The city of Portland sponsors a program to teach students about healthy streams and water.  Earlier, we had a visit from Lynn Vanderkamp to teach students about the components of habitat in preparation for a visit to Brookside Wetlands.  Students learned that water, air, food and shelter are important to the survival of all  living...
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Thank you to all of the incredible Lewis families for the well wishes, cards, and tasty treats last week.  Angela, Caroline, and I  feel incredibly lucky to be a part of such a supportive community.  Your help this year in the classroom , on field trips, and with special projects has made this year...
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Howdy and welcome to another week in room 12! We are in full swing with our pond animal research projects! Students have been working with their folders to organize their facts.  Each student has a folder with four pockets: diet, appearance, raising young, and interesting facts.  We have been really impressed with the way...
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Howdy from Room 12 and welcome to another week! Our pond unit is in full swing! We are starting our pond animal research project this week.  Students will choose a pond animal and research its physical characteristics, how it raises its young, and interesting facts.  The culminating project will be a display board showing...
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Howdy from Room 12! We are in the middle of another hard working, creative, fun-filled week! We are continuing our pond unit and the students are really enjoying it. We did an experiment with water tension and water striders on Tuesday!  Ask your child how many drops of water they fit onto a tiny...
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Welcome to another week in room 12!  We have a few things going on this week that are out of the ordinary! Ms. Leake finished up the final touches from the weather unit on Tuesday while Ms. Gereau was out of the classroom.  We are continuing on with our pond unit for the remainder...
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Welcome to another week in room 12! Ms. Gereau is having a great time being the lead teacher for her second week! This week we are finishing up math assessments for report cards- the class is extremely hard working and focused.  We are also starting our presents and parcels story problems.  Students are creating...
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Welcome back from spring break! We are eager to get back into the swing of things.  Ms. Gereau has begun her six weeks of solo teaching and is ready to hit the ground running.  We are finishing up our geometry unit in math and we will beginning our big number unit later this week....
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We are starting our final week of our weather unit! This week we will be learning all about big storms: tornados, lighting storms, and hurricanes!  We will be exploring the calm eye of hurricanes as well as studying the swirling patterns of the storms.  Balloons will be helping us understand static electricity as it’s...
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This week we are continuing our study of weather with a focus on the clouds and precipitation. We set up an experiment that demonstrates the water cycle: evaporation, condensation, precipitation, and run off.  Students  put a cup of water in a sealed baggie, made predictions, and  are now recording their observations to show the...
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This week we began our study of weather.  We read a Native American legend about the four elements of weather.  The first unit we focused on is Air. Students learned that moving air is called wind. First, we made our own weather vanes and studied the direction the wind was blowing in.  Then, we...
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This week, we began our geometry unit. We talked about Geometry as the study of 2d and 3d shapes.  After exploring with our 3d geoblocks, students learned the definitions for the terms, face, side, and corner.  They worked together to sort 26 blocks by their faces, sides, and corners. On Friday we will celebrate...
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This week the 2nd grade classes attend the OBT production of Swan Lake.  Today we learned that there are two kinds of ballets.  Swan Lake is a ‘Story Ballet’. The story comes from Russia over 100 years ago. The first production of the ballet was a flop.  It would be 2o years before the...
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This is our last week building our classroom neighborhood.  I would like to thank Darby’s dad, Aaron, for all of his hard work.  After taping a paper copy to the floor for several years, he offered to make me a canvas one over the summer.  This is the second year that my class has...
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This week I would like to recognize a few of our classroom volunteers.  Their varied experiences have enriched the lives of our students.  Connor’s grandmother, Geri, has been leading literacy circles in our class all year. The students read Tonight on the Titanic from the Magic Tree House series.  After finishing the book, students...
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This week we move onto measuring using the metric systems. Students learned that a centimeter is approximately the same  width as their pinkie fingers.  We also learned that army ants are approximately the size of a centimeter so we made our own rulers using 10 Army Ants or ten centimeters.  Students learned that rulers...
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In Math, the class is working on a measurement unit.  First, we measured things around the classroom using our ‘teacher feet’ which were approximately 12 inches in length. Students worked in pairs and made estimates to determine how long the primary hall is.  For our next activity, we went out to the playground on...
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We are back!  Today we had 32 students instead of the 19 or 20 that were common last week.  Hopefully everyone will remain healthy by staying rested, wearing weather appropriate clothes, and covering our coughs and colds.  Please help up keep healthy.  Students learn best when they are at school and actually feel well....
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This week we focus on addition and subtraction strategies for facts to 20.  Math lessons have students scouting out facts such as:  adding and subtracting 2′s and 10′s and adding and subtracting doubles/neighbors.  Students created math games for homework to practice these facts.  They are now ready to share them with their classmates.  During...
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This week Ms. Vasquez and Ms. Leake’s classes are working together on a unit learning about Celebrations  of Light.  We began by talking about the importance of light sources to ancient cultures.  We asked students to imagine what it might have been like to live without lights or heat. We talked about the obstacles...
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Welcome back after the long break.  I hope that you all enjoyed your time with family and friends and had a lot of good things to eat.  To kick off our return to school, the class had a reading marathon.  We alternated reading for 10 minutes with sharind ideas about our books.  First, we...
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What better way to make the election process more accessible to young learners than to enlist the help of two childhood favorites…the Count and Cookie Monster.  Last week, students were introduced to the Election process.  First, the class brainstormed what they knew about Election Day and the way it works. Then, they generated a...
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