With the money we had remaining after our donation, the students decided to buy two new book baskets for our classroom library, two new fluffy floor pillows, and seven new books to add to our classroom library. They wanted to get a few of our favorite from the top 20 and a few new series books.
We recently finished up reading the top 20 picture books of 2021. Each day we count down our list and the students choose their current favorite. Once we've read all 20 books, each student chooses his or her favorite to write up a review to post in the hallway to let others know to check out our top choices.
The students were so excited to celebrate Valentine's Day on Monday! They enjoyed handing out their Valentine cards, opening their cards, and dancing and playing in the room.
Earlier in the week we measured our towers. In the end, it didn't matter which group had the tallest tower. Each group accomplished the goal of working together and problem solving in order to have a standing tower. They all did great!
Our next science unit teaches students about what engineers do. We've learned that engineers ultimately solve problems. They may start out by sketching out their ideas, build their ideas, test their ideas, and make changes to their ideas. There are many types of engineers, and this week the 2nd graders got to try their hand at engineering by building towers with materials that are not really made for building! The class was given the challenge to build the tallest tower using 30 spaghetti noodles and 30 marshmallows.
They began by individually sketching out their ideas. Once they were placed in their small group, they compared their ideas and discussed what they thought would work and not work.
Once they got their supplies they got to work! The students quickly realize just how challenging this project is. Spaghetti noodles easily snap and marshmallows are gooey. A lot of problem solving is needed! Another key to this project is great teamwork and maintaining positive communication with their group members.
Last week the students earned a Banana Bingo! After brainstorming a list of ideas for celebration, they ultimately decided on Electronic Day. The students were able to bring in a device from home and had the last 25 minutes of the day to use their device with friends.
The class cheered last week when I announced that with 3rd quarter beginning, we also begin science! We talked about what the word science means to us. The class had many replies: doing experiments, learning about nature, learning about the earth, asking questions, designing things, working with chemicals, learning about animals, learning about how things work, and much more! Our first science unit is designed to take students through the scientific method. We started with a question, designed an experiment, made a hypothesis, ran our experiment, and analyzed our data to form a conclusion.
Our first question was: "How can we keep bananas fresher longer?" Our experiment used 3 different methods: putting a banana in a sealed plastic bag, putting a banana in the fridge, and wrapping a banana stem with plastic wrap. We checked on our bananas each day and wrote down our observations. We noticed that the banana in the fridge turned brown very quickly, the banana with the plastic wrap formed brown spots throughout the week, while the banana in the bag looked the freshest the longest. On our final day we peeled the bananas to find that the 3 bananas on the inside, all looked pretty similar. Our conclusion was the banana in the plastic bag and the banana in the fridge were equally fresh on the inside.
Last week the high school celebrated "Snow Week." They invited us to decorate cupcakes with them on Tuesday morning. The class was pretty excited to join in on this activity!
