Balance and Motion

For the past 8 weeks our classroom has been studying balance and motion in science.  Students have learned about what it means to be balanced and how they can effect balance using counterweights.  They studied a variety of toys that work using motion -- from spinning tops to whirling zoomers and rolling wheels and cups -- they have played and learned!  All of this learning and experimenting ended with a culminating activity this past week - building a marble rollercoaster.  Students applied what they have learned and created a classroom sized roller coaster for a marble to navigate.  It was amazing to watch as they processed their failures and discussed how they would adjusted their coaster to make it work.  You could certainly see that they understood the concepts of force, motion, and gravity. And honestly, how fun is it to build a rollercoaster??

Students experimented with shorter coasters first to see how they would act.

Groups then assembled all of their tracks together to create one LONG class coaster.

Our Elf On The Shelf

Reading a book on the bookshelf.

Christmas Joy decided to play teacher and list our objectives for the day!

Christmas Joy, our classroom Elf on the Shelf, has been keeping us on our toes!  We begin our day by finding where he has settled in after his nightly trek back to the North Pole.  Some days he leaves us messages - which is fun - and other days he is just hanging out watching us.  I wonder what he is telling Santa each night?  Is our 2nd grade TEAM on the nice list or have a few migrated over to Naughty???  Only time will tell because we have asked Christmas Joy and he's not giving the info up!

Hanging out by the Smartboard!

Making friends with Albert the Potato Head (and borrowing his specs!)

Our M.V.P. BilliJo

This picture is a picture of me in my swimsuit and necklace.

That is me, my brother, my other brother, and my sister.

This is a picture of me at my house.

This picture is a picture of me wrapped in toliet paper.  It was our fall party and I was being made into a mummy.

This is a picture of me and my mom and I was really little and I was wearing a wig.

Our M.V.P. Sophie

    Guess what?  On Monday we got a surprise.  As soon as Mrs. Kunkle announced that Santa left us a package from the North Pole we were going crazy and wild.  After we went wild Dannika went to the office to get the package. 
    She walked back to our classroom and said "Wow, this package is really cold!" 
    Mrs. Heath said, "Yes, it is supposed to be cold.  It is from the North Pole."  "Class calm down." said Mrs. Heath. 
    Then we all sat on the carpet and Mrs. Heath began to open it.  When she opened it we found a letter and there was still something in the package.  Mrs. Heath found an Elf on the Shelf!
    When we wanted to look for the name everyone decided that we would name it Christmas Joy.  It was Mya's idea. 
     Christmas Joy has been reallly funny for the past four days.  And he has written us two notes in a row.  Today he was really funny because he brought back some candy canes and hung on the screen behind the smartboard. 
     From now until Christmas Eve Christmas Joy will be in our room.


   

Christmas Joy...Our Classroom Elf

Something very strange happened in our classroom today.  Mrs. Borden came in during writing and told us that a movie had been delivered to her box and all of the 2nd grades were instructed to watch it.  We were all quite perplexed, but put it into the computer and watched away.  It was The Elf on the Shelf Movie! 

After the movie the other classes left and we began to go on with our day.  All of the sudden the speaker in our classroom came on "Mrs. Heath's Class?"  squawked Mrs. Kunkle's voice over the speaker.  "I just had a package delivered for you guys -- from the North Pole."  Boy did our classroom explode at that news!  We sent our daily captain, Dannika, down to the office to collect our package.  And guess what?  It was from Santa and it was ice cold!! 

The kids just knew it would be their very own Elf and it was!  He came with a letter explaining that he was there to watch over our classroom and report back each night.  Just like The Elf on the Shelf that some of you have at home, our elf had to be named and he can't be touched by human hands or he'll lose his magic.  After much deliberation, we decided on the name of Christmas Joy.  I can't wait to see what happens with our Classroom Elf over the next few weeks.  Welcome to Hickory Hill Christmas Joy!

