Time Flies

Wow!  I can't believe how long it has been since I last updated - time is certainly flying here in second grade!  For the last few weeks we have been fully immersed in our drama unit with Kelli.

We began as  members of a TV show audience - a TV show called The Perfect City Show.  It was hosted by Ms. Savvy Traveler and featured her going from city to city looking for a perfect city.  We quickly realized, though, that NO city is perfect - but many cities work hard to fix their problems.  We wrote a theme song for our new show - The Nice City Show.

We're here at The Nice City Show

And we know where to go.

Every city has problems

But do they know how to solve them?

Every city has problems

But do they have people to solve them?

We're about to find out

What it's all about 

On The Nice, Nice, Nice, Nice Nice City Show

(2, 3) City Show

(2, 3) City Show

(2, 3) The Nice City Show!

We then went undercover as city government workers.  We had workers at the Department of Parks and Recreation, the Department of Transportation, the Department of Health, the Department of Animal Care and Control, and the Commission for Women's Issues.  As you saw in the last post, we answered phones and helped people around the city.

We then noticed that a lot of phone calls were coming in from Brooklyn - specifically from the area around Bruce Ratner's proposed Atlantic Yards project.  Mr. Ratner is currently building a basketball stadium for the Brooklyn Nets and had promised the community lots of jobs, affordable homes, and greenspace.  After tearing down people's homes and businesses, though, he decided to put in a 1,000 car parking lot.  Obviously, people were upset!

We did some research and decided that Bruce Ratner's plan didn't meet the needs of the community - and as city government workers, that's our job!  We created our own plan that met the needs of the community.  Each department planned, designed, and built different things to put onto a model of our plan.

Students listed ideas as a department and then began mapping out their plan.

Students then began building their ideas to put onto the model.

As each department worked, they continued to receive phone calls with comments and complaints in Brooklyn.  The government workers used those ideas to create their plans for what to build.  Some plans for each department were:

Health Department:  Urgent Care Hospital, trash cans, green carts for fresh snacks, exercise equipment, running track

Parks and Recreation:  Green space, sprinkler park, swimming pool, playground, trees, gardens, benches, public restrooms

Animal Care and Control:  trash cans, dog run, vet/pet supply store, green space, pond (for wild animals), trees

Commission for Women's Issues:  Low income housing, stroller parking at the stadium, storefronts (including the above pet supply store) with jobs for women and training for women, education center for women and their families

Department of Transportation:  Underground subway station below the stadium, bike parking lot, wide sidewalks, nearby bus stops, safety signs, small 5-level parking garage

All of these ideas took into consideration the needs and wants of the surrounding community while also meeting the goals for their departments.  Students then wrote speeches to deliver at Bruce Ratner's Public Forum.  At the forum they immediately raised their hands to speak at the microphone after Mr. Ratner declared that his idea was what was best for Brooklyn.  As the students took the stage, the audience quickly was on their side.  They spoke of the noise, the traffic, the pollution, and the safety problems that a 1,000 car parking lot in residential Brooklyn would bring.  The students then showed off their completed model.

On the left are the swimming pools and sprinkler parks created by the Department of Parks and Recreation.
On the right are three buildings built by the Commission for Women's Issues - notice that all three utilize the roofs for garden space, playground space, or pet space.
On the far right you can see 2 buses pulling up to the bus stop built by the Department of Transportation.

The Department of Transportation built a subway station underneath the stadium to create a better environment in Brooklyn.  On the left you can also see bike parking and a small parking garage for those basketball fans that must drive.

The departments also had to work together to create a key for many of the commonly needed items on the model.

The fully completed model -- the new plan is entitled "The Pretty Skies Park"

After the students presented the model, Mr. Ratner called for a vote - and our plan won!  Hopefully, in the future, the voices of the citizens will be taken into account before homes are destroyed and plans are made.

Busy, busy, busy!

