We worked on our Forces today in the engineering lab.  We had four stations that looked at force and motion.  Check out our fun learning and observations. 

"The more push you put on the tops the faster they went."  Jude
"On the Tip Tops you need to use a push and pull force." Jacob
"The bugs did not go straight." Brooklyn

For Science today we were looking at the amount of "pull" force it would take to set a full water bottle in motion.  We used washers as our pull force.  Then once it had moved we looked at how many more it took to more it more.  We all got very different results.  Then we brainstormed what were the possible differences in our experiment.  You should have heard their amazing insights.

"When my tables water bottle was at the one measurement it only took one more washer to get it to move to the number 4 measurement."Jude
"We used less washer to move bottles that had a little less water."Laura
"The bottles with less water used less washer to pull the bottles."Riley
"If you dropped the washer into the cup from a high height it move quicker than if you carefully put them into the cup."Jacob
"Our tables water bottle did not inch along the measurement page it flew off the table because we were dropping the washers from a high height."Bailee
"The more washers you put in the more distance the bottle moved because the "pull"force was stronger."Ian

Today in science we are continuing to work on the forces push and pull.  We pushed and pulled a light and heavy box through a tape obstacle course.

"When you pushed the box your arms were straight.  When you pulled the box your arms bent." Jacob
"The lighter the box was the easier it was to push and pull." Emma
"It was harder to push and pull the box when it was full of books because the mass was greater."Bailee
"Your back was straighter when you were pushing."Levi
"When the box was full it was hard to steer the box around the curves."Jude

In science we are learning about the forces of push and pull.  We learned that a force is needed to set an object in motion.  Today we talked about how mass effects how much force is need to set an object in motion.  The kids predicted that the more mass an object had the more force we would have to apply to set it in motion.  We conducted an experiment to test their prediction.  We used a ruler ramp a golf ball and empty and full pudding boxes to test our predictions.  We proved that we were correct.  Check out our pictures.

"The lighter the box was the greater distance it went." Jacob
"The heavier it was the shorter distance it went." Emma

Welcome back.  Check out our new school project.

Monday, 11/26, marks the date of the official kickoff for our campus- wide community service project aimed at collecting and donating SHOES!  We are working with an organization called Soles4Souls, whose mission is simple...to collect shoes and deliver them to people in need. The new and gently used shoes are given directly to victims of poverty, with the shoes that have been more heavily used are donated to support recycling & micro-enterprise programs in Haiti, Honduras, Bolivia, and other countries. This is a wonderful opportunity for our scholars to be involved in a community- service project and experience the joy of giving to those in need! This effort will also provide opportunities for global learning experiences, as well as grade level “shoe-related” engineering/design challenges. Second Grade will build patriotic shoes out of masking tape.  You can check out Soles4Souls on their website: http://www.soles4souls.org/ Thanks for your support of this project—let’s help change the world—one pair at a time!

Today we finished up our character traits projects.  We wrote new stories for familiar characters while staying true to their traits.  We wrote the stories on the ipads using the app story kit.  The books are at the bottom of our project page.  Can't wait for you to enjoy them as much as I did.
character traits project

Today in math we were working on our place value project.  We were discovering how there are many ways to make any given number.  For example for the number 224 we could show that number many ways with our hundreds, tens, and ones blocks.  Here are some examples:
"224 ones" Emma
"2 hundreds and 24 ones." Jacob
"1 hundred, 10 tens, and 24 ones."Alberto
"2 hundreds, 1 tens, and 14 ones."Brooklyn
"2 hundreds, 2 tens, and 4 ones."Laura
"22 tens and 4 ones"Alberto
"1 hundred, 12 tens, and 4 ones."Aidan
"1 hundred and 124 ones."Jacob

Reminders!!!!!!!

MARK YOUR CALENDARS!
November 15th—5:30—7:30
Cannon Family Night!
A fun-filled evening you won’t want to miss!!
5:30—6:00—Cannon Choir Performances (cafeteria)
5:30—7:30—Book Fair (library)
6:00-7:30—Family STEM Night! - Visit your child’s classroom for a hands-on STEM-based experience
(Science, Technology, Engineering, Math) and discover more about how your child is learning this year!
The STEM+ Engineering Lab will be open from 6:00-7:30. Please stop by for hands-on, learning fun and explore:
Light and Shadow Play Sound Station Building Structures Legos Robotics
SEE YOU THERE!!

It is design challenge day. 
Build a Frog House
Challenge: Work with a partner and take 32 base ten blocks.  You may take any combination of hundreds, tens and ones.  You must use all of your blocks to build a frog house.  Guess the value of your house.  Then count the blocks and find the true value of your house.  Congratulations to Ian and Levi.  What a frog house.

"When you put the tuning fork up to the ping pong ball it made it bounce because of the vibrations."Jacob
"On the drums the bigger the drum was the more sound it made."Jude
"When you put the drum on the table the sound waves were trapped and it made a lower sound than when you picked them up they were louder."Aidan
"On the ping pong ball the louder the sound from the tuning fork the more the ball bounced."Saxton

Today in science we were working with different materials to make observations about sound.
"Not all of the items made the same sound." Laura
"Sometimes you could get the same sound if you used it the same way." Jacob
"Different things made different sounds." Alberto
"We figured out sound is vibration." Laura
"The vibrations were so strong on some of the items that it could move another item."Aidan

Laura Roberts is Mrs. Ganus’ class Hall of Fame inductee for the 2nd nine weeks. Laura is a wonderful scholar.  I could spend hours talking about her wonderful qualities but the real reason why I picked Laura was her fairness.  Whenever we are working in groups or with partners Laura is one of the first scholars picked.  After watching her work with partners and groups I can see why.  She is always fair to everyone in her group.  She takes turns, shares the work evenly and listens to other people’s ideas.  She never tells someone that they are wrong or that their idea will not work just because they are different from her own.  She tells them good thinking.  When it is time to come up with a final idea Laura comes up with a fair plan on how to choose.  She never gets upset if her idea does not get picked.  Most important if in the end she finds out her idea was right you will never hear her say I told you so.  She is once again ready with encouraging words.  We all can learn so much from Laura’s fairness and how to respect others thinking.  We are very lucky to have a scholar like her as part of our class.

Yesterday we learned about the pilgrims first winter in the new land.
"The first winter was very cold and they had no houses."Jacob
"Some of the pilgrims wished they could just go home to England because they were so miserable."Alberto
"They were still living on the Mayflower because they did not have any homes yet."Emma
"The pilgrims and Native Americans were scared of each other and stayed away from each other."Aidan
"The pilgrims got very sick and half of them died the first winter."Laura

Today we learned about how the Native Americans helped the remaining pilgrims survive in the spring of 1621 by teaching them some needed skills. 
"Squanto taught them how to grow corn."Brooklyn
"They taught them how to hunt in the new land."Ian
"They taught them how to fish."Jude