Valentine's Day Slime

Last week our second and third graders celebrated Valentine's Day by passing out their Valentine treats and doing some fun activities in the classroom. One fun activity that the second and third graders took part in was in making homemade slime! Second and third graders loved making the icky slime and getting their hands dirty as they had the opportunity to play with the gooey stuff. Below are some pictures of our fun Valentine's Day together, enjoy!

100th Day of School

This week our second and third graders celebrated the 100th day of school. To celebrate this special day, we decided to do some math centers that had to do with the number 100. At these math centers, students created a "100's day crown". To make this crown, students had to stamp, draw, or cut 10 things onto 10 strips of paper (because we know that 10 10's make 100). Once students finished decorating their crown, they were able to wear the crown around the school. Students loved showing these crowns off to the rest of the school!

During these math centers, students also played math games. One of these games involved rolling two dice 100 times to see what number they rolled the most. Second and third graders loved participating in these 100's day math centers!

Students also celebrated 100's day by thinking about what they are going to look like and what they are going to do when they are 100 years old. Students wrote about what they are going to be like when they are 100 years old and then they took a picture using an aging app. This aging app allowed students to get a glimpse of what they may look like when they are 100 years old. Second and third graders loved seeing these pictures! If you would like to get a closer look at these 100's day writings and pictures, feel free to stop by our classroom!

Happy 100th Day of School!

History of Michigan

Our second and third graders are finishing up our social studies unit on Michigan history. As we have been working through this unit of social studies we have been reading through our Michigan textbook as well as other trade books to discover somewhat of a timeline on the events that have happened throughout the history of Michigan as well as what life was like in Michigan hundreds of years ago. We often go through parts of our text together as a class in order to we answer questions about Michigan history. But for a bit of a change, last week we mixed things up and partnered up to answer questions by reading through the text. Students did an awesome job of reading through the social studies text and answering questions about the Toledo War and how Michigan became a state!

Christmas Craft Day

Before Christmas break, our second and third graders enjoyed walking around the school and making different winter crafts throughout the day. Here are a few pictures of some of the fun crafts that our second and third graders had the opportunity to enjoy!

Merry Christmas!

Miss Beery's Car Factory

This week our second and third graders have been learning a bit more about economics in social studies. To understand a key concept in economics, "specialization", a little better we participated in an activity where my classroom was turned into "Miss Beery's Car Factory". I was the boss at this car factory (a very mean boss who didn't pay her workers...) and the students were organized into three groups to be my factory workers. Two of these factory worker groups "specialized" by having a job for each of the workers. For example, one worker cut out the car body, another colored the tires, another glued on the tires, etc. These "specialization" groups had a type of assembly line going on, while the other group of factory workers didn't have any "specialization". So, this group of workers had to do all of the jobs by themselves rather than work together and form the "interdependent relationship" we've been studying. Students were given these instructions and they were told they had 20 minutes to make as many cars as they could...BUT, the boss had to approve their cars in order to be counted. If the cars were not perfect, the boss would throw out their cars and they wouldn't be counted for their team (I'm a VERY mean boss...). The three groups were told that the group with the most cars made once the 20 minutes were up would be the winner!

After the 20 minutes ended, the results were on the board. It was obvious who the winners of this activity were. The groups that "specialized" had many more cars made than the group that didn't "specialize". We talked about how much easier it was for the groups who had their own specific jobs and formed the "interdependent relationship" to create the cars than the other group. Students loved participating and working in "Miss Beery's Car Factory" throughout this activity and they now have a better understanding of these important social studies concepts!