Listening to God

Last week we read a Bible story that taught us the

importance of listening to God and doing exactly what He says. In order to
really understand this story, we first read it together a couple of times. Once
students became familiar with the story line, a few volunteers took different
roles in the story and began to act it out. We acted out the story quite a few
times with different students as different characters so each child had an
opportunity to participate. The video below shows one of the many times we
acted out the story. I’m sure you will recognize this particular Bible story
once you begin watching the video.

After having fun, taking different character roles and
acting them out, we had a discussion about why it was so important for Samuel
to listen to what God had to tell him. In connecting this to our own lives,
students recognized that God does not speak to us the exact same way that He
spoke to Samuel, but He still does speak to us. Students pointed out that by
reading the Bible, God speaks to us and tells us what He expects of us. Through
listening to and understanding His commandments we can do what He tells us just
like Samuel did in the story. So, not only do we need to read our Bibles and
listen to what God has to tell us, we need to take action and do what He wants
us to do.

Jesus said, “Whoever is of God hears the words of God.” John 8:47

A Mighty Fortress is our God

This past Friday being Halloween as well as Reformation, we wanted to do something different in the classroom to celebrate. We began our Bible discussion with a description of what Martin Luther did and why we remember Reformation. Because Martin Luther wrote, “A Mighty Fortress is our God”, we based our activity off of this song.

Throughout this activity students would be given a few pieces of construction paper and pieces of tape in order to build their own fortress. The students were told that they needed to build a fortress that was pretty tall and would be very strong. Once students finished building their fortresses, we would test their strength by putting one of our Reading Street books on top to see if they could withstand the weight. Students then paired up and were given 15 minutes to construct their fortresses.

Once students finished building their creations, we tested each fortress…each and every one failed the strength test and crumpled under the weight of the Reading Street book. After testing each fortress, students sat down and were told that now we would see how strong God’s fortress is. With 1 piece of construction paper and a few pieces of tape, God’s fortress was created. This fortress could withhold 5 Reading Street books whereas our fortresses couldn’t hold up 1!

As students sat in awe of God’s fortress as it continued to hold 5 Reading Street books, we talked about how God’s fortress is so much stronger than any man made fortress could be. Though students tried their hardest to create a strong fortress, they failed. Just like if we try in our own lives to get to heaven on our own, we will fail each and every time. Through this activity, student experienced the reality that God is much more powerful than we could ever be, which is why we place our trust in Him.

The LORD is my rock, my fortress and my deliverer; my God is my rock, in whom I take refuge, my shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold. Psalm 18:2

Crazy Candy Corn Contractions

Last week in our reading curriculum we were beginning to learn contractions; what they are and how they are formed. After learning all about contractions, the students were ready to experiment with contractions on their own. In order to do this, we created “Crazy Candy Corn Contractions”!

The first step in this project was in forming the candy corn. Students cut out the different colored pieces for the candy corn and glued them all together. After gluing, each student was given two words, such as “should” and “not”. The students wrote the first word at the top of their candy corn and the second word in the middle of their candy corn. Once they had those words written down, the students had to decide how to form the contraction for those two words. Once they understood how to form the contraction, they wrote it at the bottom of the candy corn along with a sentence including that contraction.

The last step in this process was in creating a crazy face for the candy corn and gluing on the arms and legs. Once students finished these last steps, each student had the opportunity to come up in front of the class and share their contraction, sentence, and crazy candy corn faces with the rest of the students.  

These “Crazy Candy Corn Contractions” can be seen decorating our hallway window. Come on over and read our contractions as well as see the crazy faces that these creative second graders drew on their candy corn contractions.

Double-Digit Addition

This past week we have been beginning to learn how to add double-digit numbers, such as 45 + 6. To give students an opportunity to visualize how this works, we started by using our base ten blocks and a work mat for our tens and ones.

Students looked at the addition examples in their math books and began solving by building the first number in the problem. So, in the case of 45 + 6 they would first build 45 on their tens and ones mat. Once they built that, they would add the 6 to their work mats. Then they needed to think, “do I need to regroup the ones or not?” In this case they would realize that they have more than ten ones in the ones place so they do, in fact, need to regroup. Using these manipulatives, the students could visually decipher how to solve these types of problems and why or when they need to regroup the ones into the tens place. Great job solving these addition problems students, you did an excellent job this week!

Stellaluna

Stellaluna by Janell Cannon has always been a favorite story to read around Halloween. Yesterday we read Stellaluna and, after reading, we looked at the story structure. We asked ourselves questions about the story. What happened at the beginning of the story? What happened in the middle of the story? What happened at the end of the story? What things changed from the beginning of the story to the end of the story?

After having a classroom discussion about what things changed as the story went along, it was time to write. Each student wrote a description about events that occurred in the beginning, middle, and end of the story on separate index cards. Once students wrote out their story sequence, they then glued their index cards onto a black bat. After gluing, students used a white crayon to add more detail to their bats. Students became very creative with the facial features of their bats!

 Today, these black story sequence bats are flying around our classroom and lend a spooky flair to our room.

Welcome Autumn

Parents have probably been wondering why students brought leaves to school last Wednesday. Well, since we enjoyed writing our acrostic poem pumpkins a few weeks ago, we wanted to write another acrostic poem. This poem was about autumn.

To start this activity, students wrote the word AUTUMN vertically on a scrap piece of paper and began to think of words that would go along with autumn. For example, some students wrote “using a knife to carve pumpkins” for the letter “U” or “night makes Halloween scary” for the letter “N”. Once students finished their rough drafts I conferenced with each student, fixing any mistakes, and typed out a final draft.

Here is the fun part! Now that students had their typed out acrostic poem, they brought out their leaves from home (thank you parents and grandparents) and began to glue them onto a paper plate that had already been cut in the shape of a wreath. Students enjoyed arranging their leaves into different color patterns onto their paper plate wreaths. They were very creative! 

The last step of this activity was to glue their acrostic poem in the middle of their leafy wreaths. These finished products are proudly hanging in the classroom. The leaf wreaths bring a pleasant fall feel every time we walk into the classroom!

Our Pumpkin Patch

With the start of October this past Wednesday, we wanted to get into the spirit of fall in our second grade classroom. To do this we decided to do a fall writing activity; we wrote an Acrostic Poem about pumpkins.

An Acrostic Poem is a poem that uses the letters in a word to begin each line of a poem. For this Acrostic Poem we used the word PUMPKIN. The students started this writing activity by brainstorming words that started with the letters of the word PUMPKIN that also went along with what you think of when you see pumpkins. For the letter “P” they thought of things such as “pumpkin pie”, “pumpkin patch”, or “picking seeds out of the pumpkin”. Or for the letter “K” they thought of things such as “kids trick-or-treating”, “kids in costumes”, or “kids carving pumpkins”.

Once we brainstormed different ideas for each letter (the students became very creative with their ideas) we started on a rough draft of our Acrostic Poem. Students wrote their poem using the word PUMPKIN and, once they were finished with their drafts, they were given a pumpkin paper to write, in their best handwriting, their final drafts. After finishing these final drafts, they cut out their pumpkin poems.

Thanks to the artistic minds of our second graders, we now have a creative pumpkin patch bulletin board in our classroom. Come on over and read through our poems, you will certainly be impressed by our pumpkin patch!