Winter Party!!

We had a great time at our 2nd Grade Winter Party!


We rotated through 3 different stations:


1. Pin the carrot nose on the snowman

2. Cookie decorating

3. Design your own winter mug

 

Thank you parents for all your help! It was great to see all of you!

 

 

Enjoy the Winter Break!

 

I will see you on Monday, January 7, 2013.

Happy New Year!!

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Jan Brett Author Study

One of the authors we study in 2nd grade is Jan Brett. She is famous for her books, The Mitten, and The Hat. We read these first in class.

We then went to the library to learn more about Jan Brett and read some more of her wonderful books.  Mrs. Biamont, our amazing librarian, had stations for us to use technology to learn about our author. We had 5 stations we rotated thru. Each station had a different type of technology to learn from.

At one station, students listened to Armadillo Rodeo on ipods.

At station 2, students predicted what would happen in Hedgie's Surprise and then listened to the story on ipod touches.

At station 3, students listened to The Three Little Dassies on ipod touches, and then used the ipads to watch videos about Jan Brett to learn where her inspiration came from.

At another station, students were on the mac laptops reading a powerpoint with information about Jan Brett. Students then took a quiz on the ipad to access what they learned.

At the last station, Mrs. Biamont was helping students write a letter to Jan Brett.

We had a great time learning about Jan Brett with all the technology. :)

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Science Night

I hope all that had the opportunity to come to Science Night enjoyed learning some new things about Science!!!


I had fun at my station which was Sink or Float?


Students were able to examine different types of rocks with a magnifying glass,

  predict if the physical properties of the rock would allow the rock to sink or float, and then test out their hypothesis.

 
 


 After trying many rocks, they came to one conclusion: the less dense rocks float. Most rocks are very dense which is why most rocks do not float.

We only had one rock that did float!

As the night went on, that one rock above became water-logged and didn't float much. I kept going to the drying in the bathroom to help the rock out. Eventually, none of the rocks floated. :)

If you were not able to make it to Science Night this year, I encourage you to attend next year. All who came, appeared to have a great time.

Paper Plates and Motion?

In our study of motion, we looked at the movements of sliding, spinning, and rolling.

We had fun creating a pinwheel to represent spinning in the wind, a wagon with pasta wheels to represent rolling, and then we used a paper plate to represent sliding across the room as if we were skating.

The question we were testing was: How can you get the paper plate from one side of the room to the other side of the room?

At first, so tried rolling. Other tried spinning. But, sliding was the most effective way to the get the plate around the room.

See some pictures of the fun we had below.

 

 

   

Motion: Toy Cars & Dominoes!

We used toy cars and dominoes to help us learn about motion in science. We made ramps out of dictionary books and a mini-whiteboard to build a ramp. We then let our play cars go down the ramp and measured the total distance traveled.

We learned that:

Color and size did not make our car travel a farther distance. What made our car go farther was the change in position of the car from the top of the ramp to the bottom of the ramp. The height of the ramp allowed the car to gain speed to travel farther. The higher the ramp, the farther the car traveled.

We also looked at the results of the different cars our friends brought in to see which car traveled the farthest and why?

We learned that color, size, or change in position was not the key for the fastest car.

We concluded...It was the weight of the car that made the difference. The lighter the car = the faster the car traveled down the ramp. The faster the car traveled down the ramp = the farther distance the car traveled.

Dominoes!!!

A domino designer (via video) taught us how the energy stored in a domino can actually topple a domino close to twice it’s size.  He used graduated sizes to demonstrate the concept.   We also watched a domino artist (via video) who created designs with a variety of techniques to learn about dominoes and chain reaction.

Then, we had time to experiment with dominoes to build our own designs and learn about chain reactions. Our 5th grade book buddies from Ms. Marron's class joined us in this adventure. See some of our designs and the fun we had below.
 

A free scrapbook design by Smilebox

We learned:

That creating a domino design is not easy! It can be very frustrating because it takes so long to set up and one little movement will cause the reaction to start.

Once a motion starts, you can't stop it. Then you have to begin again.

If your chain reaction stops in the middle, next time you have to make sure your domoinoes are close enough together so that energy can transfer from the previous domino to the next domino to continue the chain reaction.

Learning is FUN!!!

Fun with Magnets!!!

We went on a classroom magnet scavenger hunt this week to see which items in our classroom were magnetic or non-magnetic. See some of what we learned below.

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Winter Party Info.

Hello  Parents,

It’s hard to believe that the holidays are upon us and it’s time to start planning our WINTER PARTY!  Our party is scheduled for Friday, December 21st from 1:50p.m. to 2:50p.m. 

We are asking for each child to please contribute $5.00 cash to go towards the purchase of party supplies and crafts.  Please send your contribution to your  child’s teacher  in an envelope marked “Winter Party” by  Friday, December 7th.  Make sure your child’s name is also on the envelope. 

Our theme for this year’s party is Snowmen!  We have some fun and exciting activities planned for the kids and we are looking forward to a great time! 

If you have any questions or you would like to help out during the party, please contact Cristina Crawford via email at Crawford_Cristina@yahoo.com

Thank you in advance for your support in making our Winter Party a big success for our children.  We really appreciate your help and cooperation. 

Sincerely,

Cristina Crawford

Room Parents for Ms. Matt's Class