Apple Senses

Wow, this week of school seemed to fly by! We had a lot of fun this week, especially in writing. On Wednesday, the students were surprised after their brain break to come back into the classroom and see three different types of apple slices on their desks. Needless to say, the second graders were excited to test out these different types of apples!

After sampling each of the different types of apples, the students had a job to accomplish. Their job was to write about those apples using their five senses: taste, touch, smell, hearing, and sight. The students came up with many ideas for these different senses. Such as when they think of apples they can smell apple juice or they can hear the crunch from biting into a crisp apple. Second graders enjoyed coming up with these many ideas and sharing them with the rest of their friends in the classroom.

Once students thought of these describing words for each of their five senses, their next job was to cut out different colored paper to make the shape of an apple. After they had their apple shape cut out, they were able to glue their describing words onto that apple. The end results from this writing project can be seen in the windows above our second grade classroom. This colorful array of apples certainly brightens up our hallway!

Feel free to stop by and see our beautiful works of art as well as read our describing words that go along with our five senses with apples.

Moses Puppets!

On Friday parents may have discovered a brown paper bag resembling a face come home in the red home folder. Yes, we made puppets!

Students enjoyed adding their own creative touches to their puppets and gluing the pieces onto the paper bag. After putting the finishing touches on the puppets we used them to retell the story of Moses. We did this so that the students might have a better understanding of what Moses may have been thinking when God first spoke to him by the burning bush. Students enjoyed moving the mouths of their puppets along to what Moses might have said to God when God told Moses to go back to Egypt to free His people.

Yes, the students had fun with the Moses puppets and they learned the story of Moses. But to make it even better, the students thought of how this story applies to their own lives. The students easily recognized that Moses was not excited about God calling him back to Egypt. But rather than ignoring what God told him, he listened to what God had to say and followed Him. The students can see that in their own lives as well. Maybe they don’t want to always do what God tells them to do or maybe it can be a little scary to do what God says. But through this story of Moses, we could see that God was always with Moses when he listened to God and went back to Egypt, just like God is always with us when we are scared to do what He says.

So, this week encourage your second graders to retell the story of Moses to you using their Moses puppet. Discuss what things God tells us to do that may be hard for us. Lastly, remind them of Genesis 28:15, “Behold, I am with you and will keep you wherever you go.” 

Welcome Second Graders!

Welcome to our classroom blog! My name is Miss Beery and I am extremely excited to be working with an amazing group of second graders this year. These past few weeks of school we have been getting used to our new Reading Street curriculum, improving our writing skills, learning new math strategies in addition and subtraction, and applying Bible stories to our daily lives.

Reading: Every week in the Reading Street curriculum we will be learning new spelling, vocabulary, and sight words. The students have enjoyed listening to a new song that introduces vocabulary words every week along with a concept video that helps students begin to grasp the key question that we will be talking about all week. Along with the many words students are learning, they will also learn a key concept in reading comprehension, such as pointing out the characters and setting or deciphering the main idea of a text.

Writing: For writing we have been focusing on using beginning sentences and ending sentences along with including details in between. The students have been doing a fantastic job of focusing on using beginning and ending sentences as well as making sure they use correct punctuation, capitalization, and spelling.

Mathematics: In math we have been working on a multitude of strategies that students may use while solving addition and subtraction problems. Parents will see these strategies and how students utilize them in the graded response sheets that come home each day. Students have been doing an amazing job of learning these new strategies and using them on their own as they solve addition and subtraction problems. Awesome job, second graders!

Bible: Each week we have the opportunity to hear two Bible stories and think of ways that we can apply what we learn in these stories to our daily lives. So far we have learned about how God created the Earth, Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, Noah and the ark, Abram and his faithfulness in listening to God, the twins Jacob and Esau, and the story of Jacob's ladder. Throughout these Bible stories we also learn verses that we practice daily in the classroom. In all we do in the classroom, we are looking to our song (Alive by Hillsong) for the year in showing how we are now alive in Christ.

Keep checking our second grade blog throughout the school year to see, firsthand, what we have been learning in the classroom!