Welcome to Second Grade

Jingle Bell Jog
We had our Jingle Bell Jog on the last day of school before Winter Break. It was a great chance to get some exercise and release some of our energy! Here is a picture of our class at the finish line, enjoying our popsicles after the hard work.


Halloween
We had a blast on Halloween! We started the day with a school-wide parade. Everyone wore their costumes and enjoyed looking at everyone else's costume. Here are some pictures of our class waiting for the parade to come through.


After the parade we changed our clothes and headed to Octoberfest. Octoberfest is a fun activity for students in grades K-2. There are several different booths with games, crafts, and food to choose from. Here are pictures of Conner enjoying a cookie from the Ice a Cookie booth and an Apple from the Elbow bobbing booth, and a picture of AJ, Leah, Kelly, and Jake with some of their treats. A good time was had by all.









Fun Run!
We had a great time at the Boosterthon Fun Run today! Even though it was hot we still ran a ton of laps and had a blast! Our class raised over $75 per lap for the school, which is over $2,250! Wow! The run itself was a great time too. There was awesome music playing and plenty of squirt bottles! Many of our students were able to run all 35 laps! Some ran as many as 50, but the extra ones don't count towards the pledges thankfully! Here are some pictures of Alanna on the track, AJ, Conner, and Jonas enjoying some drinks and popsicles after they finished all 35 laps, and a class picture after the run. We'll sleep well tonight!



Science!
We are really enjoying our new science textbooks. Our first unit was about science inquiry skills such as observing and measuring and science tools such as rulers and measuring cups. One of our first labs was to use the triple beam balances to find the mass of three objects. Before we started we made a hypothesis about which object would be the heaviest and which would be the lightest. After we measured all three objects we recorded our data in a table in our science journals and made conclusions. We checked to see if our hypotheses were correct. Here are pictures of Lextin and Jonas and Katherine and Mia using the balances.




The next unit we started is about matter. We learned that matter can have different properties such as color, shape, size and texture. Another property of matter is whether it sinks or floats. We did another lab to learn about sinking and floating. Everyone started with a clay ball and made a prediction about whether it would sink or float. We found out it sank! Then the students were challenged to change the shape of the clay to make it float. Once they accomplished their goal we decided to see who could build an object that could float and hold the most pennies. Here are pictures of Natalie and Alanna testing their creations, Max and Kaitlin after they got their clay floating, and Conner adding a penny to his group's boat while the others look on.


Here is a slideshow of all of the students during the two labs.





Important Websites
We've had a great start to the new year! Students have received their username and login information for both Riverdeep and First in Math. Both sites can be accessed at home and provide support for math and reading. The usernames and passwords can be found in your student's agenda. Check it out!