We've had the best couple of weeks with Miss Nelms at the helm!! It's been two great weeks of measurement, mapping, and reading group celebrations!! Let's take a look!
Miss Nelms started her 2 week master teaching with units on measurement and geography! Yard sticks and maps and globes never looked so good!!
Miss Nelms also filled our mornings of literacy with work board jobs that celebrated both spring, and maps and globes!
Buddy reading measurement books helped introduce these new units to students! After reading with our buddies, we talked about what we already "know" and what we "want to know"!
Highlighting important vocabulary help us learn all the terms we'd need to know when writing about what we measure. We also learned the difference between measuring "big" things... with yard sticks and meter sticks... and measuring "small" things using rulers and centimeters!
Learning about measurement was an important opportunity to talk about and practice being "precise" and careful when using tools (rulers) to see how long, wide, tall, or short things are!
After practicing with rulers, it was on to bigger and better tasks... so, off the the cafeteria with yardsticks and meter sticks!
Using teamwork, students worked together to measure distance in a large space using our yardsticks and meter sticks! Team work is important when precision is important! And.... Work together we did! Rather well!
Our dear friend, BG has also returned to his home in South Korea just prior to April vacation, and we wish him well! We will miss his enthusiastic laugh, his sweet smile, and his friendly demeanor in 2W!
Along with measurement, Miss Nelms has taught 2W all about maps and globes. Using globes we located all 7 continents, all 5 oceans, and noticed important features of both maps and globes!
Here David shows us how important a compass rose is when learning about cardinal directions on a map! We not only learned about directionality, but found some artistic flair when making our own compass roses! When remembering direction.... Never.... Eat.... Soggy... Waffles! Our way of remembering cardinal directions!
Students also learned about estimating and making "smart guesses" when thinking about measurement and distance!
Comparing maps and globes helped provide a deep understanding of both tools, and how they compare. So... cue venn diagram... compare we did! Using maps and globes we noticed how to best use each, comparing how they are alike, and how they differ!
Amidst all the mapping and measuring, we also celebrated some important learning in our reading groups! After reading about spiders, Niko, Aine, and Trey shared their learning using maps... How appropriate! Each student completed a map of the United States, and created a map key for spiders and where they live in the United States! Every friend shared their maps, and talked about their learning, while also sharing where specific types of spiders live within the United States! Well done friends! What a wonderful couple of weeks it's been! While Miss Nelms has completed her work in 2W, we will remember her fondly and wonder what lucky schoolroom gets to share a classroom with her when she becomes a teacher!!
HAIKU! God bless you... thank you! Hey! Poetry in second grade is nothing to sneeze at! Especially when trying our hand at Haiku, a beautiful, rhythmic, Japanese style of poetry! Students wrote Haiku together, and then tried writing our own Haiku poems too!
After writing workshop, poets shared some of their own Haiku poems! Everything from seasons, to 2W, to weather, to Doughnut Man?
Poetry continues all week as we dabble with different styles, and write from the heart, like poets do!
Madelene has hosted great math meetings all week, and Katie and Kirsten held entertaining morning meetings as well!
In math students showed off all their learning from our geometry unit! Knowing about 2D and 3D shapes, sides, edges, vertices, angles (corners),quadrilaterals, hexagons, and polygons (just to name a few)... along with an understanding of halves, thirds and fourths... and equal parts! All this is just some of what we learned in geometry, but we sure learned how much we LOVE geometry!
2W also talked about what a special place our classroom is, how important our learning is, and how we only have about 20-something days left together! Getting a good night's rest and coming to school prepared for learning is the best homework a second grade friend could have! Making sure to make the most of every day is what we plan on doing in 2W... right through, until the last day! Sleep well... it will make you smart!
