Miss Beery's Car Factory

This week our second 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!

Spelling Bee

In case you missed attending the spelling bee before spring break, here are some pictures from that special day. Six of our second graders participated in the spelling bee: Libby Paveglio, William Conrad, Abigail Smith, Lucas Nichols, Daniel Sowatsky, and Adam Birchmeier. All of our second graders did an excellent job in this spelling bee!

Math Game

This past week we had a few visitors stop by in second grade. These visitors were two of my aunts, Aunt Becky and Aunt Ann, and my sister-in-law, Jess. When these visitors stopped by our classroom they said that they wanted to play a game with us. To play this game we stayed in our three groups in the classroom and each group was given one dye, a pencil, and each student in the group was given a lined piece of paper. Each student was given the task of writing from 1 to 100 on their piece of paper, if they were the first student in their group to reach 100, they would win the game in their group. However, in order to write on their paper, they had to get the pencil in their group. To get the pencil, they passed around a dye and if they rolled a 6 they would grab the pencil and write as fast as they possibly could. They would keep writing until another student in their group rolled a 6, then that next student would grab the pencil and write as fast as they possibly could. As you can imagine, this was a very fast moving game!

The second graders LOVED learning how to play this new game. I want to say a huge thanks to our visitors for stopping by and having fun with us!

Science Quiz-Quiz-Trade

Today our second graders were reviewing for our science test tomorrow. In order to review some key concepts we decided to play a fun review game called Quiz-Quiz-Trade. To play this game, each second grader was given a card that had a question and its answer. Students walked around the classroom and matched with another second grader. These partner pairs took turns asking each other their question; if their partner couldn't answer the question, then they gave them clues and helped them answer. After each partner asked and answered a question, they then gave each other a high five, traded cards, and went off looking for another partner.

Second graders did a great job reviewing for their science test today using Quiz-Quiz-Trade!

Chapel Buddy Reading

To celebrate reading month, this week we got together with our sixth grade reading buddies and read a few Bible story books together with them. Students enjoyed getting together with their chapel buddy and reading together!

Lego Science

We recently began a new unit in science where we have the opportunity to study changes on the Earth. We began by studying fast changes on Earth, such as volcanoes, earthquakes, and landslides. Now we are working on learning about slow changes on Earth. These slow changes include weathering, erosion, and deposition. These are three difficult concepts for students to understand, so to help them understand what each step is, we demonstrated these concepts by using Legos!

I had four different Lego "rocks" built up with the same amount of Legos on each "rock". Students were then separated into four different teams and were given the task of breaking apart these Lego rocks. Students began somewhat of a relay race in their teams as they broke apart the rocks one piece at a time. One team member would run to the Lego rock, break off a piece, run back to the team, and deposit it with the team members. This game continued until all of the Lego rock pieces were broken off and there was no longer a Lego rock on the other side of the room. Once teams had all of the rock pieces, they then formed a new Lego rock to finish the relay race. Of course, to make the relay race a little more interesting, I changed it up on them and sometimes said that they had to skip to the Legos, hop to the Legos, walk backwards, etc.

One day we did this relay race in the classroom and another day we did the relay race in the gym. After going through the relay race both days, we discussed each part that they students just demonstrated. As students broke off the Lego rock pieces they were demonstrating weathering, as students brought the rock back to their team they were demonstrating erosion, and as they were building up a new Lego rock they were demonstrating deposition. Students loved participating in this Lego Science and having fun learning about weathering, erosion, and deposition!