Today we were lucky to be visited by the Trailblazers Truck.  It was a large truck that came to the school that is filled with engineering and science activities.  All classes 2-5 got to spend 30 minutes learning in the truck.  Check out some of the neat stuff they got to do and see. 

For  the past three days we have been working on the Honeybrook Farm Apple Orchard Play for our STEM unit.  The play taught us all about Integrated Pest Management in a real world apple orchard setting.  We started the play by looking at the 4 seasons and what the orchard would look like for that season.  They we watched a video about integrated pest management.  video  Then they decided on roles in the play.  They practiced the lines and made props for the play.  Today we filmed the play.  They did an amazing job.  I hope you enjoy it. Play

Today for our STEM unit Marianna Becomes a Butterfly we are working on performing a play about integrated pest management.  I can't wait for you to see it tomorrow.  If your child comes home with a note about bringing a prop or a costume  help them remember to bring it tomorrow.  Thanks!!!!

It is building challenge Friday.  I think it is the kids and my favorite.  Today their building challenge was to build a 2 wheel car that could travel on the floor.  They were given the following supplies: balloon, stick, bendable straw, straight straw, tape, rubber band, and 2 hard mints with a whole in the middle.  Check out how they did.  Congratulations to Riley, Laura, and Sofia on the first moving car.

Today we finished our Government/Election Project.  Project  This week the scholars have been hard at work running a campaign for their candidates.  We read the book Yertle the Turtle .  Then we divide the class into two campaigns a Yertle campaign and a Mack campaign.  They had to decide who would be the campaign manager, the candidate, the commercial producers, the speech writers and the advertising makers.   They worked all week getting ready for the conventions today.  We held the conventions and then watched the commercials.  Now that they were informed voters we had the election.  It was close but Yertle one by one vote.  I would say they did some great campaigning for the election to be so close.  Watch the conventions and commercials below.
Conventions

Today we finished our Animal Projects.  Check out our Animal Project.  The kids worked really hard and I was very impressed how serious they were about the type of animals that could go into the tanks together.  They made Tellagamis so they can present their ideas to our PTA.  The presentations are on the bottom of the project.  Project

I am so excited.  This week we started our next STEM unit.  This unit is titled Mariana Becomes a Butterfly and is about agricultural engineering.  This unit is about a girl who lives in the Dominican Republic.  She has a plant that a friend brought to her from Hawaii. The plant won't grow berries like it did when she first got it.  She goes to her aunt for help because her aunt is an agricultural engineer.  They discover that the plant is not getting pollinated because the insect that pollinated the plant is not in the Dominican Republic.  So Mariana creates and redesigns a hand pollinator so she can pollinate the plant.  She is successful and her plant has berries again.

On the first day we spent some time reviewing the different types of engineers we had learned about this year.  Then we discussed and came up with a definition of an agricultural engineer.
Then we spent some time learning about the climate of the Dominican Republic using the following link.  video  We read the story together as a class and discussed what happened.  Then we made diagrams of the parts of a flower and their jobs.

On the 2nd day we discussed the advantages and disadvantages of using a hand pollinator.  We watched a video showing us how to hand pollinate and plant. video Then we used the Phoster App to make posters of the vocabulary words for the story.

Today in the STEM lesson we used an inner and outer circle question strategy to answer comprehension questions about the story.

 Then we reviewed the Engineering Design Process and the steps you follow in this process.  They made flow maps to show the steps Mariana went through to solve her pollination problems using the Popplet App.

We were having so much fun with the Polydron Blocks I gave them a building challenge.  They had to create a boat out of 16 small triangles.  Check out the group that completed the building challenge first.  Congratulations to Jacob, Levi, and Ian.

This week in math we are working on 3-dimensional shapes.  Today we identified how many faces and the shapes of the faces for each on 3-dimensional shapes.  They went and found the faces that were the correct shapes out of Polydron Blocks from our Engineering Lab.  They then had to build the 3-dimensional shapes.  Check out the shapes.

Mark you Calendars!

Cannon's Silent Auction and Cookout will be Saturday, May 4th.

We need your help! Second grade is responsible for a Summertime Fun basket to be sold at the auction.  If you have specific items you wish to donate please notify the volunteer in charge of the grade.  Sending a small monetary donation is the easiest way for many to help.  Our volunteers are prepared to shop!  Items and money can be sent to me and I will give them to the volunteer.  Please send everything before Monday, April 29th.  Thanks!!!

We have been working on retelling stories in reading this week.  Today we worked with partners and wrote a retell.  Then they made i-movies out of their retells.  Check out some of the retells.
retells

Next week we will be looking at the life cycle of the ladybug.  We got some adult ladybugs on Monday.  We got to observe them for a couple of days and today we let them go.  Here are some pictures and observations the children made about the adult stage of ladybugs.

"They can't survive long without food."Emma
"They were very active at first and then not so much today."Bailee
"They all had different numbers of spots and one did not even have spots."Levi
"They can fly."Emily

For fun in math I presented the class with a guess my number challenge.  I showed them six cards with random numbers on them.  I had one of them pick a number that is represented on the cards somewhere.  I then told them the number.  They tried to figure out how I did it.  I taught a student so they believed me that I did not have the cards memorized.  See if you can figure out how they are figuring out the number.

It's building challenge day!!!!! 
We had a special treat today.  We had some of the students from Mrs. Hockenbrough's room join our building challenge.  The challenge for today was:
Build a ramp for a marble from the edge of your desk to the floor out of index cards and masking tape.  The marble must stay on the ramp the whole time and it must be in motion the whole time.  The winning team is the group that can meet the above requirements and have the trip of the marble take the most time. 
Check out some of these winning designs.

Congratulations to for winning the challenge their marble made the trip from desk to floor in 4.2 seconds. Great job Levi, Jacob, Ian, & Macie

Wow I am so impressed.  We have spent the last couple of weeks working on different genres of literature.  For their final projects they picked the genre they liked the best and wrote a story that followed the pattern for that genre.  We went to the media lab to publish the stories.  They are amazing.  Check out all the stories at the bottom of the genres wiki.  I know you will be impressed.
stories

We have been working on animals in science for the last couple of weeks.  This week we are working on camouflage and how animals use this for protection.  We had pretend animals (pieces of egg carton) and we picked a spot in the courtyard to camouflage our animal so they would blend in.  Then we went back out and tried to locate all of them.  Wow they were hard to see I could only find 7 out of 18.  Can you find the pretend animal in the picture below?

"Some of our pretend animals had really good camouflage."Emma
"Some of them were on the ground and some were in the bushes."Bailee

We have been working on fractions for 2 weeks now in math.  Today for their math journal I gave them a fraction word problem challenge.  They worked in groups to try and figure out the challenge.  Congratulations to Ian, Alberto, and Saxton to be the first group to solve the challenge.  Then they presented how they solved the challenge to the class.  Here is the challenge.

Cookie Jar Challenge Fractions

There was a jar of cookies on the table.

First, Julio came along.  Julio was very hungry because he hadn’t had any lunch, so he ate half the cookies in the jar.

Marilyn came next.  She had missed dessert, so she ate one third of what was left.

At that point, Marcus came by, and he took three fourths of the remaining cookies.

Then Shauna came jogging along and took one cookie to munch on.

If one cookie was left at that point, how many cookies were there in the jar to begin with?

Right now in math we are working on a fraction project.  We are working on fractions of a shape and fractions of a set.  Check out our project.  project