Kindness is the Best Gift

We've come to my favorite time of year...the holiday season.  You often hear that the season is all about giving instead of receiving, but when and where do our kids learn this?  How do they learn the joy of giving?  This year we are going to practice giving gifts of kindness and see how good it makes us feel.  Each day during December the students will be asked to write compliments to the student(s) of the day.  These compliments will be written on our new schoolwide, student-to-student, Pawsome cards.  These cards allow students to recognize the positive action of their peers.  We will continue to work on being Respectful, Responsible, Safe, and Active Learners each day as we practice giving gifts of kindness in the form of our kind words.   

Whose School Supplies Are Those Anyway?

My second grade team came in to class on Friday to find green strips taped on our school supplies around the room.  Each strip told what the item was and who it belonged to.  For example:  This computer belongs to Mrs. Heath.  These crayons belong to Luke.  This stapler belongs to George.  Etc.

 The student's job was to 1) find each of the 16 strips and then 2) record them on their sheet using the proper possessive noun - such as Mrs. Heath's computer, Luke's crayons, and George's stapler. 

 They did an amazing job with both of their tasks and it let them get a few wiggles out as well. I'm afraid the wintry wiggles have just started so I'll need to pull out some more fun, engaging ideas to keep them on their toes!

Our M.V.P. Jonathan

Jon is sitting here, looking at me.  He has NO idea what he wants to say in his blog post.  That's pretty silly since he had all day yesterday and half of today to think about it!!  :)

"Hmm.." he said.  "Ha, Ha, Ha..."Jonathan laughed when he saw what I was typing.  "Gummy bears?" he finally queried.  "Good, I'm all done." he said.

Goodbye!

Perky, The Disguised Turkey

Our kiddos LOVE the Pigeon books by Mo Willems and so this fun activity by Linda Kamp was the perfect writing project for them! 

Our Thanksgiving turkey decided that he was going to disguise himself as Pigeon to protect himself from being eaten.  But that wasn't going to be enough -- he was also going to have to convince everyone to eat hot dogs instead of him.  So he enlisted the help of our 2nd Grade Team to write a persuasive plea to eat hot dogs.  Take a look at all of our "Perky Turkeys" and listen as a few of them share with you their persuasive arguments.  How many of our families are going to have hot dogs on Thursday??

Our M.V.P. Analese

Being an M.V.P. is exciting.  First you get to sit in special chairs for the whole week.  On Tuesday you get to bring show and tell.  On Wednesday you got to make words with your name.  For my name they made the words and, land, lease, and lots more!  Thursday you got to blog with Mrs. Heath.  Mrs. Heath forgot so we are doing it on Friday.  On Friday my grandpa is coming to lunch.  I hope you have fun being M.V.P. 

Tommy (the naked no more) Turkey

Tommy the Turkey woke up one morning to find out that he had NO FEATHERS!!  What in the world happened and what will he do now?  Read on to find out what our 2^nd grade team decided happened and take a peek at how they remade our friend Tommy!   Can you pick out which turkeys go with which stories?  Some are pretty obvious, but others might be a bit tricky! For example, it is pretty easy to pick out the turkey in the suit of armor, but our alien abducted turkey has a very “star spangled” set of new feathers, which was a bit surprising! J

 Please note that the stories were written by students at home and it should be noted that we typically don’t write fiction stories, so this was a first for many of them. As much as possible, I have retained their paragraphing, grammatical structure, and punctuation, though I did correct spelling to make it easy to read.   I’m very proud of ALL of their efforts and I hope you enjoy their stories as much as I, and the rest of the team, did!

Tommy the Turkey was walking then a snake wrapped around him causing the snake to scratch his feathers off then Tommy the Turkey got his feathers replaced with snake skin.  (Luke)

One night aliens came to Earth and went to Tom’s house, where they took Tom into their spaceship and went to Planet Drool.  Next day when Tome woke up he found out that his feathers were all gone and he was naked.  Tom got angry, so angry that he stole a spaceship and flew back to Earth where he could find new feathers.  (David, Jr.)

