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!