The last six weeks of school always seem to be the busiest - and this year is no different.

An empty office at the Department of Parks and Recreation.

- We have been role-playing with Kelli as city department workers - and going out into our own communities to find evidence of city departments at work.  We will even have some government workers come in to talk to us and answer our questions.
- We have been growing lots of new plants!  We now have cuttings from ivy plants growing on our windowsill as well as wheat growing inside of straws!
- We visited the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens on Tuesday and explored some of the thousands of plants in the gardens - we smelled them, touched them, looked at them - it was a great experience.

- We have been using clocks to explore elapsed time and creating timelines of events.
- We are currently writing play scripts based on Leo Leonni books we read independently.  We wrote a class play script about Leo Leonni's book Swimmy and acted it out too!
- We are reading more and more challenging chapter books and really growing as readers as we notice lots of new things as we read.
- Today we are having a visitor come to speak to us about Kenya - the country where our pen pals live.

...Whew!  And that's only some of the great things we're doing in second grade!  As the year winds down, though, we will need some time to reflect back on our year.  I'll be posting the students' reflections here as we work on them.

Harvesting

Our brassica plants are no more - they have withered and died.  They won't however be gone for long.  On Monday, we harvested seed pods from our plants.  These seed pods held anywhere between 2 and 9 seeds!  After harvesting the seeds, we will be passing them on to the other EVCS 2nd grade class.  There, they will begin growing their own brassica plants - but using our seeds!  The life cycle of our plants is now complete.

A hodgepodge

I feel like there is so much going on that I can't choose just one topic to focus on!

Firstly, we are really immersing ourselves in plants!  We now have a whole collection of carnivorous plants (thanks to a great parent!) and we are exploring them first-hand now that we've done so much research on them.

We also have grass growing on the window ledge.  We will be "mowing" it next week to see how plants grow.

Our brassica plants may be wilting and dying - but the seed pods are now forming!  Next week we can plant our new seeds to start new plants!

In non-plant related news, yesterday was our last Cook Shop lesson.  We celebrated the end of this excellent program by making a recipe that used all 5 food groups.  Can you spot them all on our ingredients table?


A few kids asked for the recipe so here it is:

- 2 cans black beans, drained
- 1 head lettuce, washed and cut into strips
- 2 apples, diced into small pieces
- 1 red pepper, diced into small pieces
- 1 bag of low-fat shredded mozzarella cheese
- 8 whole wheat tortillas
- 1 tsp. chili powder
- 1 tsp. cumin seeds


Mash the beans and mix in the chili powder and cumin seeds.  Then spread it on the tortilla.  Sprinkle on the cheese.  Then add the apples and peppers.  Next top it with lettuce.  Roll up the tortilla and eat.  Can be served with salsa or low-fat Greek yogurt.


We also began our drama residency with Kelli yesterday.  We have immersed ourselves into the world of TV journalism to find out about how New York City runs.  Tomorrow we will be going on a community walk to search for evidence of City Government Agencies.  Stay tuned for lots more from this amazing project!

And finally...in math we left the Land of Inch and met a new king in an unnamed kingdom.  This ruler of the land measured everything with his foot.  But when he gave measurements to his carpenter for a new stall for his daughter's horse, it could only fit a pony!  We figured out it was because the carpenter's foot was much smaller than the king's foot!  We wrote letters to the king explaining that because the measurement tool wasn't standard in size, none of his buildings would be either.  The carpenter cut a piece of wood that was the same size as the king's foot to use to measure with before she cut or built anything.  She called  this standard-sized measuring tool a "Ruler" in honor of the king.  We are now using rulers to measure in class.  ....They sure are similar to our 12-inch-brick measuring tool, though!

Pollinate!

On Monday we became little worker bees here in room 205 - we pollinated our flowers!

Last week and this week, we've been discussing how plants make new plants.  We all knew that you start with a seed - but what we weren't sure about was where seeds come from.

