Monday's Message! By Drew

Today was a fun day. We had PE and Music class this morning. In PE we played Capture the Football.  In Music we played the drums. We made our own spelling lists because this is a review week in Treasures.  We learned the cursive capital letter F.  We worked on our graphic organizers for our "Save the Earth" essays. We are writing 3 paragraphs about reducing, reusing and recycling, with a catchy opening and a good closing sentence too. We read a little about endangered animals, too! We reviewed and took our unit test before we start our Rock and Mineral unit tomorrow.  In math we talked about the area of different shapes.  We traced our hand and our foot on centimeter grid paper and then counted how many square centimeters they were.  We also took a mad minute that was mixed addition and subtraction facts!

Have a good evening!
Drew

Our Star Student!

Not only was Amelia our star this week, but today was also her birthday! Her mom, dad, and her younger brother Andrew all came in for a visit this afternoon. Amelia and her dad did an experiment that showed us how they could transfer a liquid from one bowl to another using air pressure!  She then read us a cute story about Froggy's visit to Hawaii. Great job, Amelia! Happy Birthday!

Save the Earth!

During our unit on Saving the Earth, the children were exposed to a variety of concepts, including: renewable/nonrenewable resources, conservation, as well as the three R's- reduce, reuse, recycle. We had a few interesting hands-on learning experiences to help deepen our understanding of these concepts including our fishing activity and a simulated oil spill. Today the children put one of the 3 R's into action (Reuse!) as they turned their old milk jugs into a brand new bird feeder. Not only did we find a new use for an old item, but we made less garbage in the process! We love the Earth! :)

Junior Achievement- What are taxes?

During our Junior Achievement lesson this week, the kids learned how money flows through the community. They learned that it takes money to make money! They also watched as some of their hard earned money was collected by the tax collectors to pay for the services found in a community, including the police and firemen, post office workers, and even the teachers!

Wednesday's Whereabouts by Danny

We had a rainy day at school today.  This morning we had a special visit from our teacher/actor, Ms. Gladu, from the Metropolis!  During our lesson today, we learned about emotions. She brought a jar full of brightly colored feathers. We attached an emotion to each one, and then showed with our body how that might look.  (example emotions: happy, sad, angry, and embarrassed.) We then talked about how exciting stories have conflicts and resolutions.  We thought about our interview of Mrs. Jojo, and we remembered the stories that she told us that we could talk about conflict/resolution! We quickly thought of 2. One was of Mrs. Jojo and her sister making mudballs (they got in trouble!) and the other was of Mrs. JoJo and her friend Diane swinging on the swings into outer space.  We had fun acting out these stories using our imaginations.  It was a fun lesson!

In art class today we had a sub, and had fun during "Doodle Day!" We had the chance to draw freely in a book.

In math we practiced adding money amounts using a decimal point with a calculator. We played Miss O'Sullivan in a game where we rolled the dice for pennies, nickels, dimes, quarters, and dollars. We added up the total amounts and Miss O'Sullivan won. :(  We also practiced buying items at the store. We estimated their amounts and then we added the actual amounts too.  (William bought ketchup and bananas. We wondered what he was making!)

Have a nice evening!
Danny

Tuesday's Tidbit by Danny

This morning we wrote about our oil spill activity from the other day. During that lesson, we all had a bowl of water. We poured vegetable oil in it to represent an oil spill (similar to the spill in the Gulf.) Then we put some cinnamon in it to represent the sludge. Last we dropped some marshmallows in the water to represent the animals that live in the ocean. We blew them around with a straw. They were completely covered in the sludge and oil. Then we tried to get the oil out of the water with a spoon. It was very difficult! It was sticking to the top of the water. We tried and tried but couldn't get it all out.  We learned that oil spills are unfortunate, and we have to watch out for all of the animals around us because once that happens it doesn't just affect them, it affects us too! Fish are a part of our food chain and if they get sick, we will get sick too. The animals can't speak for themselves so we have to do it for them!

In our Treasures book we read a nonfiction expository text about the moon. We learned that the first two people to land on the moon were Neil Armstrong and Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin.  Did you know that the moon is made of rock? There is air, water, or life on the moon. It is completely silent! The footprints that were made will never get washed away because there is no movement or life or water or air that could possibly change it.  We watched a clip of the Space shuttle Apollo 11 blasting into outer space in 1969.

We had library this afternoon. We learned that there is an author coming to visit the 2nd graders at Dryden. She has written books about Toads and we are bringing home some information about that today!

In math we talked about prices from 1897 and compared them with prices from today. We noticed prices have changed a lot- they have gone up! Money has grown has less valuable over time, there seems to be more of it around these days! We practiced entering money amounts into the calculator. We also practiced in our math journals. It is important to always remember to line up the decimal points when you are adding or subtracting money.

Book order forms are coming home today, too! They are due on Friday.

See you tomorrow!
Danny

Unit vs. Assembly Production

We had another visitor this week! Ms. Younan, our Junior Achievement representative, popped in this afternoon to teach us about Unit vs. Assembly Production. In order to experience the difference, the children worked in two separate teams to make paper donuts! One team worked using Unit Assembly (one person made the entire donut) while the other team worked as a team (each took steps to prepare the donut. One mixed, one shaped, one frosted.) We found that the best quality came from Unit Assembly, while the most donuts came as a result of the Assembly production! (Assembly had the most defective donuts, however!) The children really enjoyed this lesson!