the mound, had a picnic lunch, and observed Woodhenge, a Native American structure for telling the seasons. Thank you to those who chaperoned the trip! In second grade, we study a new artist each month, in preparation for a spring visit to the Art Museum in St. Louis. We are looking at Claude Monet this month, and on Friday, we talked about his method of mixing colors and using soft, muted color to do mostly paintings of nature, often of water. The kids were given just the three primary colors, red, blue, and yellow, and were encouraged to mix colors to create the colors they needed.
The class seems to have chosen the closet as a favorite spot to read with friends. On Friday afternoons, we often trade classes with the other second grade teachers and do activities. Here we are in Mrs. Thies and Mrs. Mathenia's room making self portraits. It was fun making fossils and helped us understand how real fossils came about. Thanks to all who sent the dough. I could only get one picture before my fingers were too messy to hold the phone! As we took turns 'digging for dinosaur eggs (Skittles)' in the sand, we placed three eggs in each of seven 'nests.' All year we will refer to this activity to help us remember that
3x7=21. Afterwards, we all had some clean Skittles. After learning all about ancient Greece, including the two types of plays they did: tragedies and comedies, we learned and performed our own Greek tragedy. The students did an incredible job of learning lines and showing emotion as they depicted the characters. These pictures are from the dress rehearsal. I never get any pictures taken during the performance!
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AuthorHi, my name is Pam Erickson. I have been at Ellis for 24 years, 17 of them at Kindergarten. I taught 14 years of PreK before that, 2 at Ellis and 12 at private schools. I have been married to Lee for 37 years.We have a daughter, Courtney, who lives in Michigan with her husband, Greg, our grandson, Elliott, who is four,, and his sister, Miriam, who is one.. This is my sixth year with second graders, and I am really enjoying their abilities and personalities. I look forward to another great year! Archives
November 2017
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