Using Tongue Depressors

One of the greatest inventions-tongue depressors! I use them for several purposes. One of the ways I use them is to write English vocabulary and concepts on them. For example, nouns, verbs, adjectives, naming, action, etc. When the students pick a stick they need to identify an example of what is written on their stick. If somone picks noun, he/she could say, "Cat."

Thank you to whoever created these!

Questions

I saw this picture quote and wondered how many questions I ask per day, how many the average adult asks and then how many my 2nd Graders ask...perhaps I should take a survey?????

Mr. Roger's Neighborhood

I stumbled upon a wonderful site that has several educational and enriching videos for primary students to watch:

http://pbskids.org/rogers/videos/index.html

It is Mr. Roger's Neighborhood! Yes, the name probably rings a bell from days of younger years watching TV, but the website it definitely in "modern times." The videos are fantastic!

Common Core Standards

Well I am beginning to dive in-test the Common Core Standards' water. These two links are the ones I have utilized thus far:

http://www.corestandards.org/the-standards/mathematics/introduction/how-to-read-the-grade-level-standards/

http://www.corestandards.org/the-standards/english-language-arts-standards/introduction/how-to-read-the-standards/

Next year we will be implementing them. I am curious to see what all the districts choose to do with the Common Core Standards, especially what materials they will use to meet the Standards.

Ice Cream in a Bag

We continue in our Matter Unit...Super Solids, Great Gases, and Lavishing Liquids!

Yesterday we had the Brown County Dairy Council representative for our area visit our classroom and teach us about ice cream! We discussed the process of making ice cream, the nutritional value of icecream, watched a DVD about it, and then made it!!! THE EXCITEMENT LEVEL WAS HIGH!!!! We were all smiles, not only because of the delicious ice cream we got, but also because of the joy of learning how to make it!

Dental Month

February is National Dental Month. It is a month to put even more emphasis on keeping our teeth healthy, clean, and practicing mouth healthy practices. I found a wonderful book to assist in teaching about oral hygiene, but with a student friendly, creative, and appealing approach-OPEN WIDE, It's a must read to accompany one's lessons on dental health and care!

Matter Experiments

Today we did three more experiments in our Matter unit. In the first one we had to predict what would happen when an Alka Seltzer is dropped into water. What would be the results of the solid dropped into the liquid? In the second one we filed a plastic cup 1/2 with water and had to predict the date of evaporation. The third one was spraying air freshner in the air and raising our hands when we could smell the scent. Overall, most students seemed most intrigued by the Alka Seltzer experiment! As for myself, I enjoyed the many smiles, excitement, and engaged learning that I saw in my classroom. Matter matters!