Music: Vocal Improvisation

The girls created 2 note melodies by creating leaf designs!

Listen to these beautiful voices!

Science: Insects

The girls began their 2nd grade year in science by studying insects. At first, they speculated as to which animals were insects. However, after carefully observing a variety of insects preserved in plastic blocks, they concluded that insects have 6 legs and 2 antennas.

With this knowledge, they headed outside in search of live insects. They shook bushes over white sheets and used insect nets to capture their specimens.

Trying to identify the insects they found was fun!

The girls closely examined live crickets and discovered some amazing things about them. Did you know that they breathe through holes in their abdomen and hear with the ears behind their knees?

French: Fotobabble

Bienvenue à la classe de français! The girls have been learning to associate visual symbols with French vocabulary words. For example, when they see a picture of a yellow ball, they know to say "un ballon jaune." Each day, we make sentences and play games using the picture cards. Today, I gave the girls their own set of miniature cards featuring all the words we have learned so far. They created their own sentences at their desks and had fun putting the pictures together in new and different ways. They took pictures in the app Fotobabble and recorded themselves reading the sentences they had made. 

Busy in Tech

Second grade has been busy in tech this month!  The girls have learned a variety of new iPad skills and apps.  During the first week of school, the girls learned iPad basics ( how to close an app, changing the home and lock screen image) and acceptable use (how to hold and travel with the iPad, rules of use, etc.).  Next, the girls learned what an memoir is and used the Book Creator app to create one what they did this summer.  While the girls were working in My Story, Google Drive was set up on each iPad.  This year, students will be able to save work to Google Drive.  Information on accessing your daughter's Drive will be coming home in the future so that you can view the work from home!  Finally, the girls have started working in the Creation Station centers using Intooba (visit this link to learn more!) and wooden letter blocks to build towers.
 

Art: Relationships

All the girls started the year with a material exploration and then connected their work and their ideas while working to their grade level theme.  Kindergarten's theme is RELATIONSHIPS. You can see the long list of connections they made and why it is such a relevant theme for this grade level! Our future units will explore a range of materials, genres, artists, and concepts related to their theme.  The overarching reflection question for the year is: How do we show, express, and value relationships in art?

Homerooms and Math

                                                              Second Grade Blog

Ms. Orlando's homeroom

Mrs. Roessler's Homeroom

In math we are studying place value with numbers up to 100.  We have compared numbers, ordered numbers, and shown numbers in different ways.  The girls have worked in the books with their work sheets, and used iPad apps to reinforce their understanding of these concepts.  They enjoy working with  manipulatives and playing related math games.

Throughout the year the girls have learned a variety of tech skills using many different apps.  Below is a list of the apps that they used this year.

Art Set
Barefoot World Atlas
Base Ten BINGO
BrainPop Jr.
Comptines et chansons
Computer Arts: Visualator
Dinosaurs Kids Math HD
Educreations
Explain Everything
Freefall Money
Google Earth
iBooks
iMotion
Kid Weather
Kodable
learn French Vocabulary
Magnabet
Math Doodles
Math Tappers: Find Sums
MoMA Art Lab
Monkey Word School Adventure
Montessori Crosswords
Montessori Numbers
Motion Math: Hungry Fish Pro
My Story
Pic Collage
Scratch Jr.
Scribble Press
Smart Speller
Student Clicker
Tell Time
Textropolis
The Foos
This is Not an App
Toca Builders
Visual Math 2
Word BINGO
Word Wall HD
World Book's World of Animals