SEA WORLD Field Trip!

Last Friday we had a blast going on a behind the scenes tour of Sea World for our field trip! Not only did we get to see and learn about amazing animals such as dolphins, sharks, stingrays, Beluga whales, and more, but we actually got to TOUCH Spotted Bamboo Sharks and stingrays!!! It was so cool! The shark's back was really rough but the stingray's back felt really slimy. We learned that the stingray's back was so slimy because the top of it is covered in a layer of mucus. Gross! We also learned:

-Not all whales are dolphins, but all dolphins are whales.

-A dolphin's tail fin moves up and down when it swims but a shark's tail fin moves from side to side when it swims.

-The Spotted Bamboo Shark's back is as hard as a tooth.

-Some dolphins can jump up to 25 feet in the air!

Here are a few pictures and a short video from our fun-filled day. :)

Area Robots

Math is the favorite subject for many kiddos in our class. Last week we ended our Measurement Unit by learning about area. To understand that area measures things in squares that fill the entire inside of a closed shape, we designed robots on grid paper. After we designed our robots, we found the area of our robot's head, arms, body, and legs, then added them together to find the total area of our robot. This made learning about area fun even for our friends whose favorite subject isn't Math! 

Who let the cat out of the bag?

We are always learning new techniques in our writing and practice improving our skills each day, but the one thing that is never new to us is writing nice things to our friends! Recently, we did an activity called "Who Let the Cat out of the Bag?" to send SUPER SECRET letters to our classmates. Each of us drew a name of one of our classmates from a bag and wrote an anonymous letter to them to let them know how great of a leader they are and why we like being in the same class as them. We had to "let the cat out of the bag" and let them know that their leadership skills are not a secret and other people notice them! After we were done writing our letters, we snuck them over to Mrs. Story's desk and she delivered them at the end of the day. We still have no idea who said such nice things to us, but it definitely made us happy and feel good about ourselves! Mrs. Story even CRIED while she was reading the letters we wrote to each other. :)

Oh, the places we'll go...

During Dr. Suess week we did SEVERAL activities to encourage reading throughout our school. We had different ways to dress up each day which made it even more fun! One of the activities we did in 2nd Grade turned out so well that it was put on display in the hallway. We read the book "Oh, The Places You'll Go!" by Dr. Suess and then thought about the places we actually want to go in our lives and the different things we want to accomplish throughout the years. We wrote each of the different places/things we thought of on arrows to represent the many directions we will go in life and then wrote a paper describing these different places we want to go and how we will get there. The 2nd Grade teachers know that we will do great things both now and in the future and can't wait to see us work hard to reach these goals and get to these amazing places! Here are a few pictures of our work on display:

Dinosaur George and Family Night

Yesterday was a big day in the Forest! Not only did Dinosaur George set up an incredible exhibit for us to tour, go on a scavenger hunt in, and learn lessons about, but we ended the day with our families at our annual Leader in Me Family Night! 2nd Grade and 4th Grade buddied up to cover Habit 6: Synergize. We wanted to stick with a Dinosaur theme since we were all so excited to see and learn from Dino George earlier that day! We created a game called CAPTURE THE DINOSAUR where friends and family members could synergize to trap little dinosaurs under cups and create towers with cups around the larger dinosaurs. All you had to do was pull the ribbons around the cup at the same time as your partners to grab, lift, and drop the cup to trap the dinosaurs inside. It sounds pretty easy, but when the cup fell over and you couldn't touch it with your hands it became more challenging. :) An incredibly artistic student in our class helped me create a poster for our game (see the picture below!). Having Dino George, fun games, friends, family, and yummy food trucks all over the school sure made for a really exciting day!

Thank you, HH, for helping me create our poster!

National Read Across America Day

Thanks to our intelligent and creative buddy class in Florida, we now know about National Read Across America Day! According to the National Education Association's website,  "NEA's Read Across America is an annual reading motivation and awareness program that calls for every child in every community to celebrate reading on March 2, the birthday of beloved children's author Dr. Seuss." 

Our buddy class had a REALLY fun idea to make this day come to life! Not only did they want to encourage reading across America, they wanted to LITERALLY read across America! To do this, we Skyped with Mrs. Richardson's class this morning which allowed us to hear the story, "I Ain't Gonna Paint No More" by Karen Beaumont all the way in Texas from Florida! We loved hearing the story and seeing all of the colorful pictures. Thanks for reading to us today, Mrs. Richardson's class! :)

Source: http://www.nea.org/grants/read-across-background.html