Tommy was in the war that America and France were in.  Tommy was on the American team.  France lost.  America won!  (Analese)

Once upon a time there was a turkey named Tommy Turkey.  When Tommy woke up one morning he found himself with a bit of a problem…he was NAKED!  He’s not sure how he lost all of his feathers, he just knows he can’t be seen like that especially when Thanksgiving is right around the corner.  Tommy went to find help…Tommy walked and walked and walked but there was no sign of help.  Then all of a sudden he heard the leave crackling in the distance.  It was a pilgrim!  Tommy ran when he saw her.  The pilgrim looked at Tommy and all she could do is laugh!  Tommy was worried he would never have feathers again.  When the pilgrim stopped laughing she could tell that Tommy was very sad and decided to help him.  “Hi, my name is Kelsey.  I’m sorry for laughing at you.  It’s just that I have never seen a turkey without feathers!”   “It’s okay.  Would you be able to help me find my feathers?” Tommy asked.  Kelsey said, “Yes, I would love to help you!”

The two of them headed out on their journey.  The turkey wasn’t sad anymore because the pilgrim was going to help him.  Hidden in the bushes was something they never seen before…When they approached it they couldn’t believe their eyes.  It was a turkey with colored feathers.  Tommy asked the turkey for help.  The other turkey agreed to help Tommy.  Tommy and Kelsey found out that the turkey had magical powers and granted them three wishes.  The first wish was for Tommy. “I wish I had feathers so I could look like the other turkeys!” POOF!  Tommy was granted his wish.  He had the most beautiful and colorful feathers he could ever dream of!  The second wish was for Kelsey.  “I wish for a feast for my family to celebrate Thanksgiving Day!”  POOF!  There was one more wish…They made their final wish for the magic turkey.  “We wish for you to be our friend and spend every Thanksgiving feast with us!”  POOF!  The three of them became good friends and lived happily ever after!   (Kelsey)

On Thanksgiving the farmer came out to get Tommy for dinner.  He got so scared his feathers fell out.  He ran away to the…ZOO! (Ethan)

Tommy woke up naked.  He dressed up as Mario for the day.  He got mixed up with the real Mario.  Do you think he should dress up anymore? I was embarrassed, so was he.  His friend Timmy the Turkey got mixed up with the real Luigi. They didn’t want to get eaten at Thanksgiving dinner.  Tommy and Timmy hid in a tube until after Thanksgiving.  Happy Thanksgiving.  (Bryce)

My turkey went on a rollercoaster at Six Flags.  The rollercoaster went 1,000 miles per hour.  When it was going down the huge hill, a whole bunch of feathers were flying off!  (Zak)

Tommy the Turkey was going to the scrapbook store to a make a project.  He went to the scrapbook store to buy the things he needed for his project.  He was looking for paper and was walking down the punch aisle.  There was some glue on the floor that he slipped on and fell down in the big puddle of glue and got stuck!  When he tried to get up he struggled.  But finally he got out of the glue but he noticed he was missing all his feathers.  He went to see the manager and she felt so bad that she made him new feathers out of punches.  And Tommy the Turkey was so pleased.  (Dannika)

Tommy was walking in the barn.  He went in a feather shredder.  When he went out he went to bed .  When he woke up he had no feathers. (Emily)

Once upon a time in a forest far away there was a turkey named Tommy…who was going for a walk in the forest.  The forest was near a pack of wolves and the wolves were hunting for food.  Tommy turned a corner and Whap! He saw a wolf!  He got so scared that his feathers fell out!  (Anonymous)

Tommy was fast asleep having a… NIGHTMARE! The nightmare was about becoming the Thanksgiving Turkey. 

He was running away from an angry elf with an axe.  When he woke up in the morning he was sweating.

He got up and went to get breakfast.  He looked behind him to see if there was any mail.  Then he saw that his feathers were gone!  “Where did they go?” he asked.

Tommy realized his nightmare might be coming true!  He boarded up the house and made a plan. 

First, he went to his collection of everything to find something to cover his body.  Then he thought he needed something to protect himself.  Then he saw something gleaming in the corner.  “I wonder what this is?” he said while pulling it out.  “A suit of armor!”  he exclaimed. 

Since his nightmare might be coming true Tommy put on the armor.  It fit good.  His whole body was covered from his hips to neck to brain.  Tommy felt protected.  He then made a homemade bow and arrow set.  “Game on!” he yelled.  He was ready to live through Thanksgiving.

He drilled a hole through the roof of his house and built a lookout tower.  “Now I’ll watch out for angry elves.” He said.  Days passed and no elves came.  Even Thanksgiving came and went.  “Yay, no elves,” he yelled.

