Thursday, April 21, 2016

The Best Plant School

Welcome to The Best Plant School! Mrs. Mandigo's class and our class have been learning about plants and flowers. We wrote a script to show what it would be like if flowers went to school! We created backgrounds and posters as well as some different props and costumes.

Thank you to the families who helped us by donating costume pieces and props! We're very proud of our movie and appreciate your support! :)

We had a lot of fun working with the second graders!
Make sure you click the photos (to enlarge them) so you can see the details on our backgrounds!


Sunday, April 3, 2016

Magic Beans


We read Jack and the Beanstalk and created a diagram to see the bean's life cycle. Throughout the story we were amazed at how fast those beans grew! This was the perfect opportunity for a science investigation.

We started planning our investigation by starting with a question: "What kind of bean seeds did Jack have?"

Then we shared ideas on how we could figure out the answer to this question. Our ideas included ways to measure, materials needed, other questions, grouping ideas, hypotheses, and organizational details.

Based on our plan, we collected the necessary materials and began to set up our investigation. We split into three groups - Pencil Pod Wax, Romano, and Royal Burgundy. Then we each planted a bean (according to the group we wanted to join).
We carefully planted the bean using soil and a clear plastic cup (so we could see the roots grow)!
 
 While we were waiting to plant, we created labels for our beans. We also wrote what we thought about the investigation.
 Here are our beans in their labeled cups! (The labels are castles in the clouds - to keep with our Jack and the Beanstalk theme.)

 We also have a bean in a plastic bag with a wet paper towel. Now we'll be able to see what's happening to the seed every day.
We're really excited about watering and caring for our beans. We know what to expect in their life cycle, but seeing makes it even more thrilling! We will be measuring and observing our beans to see which type grows the tallest and the fastest. We'll also be learning more about caring for plants and what plants need. Ask your scientist what s/he planted and which bean s/he thinks will grow the fastest and the tallest!

Money, Money, Money!

We have been learning about coins and their values! We made wallets to help us remember what the different coins are called, what they look like, and what they're worth.
We've been learning lots of new games to practice counting coins and writing total amounts using the cent sign and dollar sign.

 Ask your mathematician what his/her favorite money math game is!

Sunday, February 7, 2016

Hooray, Hooray, 100th Day!

It was the 100th day of school on Monday! We had a day full of 100-themed things!

We had name design patterns to 100, math games about 100, and writing about 100! Here are some photos from our special day!

 
Ask your first grader what her/his favorite thing was on the 100th day!

Four Winds: Snow!

We had a great time with Four Winds again! This time we learned more about snowflakes - how they're formed, what they look like, and what the different kinds are called.
We played a matching game with photographs of different types of snowflakes.

We practiced team work and made snow sculptures!


We used some hand lenses to look at snow up close!

We also had a cup of tightly packed snow and "loose" snow. We made predictions about what would happen when the snow melted. Most of these scientists thought the loosely packed snow would have more water once it melted. We checked back in after the snow and melted and realized that the packed snow had more water when it melted! We connected this to baking with "packed" brown sugar and just a regular scoop of it.

Ask your snowy scientist what they liked best about our wintry experience with Four Winds!