Diary of a Worm...Tub

This week we received a container full of worms.  We prepared our worm tub by tearing up newspaper, adding old fruit and vegetable scraps, and topping it off with a little soil.  The purpose of housing these wriggly friends?  We are learning about how organisms interact with their environment, by observing our worms and how they transform the lovely habitat we made for them into rich compost.

So far, we have begun to build our schema about worms (their bodies, what they eat, where they live, and what they do) by reading fiction for facts.  That is, we are reading some great fictional stories that also can teach us about worms!  It is fun to see students arrive at the realization that fiction is not just for fun- some fiction can be informative!  We have already learned some fascinating wormlore, and dispelled some worm myths...  Did you know:

• Worms don't have eyes.
• Worms eat rocks!  Inside a worm's stomach, the rocks help to grind up food, and then the rocks are passed in worm's poop, which is called a cast.
• Worms have five pairs of hearts.
• If you cut a worm in half, the pieces will not grow into two new worms.  That's a myth!

We will continue to study worms next week, as we (patiently) let the worms do their work in our tubs.

We will continue after break to broaden this understanding of organisms interacting with their environment by researching some other animals that change or alter the space in which they live.  For example, beavers which create dams that alter the course of rivers.  A great home conversation, especially as the weather warms and changes from mammals, birds, even plants and bugs, become evident, would be to look around your yard or the park for evidence of animal or plant changes.  Do seedlings pop up in cracks in the sidewalk?  Can you see holes made by chipmunks or woodpeckers?

We will keep you up to date on the fun changes we see in our worm tub over the next month or two!  Happy worm watching!

Fairy Tales & Other Learning

This week, we kicked off a huge fairy tale unit in second grade!  During this unit, we will be reading and analyzing fairy tales.  We have been reading, watching, and listening to many fairy tales to really build our schema about how these stories are written.  In particular, we are investigating fairy tales for common elements.

Fairy Tale Elements

In addition to providing great opportunities for retelling, summarizing, and identifying the main idea of stories, this unit teaches students to analyze story plot, and to compare two versions of the same story written by different authors.

After we explore several different versions of Cinderella from diverse cultures and perspectives, we will compare their settings, characters, and beginning, middle, and end for differences and similarities.  Then, students will read and analyze several versions of other common fairy tales in book clubs.  They will present their findings to the class, and write an opinion telling us which version they thought was the best.

Finally, students will get an opportunity to apply these understandings, writing their very own fractured fairy tales.  Our final products will display our knowledge of fairy tale elements, story structure, character development, and writing craft!  This is such a great literacy project to end the year.

Other Learning

In math, we are building off our two digit addition knowledge to solve three digit addition (with and without regrouping) using decomposing. Stay tuned for an update when we post Educreations showing off our new skills!

In addition, we are continuing to build our comfort with time and money.  In second grade, students should be able to tell time to the nearest five minutes, and solve simple word problems involving change.

In science, we began a unit exploring how organisms interact with the environment with our own Worm Tub!  Stay tuned for a post on what we are learning through these wriggly creatures.

In Writing, we are beginning to write our Expert Projects (see previous posts).

In Word Study, we are concluding our parts of speech unit with Adverbs! Next week, we will review nouns, proper nouns, pronouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs.  Mad Libs, anyone?

Marble Track Educreations & Other Learning

Check out our Educreation Presentations we made today to explain how our marble tracks work, and some of the learning behind this project:

Brady & Josh
Katie & Kailey
Sam & Olivia
Sophie & Brittany
Connor, Dylan, Isaaq, and Jordan
Dominic, Evan, Emily & Owen
Aidan, Kristen & Cassie
Emery, Hailey, & Kayleigh

We did a wonderful job using Educreations to publish our projects digitally!

Other Learning

We are also beginning to learn a 2-digit subtraction strategy that using decomposing to explain the process of regrouping more clearly before we learn the "traditional" algorithm after break.  Stay tuned for a post demonstrating how to solve the way we solve!

In word study, we are finishing our parts of speech study with nouns, adjectives, and now verbs.  Next week we will learn adverbs.

In writing, we are wrapping up our Book Reviews (opinion writing) by recording them using photobooth (Anyone remember Reading Rainbow? That's our theme!) Next, we will practice informational writing with our Expert Projects.

In preparation for expert projects, we are studying informational texts this week, keep a close eye on organization.  Second graders are expected to identify not only the main idea of an informational text, but the topic or main idea of specific paragraphs within a text.  Identifying the topic of each paragraph helps us to further see the connection between each section, and how those details contribute to the whole meaning of the text.