After some reading, some looking at plants, and a short video, we determined that seeds come from the same place where flowers had been growing.  A cherry tree with lots of flowers would be a great thing for a cherry farmer, even though he or she didn't sell flowers!

We then learned that the pollen from one flower has to be put onto another flower.  Flowers attract bugs (like bees!) and butterflies and hummingbirds to them by being pretty in color or having good smelling nectar.  How nice a flower looks and smells isn't just aesthetic - it's also useful.  We also discussed that pollen can stick to a curious dog's nose or to our clothes as we walk and we sometimes - accidentally - help pollinate flowers too.

We then collected the pollen from our flowers using Q-tips to get deep in.  We saw the yellow, dusty pollen on the tips.  Then we pollinated a friend's flower.  Now we wait - hopefully we'll have seeds to replant soon!

Of course, after working with our plants, we recorded any observations we have had.  Our recording packets are filling up with pictures, words, and numbers showing how our plants have changed.

Blooming!

While almost half of our class is home sick, our flowers are doing quite well!  Our brassica seeds began to grow buds last week and now are almost all blooming!  It's only been 2 1/2 weeks, but they're growing, growing, growing!

On Monday we will begin doing the job of bumble bees -- we will pollinate these flowers to help them grow seeds to reproduce!

The Land of Inch

The Land of Inch can only be visited very late at night by pressing on the castle's door.
Our teacher, Liz, has visited once to get our new measuring tools from Princess Funer.

The Land of Inch is far, far away.  In this miniature land, there is a beautiful (and brilliant) princess who lives in a castle with her father, the king.  One day, the king asked that all of the athletes in the land see who could jump the farthest.  Unfortunately, all of the athletes measured their jumps with different units.  Some measured using blocks, others with sticks, some with their feet, and others with pieces of paper.  No one knew who won because they couldn't compare the distances!

Then Princess Funer noticed a pile of bricks by the castle door.  She had all of the athletes jump again and they all measured their jumps with bricks.  They could now see who the winner was because they were using a standard measuring tool.

The people of the Land of Inch loved this and started carrying bricks with them all of the time to help them measure things.  Soon, though, they realized that bricks are heavy and lots of people were complaining of aching backs.  So, Princess Funer decided to trace the bricks on paper and give out pieces of paper that were the same size as bricks - but were a lot lighter to carry.  She called these papers "Inch Bricks" because they lived in the Land of Inch.

We used Inch Bricks yesterday to measure the long jumps.  One miniature jumper had a jump as long as a pencil.  Another had a jump as long as a sheet of paper.  Yet another jumper had a jump as long as our pencil bins.  The fourth jumper had a jump as long as the width of a sheet of paper.  We used Inch Bricks to see who won.

One student, though, voiced a complaint.  He said using Inch Bricks was difficult because you had to be careful not to overlap bricks or leave spaces between bricks and you had to be sure they were exactly straight to get the right measurement.  We brought this complaint to Princess Funer and she used magical glue to create Inch Brick Measuring Tools.  She glued 12 of the Inch Bricks together in a straight row so that it was easier to measure.

Today we used that Inch Brick Measuring Tool to measure the sizes of clothing the king and his subjects wear.  We also compared them - how much shorter is Kip's jacket compared to the king's robe?  What about Nap's sweater compared to Kag's knee socks?

Tomorrow we will help the king measure his gardens.  They're quite big -- bigger than our Inch Brick Measuring Tools.  We'll have to come up with a solution for that problem.

On Friday we will be using our Inch Brick Measuring Tools to create accurate maps of the Land of Inch.  Stop by the hallway outside of room 205 to see what we're doing to help the Land of Inch!

Yum!

We have been a part of the Cook Shop program throughout the year.  (If you've missed prior posts on it, click here.)  One reason we participate in this program is to encourage kids to try - and retry - new foods.  When we read through the recipe our room is often filled with statements of, "but I hate that food!" or "oh, that food is gross!" or "I don't like that food!"  But minds are quickly changed when that food that had been disgusting to them only seconds before suddenly becomes part of a complete recipe they helped to create.

