Making Playdough for Spelling in 2nd!

What happens when you give a group of 2nd graders a recipe, some flour, salt, and (gulp) food coloring?  They make playdough without a hitch!  I was so impressed with how each group worked together and followed the recipe on their own.  Now we have playdough to make spelling and sight word practice hands on and fun.

Art Inspired by Pipi Longstocking

Both the boys and the girls have been fascinated by this story of a girl with superhuman strength who lives alone.  At one point, Pipi paints a picture on the wallpaper in her parlor.  The painting is of a lady in a red dress and a black hat.  She holds a yellow flower in one hand and a dead rat in the other.  One of the kids pointed out that she symbolizes life and death.  Pretty deep kiddos we have on 2nd!

Experiments in Buoyancy: STEAM in 2nd!

On a hot afternoon, a little experimentation in buoyancy can hit the spot.  After reading "What This Story Needs is a Pig in a Wig" (a story that piles more and more things and creatures on a boat), we talked about buoyancy.  The kids then got a piece of foil and were given the challenge to make it be able to float as many glass beads as possible.  

Counting and tallying were a part of the process...

Hurray for Centers and.... HAPPY BIRTHDAY SANTI!

Centers allow for lots of movement, individual attention, and variety.  Here are a couple of shots I managed to take last week.  More to come!

We finished off a great week with cupcakes for Santi's birthday!

Making a Crankie: A 2nd Grade Collaboration for the Fall Arts Festival!

There was so much fun and learning happening during the 2nd grade crankie-making week!  A crankie is an old fashioned storytelling device.  Its simple design is mesmerizing because it uses light, imagery, and storytelling... kind of like a tv!  To write our story, the kids started by brainstorming settings.  I thought that they would vote on one setting, but they came up with the awesome idea for each student to draw their own setting and have a main character journey through each one.  

Here is what the crankie looks like when it's almost finished.

To pick the main character of our crankie story, each student drew and named a character.  We hung them up on the board and the kids voted.  Their idea: you can't vote for yourself!

Sebastian votes: democracy in action!

Here is the winning character: Cave Monster!

Scroll down for some of the other awesome character ideas.

Moses and Noah took on the task of decorating the outside of the crankie.

Tessa shows her beautiful piece of the scroll.

This was really cool.  We hung up all of the scroll pieces in a storyboard fashion and each student wrote a sentence for their piece of the story.  It was kind of dreamy seeing the kids give one another ideas for their story pieces.

Each student copied his or her own sentence from the storyboard.

  

Decorating the outside of the crankie box.

You can go visit the 2nd grade crankie and see their story "Cave Monster's Adventure" at the Fall Arts Festival at the Guadalupe Gym from Friday, 9/21-9/30!

Students of the Month!

Congratulations to the 2nd Grade Students of the Month for August:  Paris Ram and Derek Pacheco!

Paris is kind, thoughtful, creative, bright, and a hard worker. 

Derek is curious, inventive, intelligent, and is pushing himself to be a responsible student.

I'm so proud of both of these kiddos!