Tommy decided he was safe from becoming the Thanksgiving meal.  He returned to his normal day and continued to wear the armor, just in case…  (Jonas)

One day Tommy the Turkey had a bad itch on his back.  He used his back scratcher, but he scratched too hard and his feathers fell off!  He put on his robe because he was now cold, not knowing his feathers were gone.  Meanwhile, his mom was cleaning.  She thought the feathers were from his toy turkey.  "I'm warm now.  I will take off my robe." said Tommy the Turkey.  Next, he went to the bathroom.  Looking in the mirror, he realized he was naked!  Tommy was embarrassed.  How can he go to school?  Tommy ran to find his mother.  She had just vacuumed up his feathers!  Tommy began to cry.  His mom had an idea.  She got out her craft box and found the pipe cleaners.  She put the colorful pipe cleaners on his back.  He loved his new feathers!  The next day, he was the coolest kid in school.  Tommy is now a famous turkey because of his mom's great idea. (Meredith)

One day Tommy the Turkey went to a party with all his friends when he got there he dashed right over to dance he twisted and turned right and left jumped up and down fell on his bottom but he kept dancing until M and M's He dashed over to them and ate them all up and he was so full he fell asleep then when the other turkeys found out they shook all the feathers off of him then he woke up and found m and m's all over him  (Jon)

One day Tommy was caught in the royal gardens of King Arthur.  And got plucked by the royal chef for dinner.  Tommy flew out of the royal chimney and look around cautiously.  He felt embarrassed and quickly covered himself with autumn leaves to make himself decent.  "I am never going their again!" said Tommy.  (Arthur)

It was a cold Christmas Eve and Tommy Turkey had just  opened his new present.  It was a brand new Zhu Zhu pet.  Tommy wanted to see if the Zhu Zhu pet works.  So he put it on his tail and it took his feathers and lost his feathers and his mom said Where are your feathers Tommy said I lost them  Oh no his mom said  Let's get you some feathers Ok he said and they did leftover wrapping paper. (Mackenzie)

One night a farmer was looking for a present for his wife.

Then he had an idea to go to the turkey farm.

He found Tommy the Turkey and took his feathers and ran away so fast to make a blanket for his wife for her birthday.  (Mya)

Tommy Turkey woke up the day before Thanksgiving and found...HIS FEATHERS MISSING!  Oh No! he gobbled to himself.  I have lost my feathers.  What am I going to do Tommy gobbled.  I can't go out in the forest NAKED!  He screamed.  I could ask my friend Rappy Rabbit.  So he went to find Rappy the Rabbit.  Tommy asked Rappy where he could find new feathers.  Rappy said Let's talk to the fairies.  It is down by the lake Rappy said to Tommy.  as Tommy and Rappy were walking Rappy told Tommy where the fairies lived.  They live in a  small cottage said Rappy.  Ok said Tommy.  They got to the cottage and the fairies were outside playing.  Rappy asked the fairies can you please help my friend Tommy because TOMORROW is Thanksgiving.  The fairires gathered around Rappy and sprinkled him with fairy dust.  The next morning Tommy awoke to find golden leaves as feathers and thought this is the Best Thanksgiving EVER!  (Sophie)

One morning Tommy was sleeping.  Then he woke up and he went to the bathroom to shave and he looked in the mirror and....Ahh Ahh my feathers are gone!  I can't go outside naked.  I will wrap something around me to get something to make feathers.  I will go get tissue paper to make my feathers out of.  (Gavin)

Once upon a time there was a turkey named Tommy the Turkey.  On Thanksgiving day he wanted to hide from the turkey hunters.  So he went to the forest and guess what he saw...THE TURKEY HUNTER   he got sooo scared his feathers came off he didn't realize that he was cold so he found some stuff to keep him cozy then he hid behind a bush because the turkey hunters were coming  Tommy then peeked around the bush and saw all of his feathers on the ground.  He then started to get cold, he knew he needed to make some feathers from leaves, trees, grass and dirt to 1 keep warm and 2 to hide from the hunters.  Once he was done he quickly went home and to bed.  (BilliJo)

It's All A Matter of Balance!