Many of us don't like certain foods on their own - but once in a recipe we find that the food compliments the other ingredients well or that it tastes differently when mixed with other ingredients.  Such was the case yesterday when we made our protein recipe of Three Bean Fiesta!

Our recipe was as follows:

- One can of black beans, drained and rinsed
- One can of chick peas, drained and rinsed
- One can of kidney beans, drained and rinsed
- One can of corn, drained and rinsed
- Two cloves of garlic, finely chopped
- One red pepper, finely chopped
- The juice of three limes
- Four teaspoons of honey
- 1/2 cup of cilantro, finely chopped
- 1/2 teaspoon of salt
- 1/4 teaspoon of pepper

During this whole process, many students seemed hesitant to try some of the ingredients.  We chopped and mixed all of our ingredients together.  Then tried it all together (One, Two, Three, Let's Eat!).  One rule of Cook Shop is that everyone has to try the food.  Another rule of Cook Shop is that you can't "yuck someone's yum" - meaning you can dislike a food but you have to remember it is your opinion and another friend's opinion may be different.  If someone likes it, you shouldn't tell them they are wrong about it.

For the first time in Room 205, there wasn't a single yuck among us.

This high in protein snack is delicious and healthy.  We even used low-fat proteins (compared to many animal-based proteins) too.

Try this one at home with your child using different ways to eat it.  We tried it on spoons and on crackers - what about on whole grain chips?  Or on vegetable slices?  Or on a large lettuce leaf, rolled up like a tortilla?  Or a whole grain tortilla?  The possibilities are endless when it comes to eating healthy.  Enjoy!

Our Plants Are Growing

It's been one week since we planted our brassica seeds and they are certainly growing!

Our brassica seeds after 7 days

Our plants range from 1 inch to 2 inches tall and they have many leaves on them.  As scientists our job is to observe and record what we see.  In our recording notebooks we have been drawing accurate sketches, taking written notes on what we observe, and marking important dates on our science calendar (dates of watering, changes in the plant, etc.).  We have seen a lot of changes in this plant in just one week!

Carnivorous Plants

We are also now studying carnivorous plants.  A lot of us already knew some information about the Venus fly trap, but now we are learning about lots of other carnivorous plants - like bladderworts and sundew plants, and pitcher plants.  All of these plants catch insects or fish in very different ways but they all need them to supplement their nutrients since the soil doesn't provide enough for them.  It's been really cool learning about these plants!

Next week we will begin growing grass.  And we'll have to "mow" it too!  Stop in our classroom to see our plants grow and learn some great information about the living world around us.

Social Studies Share

Thank you, everyone, who came to our Social Studies Share today!

 
We shared our persuasive essays about the type of community we think you should live in.  We also shared our community dioramas.

Our essays were put into the three categories.  Someone interested in just one community could read lots of essays on that community type by coming over to that writing table.  After reading our facts and persuasive reasons, parents, friends, and peers commented and praised our work.  It was so great to see all of the comments!

Our visitors also came in to see our dioramas.  After looking at what we made, they read our clues that we typed on the computer.  The clues told our visitors what was in our diorama.  Then, after guessing whether it was an urban, a rural, or a suburban community, you could check to see if you were right by flipping up the flap.

  

Lots of visitors came to see our social studies work today!  Many parents and siblings came as well as the other second grade class at EVCS.

Dioramas are going home today so that they can be shared with more family members and friends.  If you'd like a copy of your child's writing, let me know - but for now they will be displayed in our classroom for more of our friends here to read!

We are Botanists!

We have transformed from Geologists to Botanists over our Spring Break!

