Water Cycle

Today we learned about the "Bossy R," that tells vowels to make an angry sound. Bossy R is polite, though, because he lets the vowel go first. When one group was at guided reading with me, they were generating r-controlled words and decided to add "fart" to the list. Oh, my! We created interactive notebooks during writing today. The notebooks will become a place to collect all the spelling rules we learn this year. We are doing something similar for science and social studies, as well. In our science notebooks, we wrote a definition for evaporation. Tomorrow we'll add condensation. We made mini water cycles-in-action. We drew the sun, a cloud, and waves onto the outside of a sandwich baggie, added a little water and blue food coloring, and taped the bags to the window. We will watch what happens as the sun hits the window in the mornings. As the water evaporates and condensation accumulates, we can tap on the bag to watch the droplets combine to make bigger drops that will get heavy enough to "rain." Cool, huh? The students are super excited!

Contraction Surgeons

Students had fun becoming surgeons today, operating on two words that needed to be joined to form a contraction. They wore "surgical masks" and used bandages to join the words.

Contractions

We will be learning about contractions this week so I added a contraction game to my links (see the right side bar). I am also happy to share with you that your student will now be able to take AR tests in our classroom. Students are able to take tests on a first-come/first-served basis in the morning, during their computer center time, and during SSR.

Pumpkin Patch

Despite the dreary weather, we had a blast at the pumpkin patch. I loved being Miss Frizzle, driving the class on a field trip! The kids were well behaved so I was able to focus on driving us there safely.

Pumpkin Pie Tasting

As promised, today was the day to roast pumpkin seeds. Students estimated the number of seeds from the largest pumpkin that we cut open yesterday. Today, we counted the washed and dried seeds as we put them into the pan to roast them. I believe the actual count was around 357 seeds! Students also got to taste pumpkin pie (with whipped cream)! I think some of them enjoyed the pie more than they thought they would.

Pumpkin Fun

Both 2nd grade classes worked together to guess how many seeds would be in 3 different sized pumpkins. We then went outside to cut the pumpkins open to confirm our guesses. Students enjoyed removing the gooey seeds from the pumpkins. Mrs. Carsner and I washed the seeds from one pumpkin and are letting them dry overnight. Tomorrow, we will roast the seeds and taste them, along with pumpkin pie.

Bug Funeral

During recess yesterday, Kamryn discovered that the ladybug she had picked up off the slide was dead so she and her friends decided to give it a proper burial. The friends joined hands and circled the burial site. McKenna borrowed Jordyn's Bible and read a passage. Mrs. Carsner and I were close enough to hear what was being read, and surprisingly, the passage was about death and returning to God!