Grade 2

Second Graders have just wrapped up our "Where We Are In Place & Time" unit and students worked on creating activist posters. Students came up with problems within our school, our neighborhoods, and our world. The class discussed how problems can start off small and get bigger; they also reflected on how humans can face problems anywhere in the world and sometimes we must be the voice for others and for change.  We learned about the various reasons people protest and students came up with solutions to the problems they chose. 

Second grade is currently in our "How We Organize Ourselves" unit. Since March was Women's History month and our current social studies unit is all about using maps as resources to help organize the world around us; we studied women Cartographers such as " Marie Tharp, Florence Kelley, and Shanawdithit. Our action piece for this unit will have students creating their own maps of our school that can be used as a navigation tool for new students coming to the school for the first time. 

Students are learning to organize their writing for their Opinion Writing topics. They learned about a good hook to catch the readers attention, stating their opinions with solid reasons, detailed explanations, and a conclusion that sums up their point of view and gives the reader a final thought and recommendation. In Math students are learning how to organize their day using time (a.m and p.m) and learned to organize their coins in our money unit. We had some students teach the class how to label coins, figure out their value, and find the total, while others worked one to one with students who needed extra help. 

Two Highlights in this unit was our classes "Game Symposium" where with the guidance of Ms. Kreyngold, second graders created their own games using the scratch junior program.  Students learned to organize their graphics and used the various tools to help their game come to life. Parents came to see their amazingly creative games and were very impressed with what they saw. Another highlight was when students made ice cream and learned the chemistry of how liquids turn into solids; students learned how to organize the materials and followed steps to ensure the liquid cream turned into ice cream. We had an "Ice Cream Shakeoff" and students got to taste their creations.