Happenings in Grade 2

Social Studies January 15 marked the birth dates of two very important people: Cornelia Connelly and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. The Second Graders discussed how these two individuals worked hard to make the world a better place. Each student then thought of a way that he/she can make a world a better place, wrote that idea on a paper hand, and placed it on his/her drawing of the world. How important it is to realize that we can all make a difference! Whale Project After reading about whales, the students worked with a partner to research a particular whale. The partners then created a presentation to share their information with their classmates.                                        Jellyfish After reading Jellies, the Life of Jellyfish, the Second Graders made jellyfish for our hallway display.         Here is a glimpse of part of our hallway ocean display.                                     As Student of the

Ocean Unit Activities Alliteration Students choose a sea creature and then wrote a sentence using alliteration. Afterward,  they created an ocean scene for their sea creature. Here are some of their creative sentences:                  1. The delightful dolphin dives to dig down on the ocean floor.                  2. Otto the octopus has eight arms and swims oddly.                  3. Seven seahorses swam to the coral reef on a sunny day.                  4. Wally the whale wished he was in warm water.                        Reading:  Does anyone remember Shamu, the killer whale at Sea World? The students read a newspaper article about Shamu's new baby, Kalina.                                      Whales by Gail Gibbons                  Amazing Whales by Sarah Thomson Students read these to books to gain some background knowledge about whales in preparation for their research project about a particular whale. Dictionary skills

Science: Simple Tools - Lever Each group of four students was asked to use a ruler and/or yardstick with a fulcrum of their choice to lift one or more readers.They learned that the lever worked better when the fulcrum was placed closer to the object being lifted. Inspired by our classroom activity, at home Emmy (above) made her own lever using pencils taped together, and she fashioned a fulcrum out of playing cards. Below, Juliana created her lever and fulcrum at home using Zoomtools. Ocean Unit The lower school kicked off our ocean unit by viewing T he Magic School Bus Takes a Dive. In the video, the students learned about coral reefs, some partnership relationships in the coral reef habitat and how harmful pollution is to ocean creatures and plants. Sorting Seashells The class enjoyed learning how seashells are formed and sorting them using classification cards. Blessings from the Three King            The Three Kings visited our clas