Language Arts Sampler

Language Arts is a fun and lengthy block of time that second graders share each morning.  Often, we start it off with our Lots To Do Choice Menu.  I put this title in italics not to emphasize its fanciness, for it is far from fancy.  It is a list of all of the current projects that students have on their hypothetical plates.  The kids can come in, assess the list, and determine their plan for the morning.  Simply put, it's a time for each student to prioritize, organize, and catch up on crucial (and hopefully fun) work.  

This morning, Kevin worked to finish the summarizing of his Abe Lincoln biography.  Mia added some details on her Maria Tallchief poster.  Natalie wrote 9 - count 'em - 9 pages of her original tall tale story about a character who is a phenom on the basketball court and beyond.  Grace worked to master clerihew and cinquain poetry.  Gabe and Ben finished their reading about the legend of the Loch Ness monster.  Julia worked on a "teaser" - a short paragraph highlighting the life of Anne Frank that she will present, via microphone, at the upcoming Biography Celebration.

We also got some work in mastering analogies and keeping up on contractions.

Having a space that has set expectations yet is fluid has been key to the success of these students this year.  They feel comfortable, so they have fun.  They have fun, so they push themselves a little harder.  I love the independence and the collaboration that such a system fosters.  They do a great job.

Gabe and Ben confer about the legend of Nessie...

We are practicing our persuasive writing.  James argues that Nessie is clearly a hoax!

Hannah, on the other hand, persuades us by writing that Nessie resembles a Plesiosaur.  Good argument, Hannah...

Our tall tale stories are wilder than Pecos Bill himself.

Julia writes about Casie the Cook..

Trevor works on the cover illustration

Andrew helps our class celebrate National Poetry month by constructing a haiku

Sophia works on a color poem

Natalie's color poem is inspired by blue..

Trevor works on a quatrain and also practices his simile and metaphor skills

Science Alive

Whew.  Spring has sprung so quickly that I'm pretty certain it's already been eclipsed by summer.  Typical of Maryland, our fine state's temperature has done a 0 to 60 in about 2 seconds flat.  We're talking the mercury rising at the speed of a Bentley.  We are not letting a little heat deter us from some outdoor and indoor science explorations.  I could not wait for the emergence of flowers and (gasp) even insects.  Maybe I'm not so fond of the little buzzing guys inside of my home.  But in our outdoor classroom laboratory, insects reign supreme.


To start our week, we learned about the anatomy of flowers.  First, we learned what the word anatomy means:  it is the essential building components of a living creature.  Flowers have lots of important anatomy, including petals, stamen, pistils, and an ovary.  Each piece plays a crucial function in allowing the flower to produce pollen and receive pollen from the air or from bees.  Tweezers and magnifying glasses in hand, we dissected these small wild flowers bit by bit to further explore their important components.

Starting the dissection

Teddy is incredibly careful in his analysis

Great use of the magnifying glass

Brooke and Julia confer

Future surgeon?

Mid week, we had the incredible luck to receive 7 hen eggs and an incubator from Trevor.  The instructions that came with the incubator included language more difficult than my operations management textbook from college.  Still, I prevailed in setting it up because I had a calming group of scientists surrounding me and offering their (admittedly expert) opinions.  As a team, we set the ideal temperature (99.6 F) and also the number of days (21).  We managed to set up our machine to rotate our eggs at a 5 degree angle every 45 minutes.


It is humbling, but I would be fibbing if I didn't admit that these kids were a huge help in digesting the information and helping me program.  Second grade superstars, indeed.


Now that we're set up, it's fully time to analyze our eggs for the next three weeks and chart and determine what is developing each day:

Hen eggs arrive in different sizes and colors... very cool.

We're on day 2!  Hopefully there are some beating hearts within those eggs.

Charleston carefully charts the Week 1 progress.

Julia also does a great job!

Andrew takes the egg development very seriously...

We have to estimate the size of our eggs because we cannot handle them when they are incubating.

We draw diagrams of the most important components of the growing chicks...

Mr. Deyell plays captive audience...

Bracketology and "Bucket Ball"

We couldn't let March Madness slip by unannounced this year.. especially not with all of the budding athletes here in class.

Creating a bracket takes knowledge of stats and pure luck.  It was fun to teach the kids to look to rankings, winning percentages, and also ask them to go with their guts.  Starting with a field of 64 - and whittling it down to a final victor - took these statisticians quite amount of time and effort.  But it was the fun sort of effort. 

After completing our brackets, we did some further exploration of fractions and decimals by playing a game I've christened "Bucket Ball"

Each student rolls a pair of dice to determine the amount of tosses they get.  Students record amount of successful tosses and turn these numbers into fractions.  We then do some simple calculator work to determine the number as a decimal.

The kids really enjoyed being the "backboard" - as backboards, they had to hold each bucket as still as possible.  And, true to any basketball game, sometimes the backboard was used to complete the shot.  These "backboards" were very brave in the face of being used for their true function!

Love the slightly nervous looks on James and Charleston's faces... Great work, guys!

Our stats, they're coming together!

Collaboration and calculator work..

I think some NBA scouts should be on the lookout for Andrew... nice percentage!

Andrew and Grace compete in the Final Four of fraction top it

Castle Defense: Anatomy of a Castle and Mini Trebuchets

Spring is here!  You'd recognize it immediately in second grade.  The kids are autonomous creativity-seekers.  For a teacher, spring is bittersweet.  I can hear the siren song of summer starting to call to me, that undeniably awesome time to relax, soak up sun rays, host a barbeque, maybe dabble in some sidewalk chalk art.  I am ready for summer.

On the other hand,

I. do. not. want. to. let. these. students. go.



They've come so far, worked so hard, learned so much.  We have been through victories and (admittedly comical) mishaps.  We understand one another's quirks.  We have inside jokes.  We have a group learning style that functions for all.  This class, especially, will be hard to say goodbye to.  It's a special crew.  However, they're creeping so close to being third graders.  And I know that there is a new crop of soon-to-be-second-graders growing into their new roles, as well.

So we enjoy each day.  We cram instruction and projects in like they are going out of style (which they are obviously not!)



Recently we learned about the structure, architecture, and various uses of medieval castles.  Did you know that moats contained spikes and eels to keep enemies at bay?  And that the strongest part of any castle was a large inner chamber called the keep?  And don't even get us started about castle dungeons.  We also learned that castles were built to protect noblemen and the knights, merchants, and artisans who lived within its walls.  And they were pretty tactical with their defensive manuevers:  archers, catapults, and even burning sand and tar were used to fight fierce battles.


After concluding our research, we drew our own castle diagrams.  We weren't allowed to add any fairy tale stuff:  no damsels in distress or fire-breathing dragons crawling around the lair.  We stuck true to the primary and secondary sources offered to us.


After that, it was time to get a little STREAM (Science Tech Reading Engineering Art Math!) integration in.  We learned about force and trajectory by assembling our own miniature trebuchets!  Trebuchets are essentially catapults used in medieval castle defense.

We referred to our recreations with a more modest name:  cork shooters!