The Montshire Museum!

A HUGE THANK YOU to the parents who were able to come and chaperone today. This was such a memorable day and the children had such a wonderful time. Please enjoy some photos from today! I tried to take a picture of each child, but I couldn't find some of them once they got started! It was interesting to see their strategies in navigating a museum....(starting outside, starting on the second floor,   moving from back to front of rooms). Haha as I said, I tried to find them all, but some were nearly impossible to track down!

No captions for these photos this time - ask your child about these photos, what they saw, what they did, and what their favorite exhibit was. Click on the photos to make them larger!

Forces and Motion!

We have been exploring forces and motion! We have learned about slope, friction, and acceleration. Scientists explored a multitude of concepts together throughout this unit.

Ask your child about what s/he has learned about forces and motion, the slopes s/he designed and created, and real life examples of forces and motion s/he's seen in the world.

Exploring with Slope

Building a slope to change the distance and/or acceleration of a car and observing the impact friction and steepness have on an object's acceleration and distance

Exploring with Weight

Changing the weight of a car to observe the affect it has on an object's distance and acceleration.

Free Explore

Discovery through exploration and observation

Your Thoughts Are Needed and Appreciated!

Communication between families and school is so important! Please take a moment to fill out this survey (or the one sent home with our Friday News) and let me know your thoughts on communication this year.

It is a super quick and anonymous survey that will really help me better meet the needs of families in terms of communication methods, frequency, and content. Please take the time to fill it out, your thoughts are important and highly valued. I would really appreciate it!

Click here to take survey

Thanks in advance!

- Rachael

Too Talented!

Second graders are illustrating, writing, adding nonfiction text features, designing and planning scenes to photograph, and photographing their creations. These creators had to plan out what they wanted to make and request materials. They were then provided with whatever they needed and then voila! Here we are...extremely busy and loving every second of it!

Sharing ideas and animal facts....those are the faces of learners and teachers.

Spoiler Alert! Here is a glimpse at the pages authors and illustrators are creating on KidPix.

(This is what it looks like on the KidPix screen!)

Ask your child what the best part about this project is and the most challenging part is.

Helping Your Child Write and Spell

Hello Families!

Check out this video from the Launching Young Readers series on Reading Rockets. Reading experts explain why families should encourage and provide opportunities for their children to write! There are some great ideas on this short video, for example: creating a grocery list together in the car. Super simple, but effective in helping your child become a better writer, speller, and reader!

ELF Moves

Our class loves to move and Miss Laurie had a great idea for a lesson. She taught these movers about movement and how it benefits the brain. She had another two movement-based activities too! One of the lessons Miss Laurie taught us was that it's important to reflect on how you moved and how you felt when you moved. Ask your child about how they felt during these different activities!

Types of movement in the Brain Dance and what do they do for us?

Moving to the music. Seaweed or fish?

Totem Pole activity!

Can you believe we've been through all of the ELF lessons? A HUGE THANK YOU to all of the parents who acted as ELF teachers to us this year! Melinda, Cassie, and Laurie you three have helped to continue make learning fun! Thank you again, our class has enjoyed and appreciated the time you've spent with us! :)