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.

Even or Odd?

In math we have been exploring the differences between even and odd numbers.  We used cubes, number sentences, and our prior knowledge to list a whole lot of fun facts about even and odd numbers!

We know that even numbers can be put into pairs (partners of two) without any left over.  We practice this every day when picking line partners!

We know that even numbers can be put into two equal sized groups.

We know that even and odd numbers alternate when counting.  even, odd, even, odd, even, odd...

We know that an even number + an even number = an even number.

We know that an odd number + an odd number = an even number.

We know that an even number + an odd number = an odd number

We know that an odd number + an even number = an odd number

We know that even numbers end with 0, 2, 4, 6, or 8

We know that odd numbers end with 1, 3, 5, 7, or 9

Wow!  We know a lot!

Dioramas

In social studies, we are studying the three common types of communities in our world:  Rural, Suburban, and Urban communities.  We've done our research and now we are both writing our persuasive letters and creating visuals to show others our communities.  Our visuals?  The good ol' diorama!

We began working on Friday.  First, we had to select a community type to work on.  Next, we listed what we were planning to include in our diorama.  Regardless of our community type, we had to list at least one building and one form of transportation we were going to include.

After planning, we started working!  We are so creative - we're painting, building with sticks, designing buildings, using felt, paper, feathers, and clay to build worlds inside of shoe boxes!

They're still a work in progress - but they'll be on display with our writing at our next Family Friday!

Students use construction paper to build vehicles

Students paint backgrounds

Tree construction

A farm house is built

Building an el train in the city

Adding a lake to the countryside

Setting the scene

Building some people with clay

Using clay to build city structures

Painting and cutting

Hard work in action

Populating the suburbs

Adding rocks to the yard

Using our planning sheet (on the left)
to plot out the structures in the suburbs

Community Research

As persuasive writers, we have come to a new step: Research before writing.  In the past, our persuasive writing was about things we knew a lot about or things we had experienced.  Now we are writing persuasive letters to a (fictional) boy who wants to move to the United States and wants to know where to go -- urban, rural, or suburban?

Before we can convince someone that the city is better, or that the country is better, or that the 'burbs are better, we have to do some research.  We have been hearing lots of stories about kids living in different types of communities.  We've been looking at pictures and comparing and contrasting what we see.  Now we are diving into our research bins to find more facts!

A group of students research urban communities in the meeting area.

A group of students research suburban communities at a table.

As students read and observe the pictures of books,
 they record their findings.

Each of us is finding out the answers to these 6 questions about each type of community:

1 - What types of transportation do they use?
2 - What sorts of buildings do you see?
3 - Where do they do their shopping?  Where do they get their food?
4 - Where do kids play?
5 - What kind of nature do you see?  How much nature?
6 - What are some common jobs/types of jobs there?

Once we have this information, we can start listing Pros and Cons for each community type.  Some of us think living in a rural community would be great - we wouldn't have to take a subway again!  But others of us like how many friends we have in a city and wouldn't want to be so spread out like in the country.  It'll be an interesting debate and our 5-paragraph letters (introduction, 3 fact paragraphs, and a conclusion) will be thorough and persuasive, I'm sure!

Sand vs. Clay

Today, during Family Friday, we did two fun science activities about rocks.

In one group, we played tic-tac-toe.  But instead of using Xs and Os, we played in a more environmentally friendly way!  We used reusable boards and rocks!  First, we had to categorize our rocks into two groups.  We could sort them based on color, texture, size, or any other category we wanted.  Then we could play over and over with a friend - and we didn't have to waste paper!

Our other group worked with sand.  Using a matrix of water and corn starch, students build sand sculptures.  We've all used sand and water to build - and now we remember how hard it is!
In the Art Studio, we've been working with clay - a material we just learned is a very small sized rock!  Clay is certainly easier to work with than sand.  We discussed why that might be, and hypothesized that the smaller sized rock had less surface area so it could stick to other rocks easier.  Next week, we'll explore clay in the classroom too.  We will find things made out of clay, sand, and larger rocks in our world and discuss why certain rock sizes might be better for what is being built.

 

We got messy, we had a lot of fun, and now our brains are thinking about rocks, their uses, and their strengths and weaknesses as a building material.

Sand and Silt

We started our science unit looking at rocks.  What are rocks?  We used our five senses to explore and categorize them.  Then we noticed that some rocks are bigger and some are smaller than others.  We started to sort by size.  Within the group of things we call rocks, we now have
large pebbles -- small pebbles -- large gravel -- small gravel -- sand
We used our sifting screens last week to sort Earth materials into these 5 categories.  Yesterday started to explore our smallest-known rock :: sand.

We looked at sand, we felt sand, we listened to sand. We explored the sand we were each given.  Then we put it into a vial.

After that, we added water to our vial.  We know that water is a great scientific tool for sorting and changing rocks.  Our clean, clear water suddenly turned dark brown!  We said it looked like "coffee" and "hot chocolate" and "mud".  We predicted what would happen after we left our vials still for a whole day.  Most of us thought it would look like it did before we added water - it was our experience that sand seems to absorb water.  Some of us predicted the water would become clear again.  Others of us thought the sand would dissolve into the water.

We then waited 24 hours to check on our vials.  None of our predictions had been quite right!  The vial still contained water and it still contained sand.  But now it seemed to have another layer of something inside of it!  What could it be?

Since it was on top of the sand, we guessed it was something smaller or lighter than sand.  And we were right!  It's silt!  Silt is a rock material that is smaller than sand.  We carefully poured out the water and got to touch the silt.  It was smoother than the sand.  It felt slimier.  

Now we know lots of rock types when we sort by size:

Large Pebbles -- Small Pebbles -- Large Gravel -- Small Gravel -- Sand -- Silt

I wonder if there is any thing smaller than silt?

In the News!

As I'm sure you've all seen, our class was featured on DNAinfo.com.  They came in and visited during a Cook Shop lesson that focused on grains.  Check out the article and 11 pictures by clicking here.

A photo from the DNAinfo article

We had a great time making a healthy snack and sharing it with new people in our classroom.

Our recipe was:

7 plum tomatoes, chopped
2 cloves of garlic, chopped
1/4 cup of olive oil
12 dashes of salt
12 dashes of black pepper


Mix all above ingredients together and then put it on top of your favorite whole-grain food.  
We used whole-wheat bread and whole-wheat pitas in class, but crackers, rice cakes, and rolls would work too.

We learned a lot about grains during this unit and will continue our discussion about grains next week.  After grains, we begin our study of protein!

Rocks Rock!

As scientists, we are continuing our study of rocks, soil, and sand.  We have learned how to use a new scientific tool - the sifting screen.  This tool allows smaller objects to pass through while larger objects remain on top.  There are three sizes of screens, meaning we can sort in many different ways!

We noticed the similarities and differences between large rocks, pebbles, gravel, and sand.  They are all very alike and very different at the same time!  We sorted and categorized the Earth materials while practicing the use of of the sifting screen.

We will soon begin making things using these Earth materials - from bricks to sand sculptures, Earth materials can be used to make lots of things!