     Students are learning all about balance in our first science unit.  Balancing something in a stable position means that it can stay in the same position, without being held, even if you give it a little push. 

     To develop our understanding of balance, students have had the opportunity to try to balance a variety of objects on their finger or on a craft (popsicle) stick.  One core understanding that the students have developed is that in order to balance, some items will need counterweights.  Those counterweights must be placed below the balance point in order for them to help the item balance.

     Using their understandings, students have been able to balance crawfish on their noses, arches on their side, triangles on a vertex, and even a sharpened pencil on its tip!  What else can they balance around the house?

Our MVP Mya!!

    My name is Mya.  I have a little brother named Jake.  I like playing sports.  I play soccer, softball, and I play basketball.  I have played soccer for 4 years, I started when I was 4 years old.  I have scored 19 goals altogether!

    I just started playing basketball.  Every Saturday I go to baskeball camp.  My coach is Coach Mone.  Pretty soon we will begin playing games.

     I played softball for two years now.  I've only gotten out two times.  We switch around the positions but I like center field the best!

    

Election Day

Election day has come to our 2nd grade classroom and we had a tough fought battle for class mascot.  Our contenders were:  Hattie Horse and Henry Hippo.  The students campaigned for the mascots and chose platforms for them:  Hattie Horse being a good sport and strong and Henry Hippo being a good reader, kind, and caring.  Students had to fill out a voter registration card and then wait for the polls to open.  Our poll worker (the kind Mrs. Halsted) came in to check the registration cards and allow each voter to fill out their ballot in private.  (though we did sneak a few pictures!)

 

 

After voting was completed, it was time to open the ballot box and count the votes.  But wait – we had three registered voters who did not make it before the polls closed.  Sorry Mrs. Simmons, Mr. Snyder, and Mrs. Nichols!  You have to be responsible and vote within the open polling hours.  I hope you learned your lesson! :( Our friend Zak did get to vote though, because he submitted his absentee ballot prior to the polls opening.  (Way to go Zak!)

As each vote was read, the students recorded them on their individual graphs.  When it was all said and done, our winner by a very narrow margin (remember those registered voters who didn’t vote??) was….

 

HATTIE HORSE!!!  (Now Mrs. Heath just has to go and buy her.)   Congrats Hattie Horse and congrats to our voting population – you learned an important lesson about being an American today.  Here’s hoping that all of our families got out and voted too.  Remember, it matters less who you voted for than that you voted!

Happy Election Day everyone!!

Halloween Fun!

 

School has got to be the WORST place to be on

Halloween day, but we made the most of it!  To begin the day, each student received a pumpkin (gourd) to describe.  They were cautioned to be very careful in describing it and list ALL the details!  After they described their pumpkins, they were taken away and put into a pile.  The job of each student was to find THEIR pumpkin based only on their description.  They rocked that job, with each being able to find their individual pumpkin. Then things got a little more difficult.  They were asked to

trade their description sheets with a friend, and use that description to find their friend’s pumpkin.  That was pretty much a failure!  The lesson learned?  You need to be VERY descriptive in your writing!!

After description time was over, we decided to improve our descriptive skills with the use of a thesaurus.  Each partner set was given two pumpkins with “feelings” described.  Their pumpkin felt sad, happy, mad, frustrated, confident, etc.  The job was to first draw that face on their pumpkin, then write a sentence describing WHY their pumpkin was feeling that way, and finally to use the thesaurus to list synonyms for that feeling.  Bonus:  the class now has a great resource to use during writing time! (and it’s pretty darn cute to boot!)

After lunch, it was on to pumpkin math!  Given three (or four!) numbers, could you make the largest and smallest numbers?  These 2nd graders sure could!  They were able to also make ALL the different numbers with 3 digits, add their digits together, identify the ones, tens, hundreds, and thousands place, and more.  What a bunch of smartie pants they are!!

But finally (FINALLY) it was time for the good stuff – party!!  Too much awesomeness to describe there, so you’ll just have to take a look.  A very special thank you to Mrs. Pedersen for organizing our party and to our many, many parent volunteers.  I think it was a huge hit all the way around!

Love,

Mrs. Heath

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