Our Visit to the Metropolis

The actors at the Metropolis Performing Center in Arlington Heights did an AMAZING job of acting out our story of Mrs. Jojo! Thank you to Ms. Gladu for including the most important parts of our story in the play, as well as all of the fun little details! We watched the mudball story, the "Last Trip of the Millenium," and even a young Mrs. Jojo swinging on the swings up to the moon with her childhood friend Diane. They brought to life so many of the stories we have been writing about over the last few weeks! An added treat was having Mrs. Jojo's sister, Auntie Lyn, join us! Many of the stories involved her, so we were so happy to meet her in person and have her along for the trip. We also enjoyed watching the stories of Mr. Gries, Mr. Robinson, Mrs. Lane, and especially Dr. Jares that the other 2nd grade classes worked on. Every skit highlighted important and memorable moments in the lives of these fascinating Dryden Dolphins! What a fun experience for all!

Dress Like Dr. Jares Day!

The whole school enjoyed honoring Dr. Jares in a special way on Tuesday... we all dressed just like him! The children and I wore button down shirts and ties, and for an added flair we carried McDonald's coffee cups! (If you've ever come into the building at around 9:00 each morning, the first person you will see is Dr. Jares standing in the front hallway greeting each Dryden student as they come inside- wearing his button down shirt and holding his coffee cup!) We presented Dr. Jares with a book the kids made that was full of ideas about what they think he will be doing when he retires. They came up with some great ideas, including golfing, fishing, going on cruises, reading books, even looking at the Dryden yearbook and thinking of us!

All ready for our field trip tomorrow!

The children have worked so hard to complete their biographies about the life of Mrs. Jojo (Mrs. Kenney). We first split Mrs. Kenney's life into 5 "chapters." Then we developed our questions for each chapter of her life, we interviewed her, and we made a neat quilt that helped us make a complete picture of the information we gathered! As a class, we organized our information into 5 separate paragraphs. Our biographies turned out to be 3+ pages long! There were so many fun stories about her life that we just had to include. Once our biography was written, the children opened up the "Explain Everything" app on their iPads. We made a title page, followed by a chapter title page and a corresponding picture slide for each chapter! The children recorded their voice into each slide of their biography. The children grew comfortable adding slides, rearranging the order of their slides, adding text boxes, drawing, and recording and playing back their recordings. They learned how to save, name, and even email their project to me! I am so impressed with how well the children did on their projects! I am hoping to attach a link to each of the children's projects here on the blog... Fingers crossed! Now we are looking forward to see the performance of our biography of Mrs. Kenney's life tomorrow morning at the Metropolis!

Rock Analysts!

The 2nd graders learned about the minerals that make up granite on Friday! We know that two or more minerals make up a rock, so we crushed a block of granite to get a closer look at the minerals that comprised it! Before splitting our sample, we first viewed the minerals we were about to see in isolation. These minerals included feldspar, quartz, biotite and muscovite. Once we crushed the sample, the children received fragments of it in their small groups. They looked carefully at the pieces in front of them with a magnifying glass to identify the minerals that we discussed. Then, they had to decide which mineral they saw the most of and which they saw the least of inside their group's sample. I'm amazed at how well the children were able to manipulate their new learning! After this portion of the lesson, the groups were given 4 samples of a combination rocks and minerals. The children looked carefully at each sample to decipher if each one was a rock or a mineral! They are doing such a great job of applying their learning in these hands-on explorations!

A visit from a Geologist!

The 2nd Graders had a wonderful learning opportunity on Friday! Kayleigh's dad, Dr. Schultz, visited the whole grade level to teach us about Rocks and Minerals! Dr. Schultz works as a professor of the Geosciences at Elmhurst College, and he is truly a Rocks and Minerals expert! We are so fortunate that he took some time out of his busy schedule to come and deepen our understanding of our brand new science curriculum. The children asked some really great questions and were wonderful listeners and learners. After his presentation, Dr. Schultz took some extra time to really examine the rocks we had brought in from home! He helped us look for very specific rock properties and he was able to look through his magnifying glass to determine if the rock was metamorphic, sedimentary, or igneous. The children will be attempting to classify rock samples in our class this week in a similar way! We are so grateful for such an important learning experience! Just when I thought most of my students wanted to be teachers when they grow up... Now they want to be geologists! :)

A Super Star!

Ava D. was our star student last week- the last one of the school year! Her mom and dad came to our class to share a really neat experiment with us! Ava showed us how colors can mix to make new colors. I'm sure the kids went right home to try this one on their own! Ava then read us a hilarious story about Amelia Bedelia. In this story, she did some crazy things while she was babysitting! While Ava was reading, her older sister snuck in for a quick visit, too! Ava is a star because she is very smart, sweet, and an amazingly hard worker! What a great week

We hope you had a happy Mother's Day! By Macy

During school on Friday, we all thought about why we love our mothers. We wrote down as many reasons as we could on our Mother's Day flip-book cards! Then we drew pictures to match. You can see us making our cards in this slideshow. We love our moms so much, and we hope you they a Happy Mother's Day!

Did you hear?!

Our class is having so much fun- its our turn to have access to a class set of Ipads to use for the whole month of May! So far, the kids have practiced their cursive, drilled their math facts, and spent some time reading e-books! We are having so much fun learning through the use of technology!

Kayleigh's Day!

It was Kayleigh's day to shine! Her mom, dad, and her older sister all dropped by our classroom for fun visit! Kayleigh showed us a fascinating experiment in which she was able to make a pin FLOAT on the water, when it naturally is supposed to sink! Amazing! Kayleigh read a very cute story to her classmates - and we had fun sharing all of the reasons that we think she is a star! She is bright, a fluent reader, she sets a great example every day at school, and she is such a serious student! You had a terrific week, Kayleigh!

A Terrific day at the Brookfield Zoo!