The learning continues!

 The children are amazing me with the learning they are doing about the forces that change earth's surface in our content literacy unit! They are reading and considering the impact that volcanoes, mountains, and erosion have on the surface of the earth. They are also deciding if the changes that occur are constructive or destructive, or take long or short periods of time.

 To change up our practice of subtraction with regrouping, we had some relay races! The children enjoyed some friendly competition!

 Miss Wilson brought in some old artifacts that her mother had collected from long ago. The children had some fun guessing what the items were, and what they were used for!

 The children were eager to share facts and questions they had come up with that connected to and deepened their learning.

 The kids were becoming so excited about their reading, that writing it down wasn't enough... they were forming a line behind me everywhere I went to show me and read to me what they had found! I LOVE this excitement!!

 The kids have really been enjoying reading in a new way the last few weeks of school- using the Zing! app available to us through the Schoolwide reading program. The children can read material that not only aligns with the content we are learning, but they can access books that match their guided reading level too! Make sure to keep this app handy to use over the summer!

 The children realized they can highlight and make notes within the text! They also found a pop-up read aloud option in case the material became challenging and they preferred to switch to listening to it!

 The Zing! app was a great way to buddy read, too!

 In math we have been working on dividing equal groups. We learned that sometimes the number of items divides evenly, but sometimes there is a remainder left over.

 We invited Mrs. Kelly into our classroom to be our super star last week! We loved getting to know another VIP in our Dryden office! She brought in a cute story to read to us- Little Red Riding Hood- and it came along with an awesome doll that flipped from Little Red, to Grandma, to the Big Bad Wolf!

 Thanks for coming in so we could learn more about such a fun and important person in our school, Mrs. Kelly!

 We were so excited to participate in Junior Achievement last week, too! Mrs. Kim came in and shared a number of lessons with us that related to living in the community.

 We worked together to make donuts- making sure to make them properly and having them inspected before they were ready to be sold after production.

 The children went on to design their own fancy donuts and write about them!

 We learned about how to make important decisions- weighing the pros and cons carefully before making a decision. We also learned that community decisions should be the best decisions for EVERYONE not just what WE want.

 The children earned some money during their donut lesson, but then the tax collector came and took some of it! The children thought about where their hard earned money went, reviewing the community services provided with money from tax payers that we learned about back during our citizenship unit.

 On of our 5th graders decided to put together a service project raising money for an Epilepsy foundation. The kids and I thought we would like to contribute, so we did some quick math. We figured that if everyone brought in 50¢, we would be able to contribute $10.00 to Maggie's cause! After counting our change on Monday, we donated $16.76 to Maggie's service project! What a nice lesson learning to share just a little of what we have with a worthy cause!

 The children spent their last few days of math lessons practicing their multiplication facts! We played "Calculator vs. the Brain" and raced to see who could find out the products first! We realized that we already know some of the facts and were already beginning to beat the calculator!!

The 2nd graders prepared for a field trip to 3rd grade! They were challenged to come up with questions to ask before our trip. The questions had to be "thick" questions, not "thin" questions, meaning they could not be questions that are answered with a yes or no. We learned to rephrase our questions to begin with "Tell me about..." and "What was your favorite" and "What was the hardest" to spark good conversation with our 3rd grade buddies!

 It was so much fun watching the 2nd graders look around Mrs. Morizzo's classroom and take in all they can! The 3rd graders did a terrific job explaining units they learned, the daily schedule, class jobs, field trips they took, and even how the behavior plan works!

 Our science lessons took a bit of a messy turn the last few days! The children were challenged to create a mountain out of dirt, sand, and water. We thought about how water and erosion change the surface of the mountain over time.

 THEN we made it rain on our mountain! We watched how the water carried away rocks and sediment from the mountain, and how the surface began to change. On some mountains, the peak began to wear away. On other mountains, little rock slides formed that tumbled down the side of the mountain. It was so much fun to witness how erosion works on a smaller scale!

 Finally, the children were challenged to build a house on their mountain. They were provided with various resources to use to potentially protect their house from erosion over time, including base 10 blocks, popsicle sticks, plastic baggies, rubber bands, etc.

 Then we made it rain again! The children did a great job thinking of ways to keep their house stable on the mountain despite the erosion created by water!

 And THEN it was time for the 1st graders to come in and take a look around in a 2nd grade classroom! Our 2nd graders loved showing the 1st graders all they could about our classroom, routines, and lessons/units we studied this year!