{What is a Veterinarian?}

Dr. Ekman visited our classroom to tell us all about the job of a veterinarian! She showed us how she performs an exam, makes a diagnosis, and prescribes medication. Dr. Ekman also talked to us about taking x-rays. I think our favorite part was looking at x-rays of animals that had eaten some of the craziest things. Some dogs and cats had eaten tennis balls, fish hooks, a sewing needle, pacifiers, and even a plastic dinosaur!!!

Dr. Ekman and her assistant Molly

At the end of her presentation, Dr. Ekman gave all of the Twosies some of their very own veterinary tools. They all received a scrub cap, surgical mask, and a set of latex gloves.

Getting geared up!

Thank you Dr. Ekman

{Natural Disasters}

We demonstrated our learning of Natural Disasters by creating meteorologist reports of 6 different natural disasters! 

Each report had to include:

 -where the natural disaster could occur
-how it forms
-an interesting fact
-its appearance
-effects on land, animals, or plants
-precautions people should take
-a disaster from history

We used a Green Screen App for the first time called Veescope Live! We uploaded photos and videos to put in place of the green screen while we filmed! Very cool!

This is what our setup looked like:

Here are the final products...

{Questions for a Real Meteorologist}

We sent a list of questions to my cousin, Ashley Miller, who is a meterologist.
Ashley currently works for the NOAA.
She graciously prepared this PowerPoint to answer their questions: 

Meteorologist Questions PowerPoint

Enjoy!

{Argh, Me Mateys!}

Shiver me timbers! What an exciting time me crew had learning about Pirates!

Of course the landlubbers started off by accessing their Pirate Schema.

We then set off on an adventure to scrounge up as much information as we could! We learned about the first pirates, the new world pirates, the golden age pirates, pirate ships, pirate life, pirate treasure, pirate attack, piracy after the golden age, and piracy today. 

Me mateys also researched several famous pirates. 

Yo, ho, yo, ho, a pirate's life for me! The landlubbers then had to batten down the hatches and sail through a pirate narrative writing. Of course, bein' a good cap'n and all, I gave them a map to help them plan for their writing. We worked a lot on a great story starter and using transitional words.

Avast, we ended our study with a Pirate Booty Challenge! The mateys had to build a pirate sloop that would float and then test it to see how much "gold" it would hold. They made adjustments along the way in an effort to allow their ship to hold more gold. 

Well, blow me down! Who knew you could make a ship out of aluminum foil?

{Our First Recording Artist}

The Twosies have been working hard conducting animal research and demonstrating their learning by creating nonfiction texts. We have had some really great newspaper articles, letters, ABC Books, and comic books written. The Twosies were able to present information in some really neat ways!

Charlotte decided to put her animal facts to music and wrote a song. Mrs. DeFoor played the tune she came up with and they recorded her very first single! Check it out:

{Second Grade Scientists}

We had so much fun at Super Scientist Friday! We completed an experiment called "Elephant Toothpaste". We began with hydrogen peroxide in the bottom of a plastic bottle. We added food coloring and the liquid changed colors. We added dish soap next and the liquid got a little bubbly. Finally, we added yeast and the liquid turned into a foam and came up and out of the bottle. It looked just like a giant tube of toothpaste--fit for an elephant!!

I also caught some of our Twosies in action at Science Night. Here they are experimenting with changing the angles of a catapult. Heart shaped candies were flying all over our classroom!!!

{Sweet Second Grade}

The Twosies practiced their perimeter and area skills to decorate their Valentine boxes. They had to measure the perimeter of each face of their rectangular prism and draw the face using a ruler. Then they cut out their faces and glued them to their box.

When they were finished they decorated the top and we cut a slot for the Valentines. 

After that, the Twosies had to write Valentine nouns on one face, verbs on one, adjectives on another, and adverbs on another.

.............

We also had some fun with Conversation Hearts. The Twosies explored data charts, fractions, line plots, estimation, and area with the little candy hearts! It was sweet!

And what's a holiday without a few science experiments???

We predicted whether conversation hearts would float or sink first. Turns out, they sink. Conversation hearts are more dense than water! 

Next we predicted what would happen to the hearts when left in water and vinegar. After a very short time, the hearts began to dissolve and lose their color. The change occurred much faster in vinegar than water!

Lastly, we experimented with heat and conversation hearts. We learned (very traumatically) that conversation hearts melt when heat is applied and turn into a syrup. The solid actually changes to a liquid! I say traumatically because the syrup got so hot that the plastic container we were using melted too!!! All. Over. the microwave. So...next year, I'll use a glass container instead!