Ending our Dinosaur Unit

We are wrapping up our last week of dinosaur science! Today we learned about the triceratops, made dinosaur tracks, measured a t-rex foot with non-standard unit (cubes), and listened to dinosaur songs!

Goldilocks Retelling

We've been working on a lot on talking about books and retelling stories lately.  This week, we practiced retelling Goldilocks and the Three Bears in different ways.  First we used a timeline to retell as a class and then we made these journals to help us retell the story in order.  Tomorrow we will do a reader's theater version of it! These are all great ways to help us retell using character names, details, words like "first" "next" and "last" and to help us retell in order.

Reading Buddies

I started bringing in 2nd grade buddies two mornings a week to be my 'teacher helpers.'  They stay for 15 minutes and I assign them to a different student each time.  They will help do heart word practice and games or just sit and read with the kids.  We love having our buddies come!

Biography Reports

We just wrapped up our biography report presentations and they all did so good! This is a Brighton tradition that will build upon itself each year they are at the school.  The kids dress up, make a poster, tell us some facts about the person and answer a few questions.

Reading with Sticky Notes

We have been working a lot on how to talk about books and using the word 'because.' This week, each student received four sticky notes with each of the strategies we've been talking about.  The heart represents their favorite part, the lightbulb is something new they learned, the person is a connection they made and the exclamation point is something cool they found.

First, they start off by sitting back to back so they can quietly read their books and look for places to mark with their sticky notes to share later. They have a mixture of non-fiction, fiction and books they can read all the words too in their boxes. 

 

After about 5 minutes, I call out EEKK which stands for elbow to elbow and knee to knee.  This is their sharing position.  This is when they turn and share their sticky notes.  We've been talking a lot about being good listeners and also how to use the word because. 

More Dinosaur Fun

Dinosaurs is one of my favorite science units to teach, there is so much to learn and so many fun activities to do! The best part is that the kids get so excited and so into it. 

They were very excited about these glitter dinosaurs, they helped us learn the names of different dinosaurs and also work on our fine motor skills with having to cut such little details. 

 

...glitter is my favorite color! 

We made dinosaur hats which inspired lots of fun dinosaur imaginative play. 

  

And we made paleontologists which will hold the journal pages for our writing about dinosaurs, the pages fit right inside the jacket of the paleontologist. 

Each week we will learn about a different dinosaur, this week we learned about a bubble map and wrote facts about a t-rex.

Addition Strategies in Math

We've been learning about different strategies for adding in math. So far, we've learned:

Count on your fingers

 Use manipulatives (cubes or counting bears)

 Draw a picture

Use a number line

Here is what it looks like when we use a number line.  

Roll a dice, hop your frog to that number, roll another dice and hop that many times.  

Write your equation to see what is the answer to your addition problem. 

Auction Project

Here is this year's auction project done by Mary (Lily's mom).  She did just a great job making this lamp, it was a huge hit at the auction preview day.  To make the shade, she ordered the white pieces and had pictures printed on transparencies.  Then she drilled holes in each frame and connected them with jump rings.  She found the clear lamp base at Target and we had the kids watercolor the hexagons to add to the base.  I LOVE this project!