January 30th- Please Post A Comment

Radical Research in Room 13!

As the Marsens embark on a new and exciting unit of Landforms, they once again impress us with their ability to learn about new topics and expand their already vast knowledge!  After learning about many different kinds of landforms, children were asked to pick one landform to become  an expert on!  The children began researching their landform in books, on the computer, and in resources in the Cantiague Library!

In addition to choosing which landform he/she wanted to research, students had a choice of which style presentation they wanted to represent the knowlege he/she gained during this unit of study. Ask your child what landform he/she is researching in class and the kind of project he/she will be making next week in school! We are so excited to see the final projects and reports when they are all complete!

Scientist of the Week

Our Scientist of the Week was none other than the talented, Zack Spector! Thank you Zack, for teaching the class that molecules move faster in hot water than in cold water.  See below to watch Zack's fantastic experiment! 

Jump-A-Thon 2013!!!

Last Friday was our annual Jump-A-Thon!  Our class headed down to the gym ready to jump our little hearts out.  We have to say we are one physically fit class.  Bravo!  Congrats to Maytal and Zack who jumped for over 5 minutes! Congrats to Mrs. Rosen who jumped the longest out of the partcipating Second Grade staff members.  Her husband (a physical education teacher in the city schools) would have loved to have been here to witness this accomplishment! Here are some pictures of our class jumping away!





January 23

Ringing in the New Year!        


We were so excited to welcome back all the children after a long and restful vacation.  We now know that all the kids and their families truly enjoyed the break! We certainly did too! 

Mrs. Martin had a wonderful time in Ohio, spending time with family and friends.  One highlight of her vacation was getting snowed in and watching her two kids play in the snow with their cousins!

Mrs. Rosen also had a great break! She spent her time here in New York, with family and friends as well! One highlight of her trip was taking her girls to Manhattan and playing with them in Central Park.  Lila, her three year old daughter, thought everyone was waving to them all day long! (They were really hailing cabs!)

Room 13 came right back to school ready to catch up on each others lives and work hard. 

                  

Math

We are wrapping up our fourth unit in math...Bar Modeling! Through this new experience our goal was to expose the children to the art of drawing the correct Bar Model for a word problem.  Our mathematicians learned to:

1. Read a word problem

2. Draw the bars

3.  ? ( decide are they solving for a part or a whole)

4.  Plug in the data

5.  Solve the problem

6.  Explain the solution in words

Phew! That is challenging work for everyone!  Next up....Introduction to Multiplication and Division! 

Poetry

We are also finishing our second writing unit on Poetry.  Our writers were truly immersed in this unit.  By utilizing poetic elements such as similes and metaphors, personification, repitition, and word choice, children enhanced their already amazing poems. Students then further explored their creativity by utilizing the white space to present their poems in a fun and creative way! We are looking forward to our second Writer's Celebration, sometime next week.

Scientist of the Week
Lauren was a whirlwind this week as our most recent Scientist! She demonstrated to the class that a tornados form when warm, moist air from a thunderstorm meets cooler, dry air which then creates a spinning funnel cloud or vortex. We were truly enthralled in her experiment.  Thank you Lauren! 


Video up...Lauren creating a tornado!