We are now studying plants.  We will be growing plants from seed, bulb, pit, and cuttings over the next 3 months.  Today we began by planting brassica seeds.  We used the soil we made during our Rocks, Soil, and Silt unit to plant the seeds and now they are under our grow lights.

What is interesting about the brassica seeds we're using is that they're fast plants!  This means that scientists helped make the plants go through their entire lift cycle in about a month - rather than the usual 3-5 months.  We will be observing our plants using our observation journals to record what we see and notice about our plants.  By planting today, we hope to have some sprouts by Monday!
 

Right now our seeds are watered, fed, and getting ready.  We will keep you all updated on our first plants throughout the upcoming weeks!

Spanish Restaurant

If you somehow missed it, our class opened a Spanish restaurant on Tuesday afternoon!  Over 25 family members and friends came to eat our delicious food, like guacamole, empanadas, and flan.  We played the role of host/hostess, cook, and waiter/waitress.  Before we opened, we also made menus in Spanish, advertisements in Spanish, and role-played our jobs to become more fluent in our Spanish-speaking.

Our Spanish teacher, Mary, did an amazing job getting our classroom transformed into a restaurant, complete with festive tablecloths and complimentary chips with salsa.

Al Restaurante El Grand Buda was a huge success - talk to your child about his/her job and learn some helpful words and phrases for ordering at a Spanish restaurant in the future!

Plants - An Introduction

Now that we know so much about Earth materials like rocks and soil, we can begin our plant unit in science!  Before we can start getting our hands dirty and start experimenting and exploring plants, we discussed what we already knew about plants and we thought of questions we had as well.  We will each plan research or experiments to answer our questions throughout the next 3 months.

To kick off this unit, we made a creative KWL chart. (Know, Wonder, Learned)

On our darker leaves we recorded what we already Knew.  It turns out that we knew a lot about plants!

On the lighter leaves we wrote our questions - they ranged from "Can a plant grow in sand?" to "How tall is the tallest tree?" to "Can I use milk or orange juice instead of water to feed my plant?"  We will experiment and research to answer these questions.

Once we find the answer to our question, we will add a flower that shares the answer to all of the people who walk by!  Stop by Room 205 to see our knowledge and our questions as we start this exciting unit!

Also, parents, I am sending home a letter asking for cuttings you may have of specific plants - we are looking to use them the first week in May.  Thanks!

Yektti Aliens

Yekttis are aliens that were that live in abandoned prairie dog, gopher, or groundhog holes.  These aliens seem friendly enough, but they never come fully out of their holes.  We can only ever see their heads.

Over the summer, two second-grade students found a large group of Yekttis living near one another.  In observing these Yekttis, one of the students made sketches of all of the ones she saw.  She noticed that while they were all similar, no two were exactly alike.

Using her sketches, we can play "Guess My Rule" - a game of sorting.

The first day we observed her sketches, we noticed that some attributes of the Yekttis changed.  Some had ringed eyes and other had plain eyes.  Some had one antennae, two antennae, three antennae, or even four antennae.  Some had square-shaped heads, rhombus-shaped heads, hexagon-shaped heads, or triangle-shaped heads.  We sorts piles and piles of these cards as a group first to get used to the process.

We then began our "Guess My Rule" game.

One student takes a rule card.  It names one attribute of a Yektti.  That student draws four Yektti cards and sorts them -- putting them inside a loop of yarn means they meet the rule.  Putting them outside of loop of yarn means they do not meet the rule.  In turn, students at the table draw another Yektti card and try to sort it correctly - even though they don't know the rule.  After a few rounds, students can try to guess the rule.  If you guess correctly, the game begins again with a new rule.  If you guess incorrectly, you sit out that round and just observe.  We shouldn't make hasty guesses we aren't positive of!

If you click HERE you can download all of the rule cards and Yektti cards for yourself.  Have your child play at home - take turns being the person who knows the rule and the person who does not.  It's a fun game that helps us sort information - a great skill as we move further into our data-collection unit.