Measuring Penguins….and Second Graders!

The second graders at Brookside integrated our study of living animals in science with measurement in math in December when they measured and drew penguins. The students were randomly assigned a type of penguin and they had to read a chart to learn the height of that species. Then they measured, drew, colored and cut their penguins which became part of a rookery in the C-Wing Hallway. Here are some photos of the students in the process of making their penguins. You can see individual photos of the students holding their penguins on the student work page. Thank you to Mrs. Anello for helping cut all those large sheets of paper!

Miranda starts drawing her penguin while Uriah is cutting his penguin.

The students needed lots of space to create their penguins. These children found a good spot to work near the cubbies.

Students who had smaller penguins chose to work with their desks like Alec.

The halls were filled with hard working second graders that afternoon.

Penguins, penguins being made everywhere….even at the top of the stairs.

Making penguins near our rainbow rug.

Measuring to make sure they are the right size!

Lots of hands on measuring happening here

 

The students also measured their own heights and then we plotted the heights on a line plot. Here are just a few of the students being measured with our giant measuring tape on the rug.

Lots of January News to Share!

We were so busy in January in C8! It started with a cookie decorating party we won from the PTO for bringing in the most boxtops!! (Thank you to the PTO!) The children got right to work after becoming experts with the ice castle decorating in December. Here are some photos of the yummy cookie decorating. IMG_3144

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Mischievous Mary Munching!

 

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Britney catches me taking her photo as she takes a bite!

 

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My guess is that Mia is enjoying her cookie!

 

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Nick just about to dig in to his candy covered cookie!

 

We are so fortunate to have volunteers working hard in our classroom this year. Here is a shot of just one of our hard working volunteers, Mrs. Sirois, testing students on sight words!

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Smiling Mrs. Sirois hands Chloe her list!

 

We celebrated Martin Luther King, Jr. Day and our diversity with a special poem and craft.

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Our class was very lucky to have a special smart projector and whiteboard installed in our classroom. We are still learning how to fully use it but it is an exciting technology addition to our instruction!

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It took a few days but our Smart projector and whiteboard are finally ready!

The smart projector arrived in time for us to be able to watch a live webcast from Antarctica. Through Time for Kids we were able to listen to a female penguin researcher talk about her work in Antarctica. We also found out that it was colder that day in Dracut than it was in Antarctica. (But of course it is summer down there now!) Here is a photo of the students watching the webcast.

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Pretty exciting to be able to see and listen to someone on the other side of Earth near the South Pole!

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The editors from TFK introduce the webcast and then we got to see and hear directly from the scientist herself!

Penguins and More Penguins!

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Jacob and Michael writing facts about the Emperor Penguin.

The C8 students are learning about penguins as part of their study of the habitats of Antarctica and the Arctic. The students reached into a bag and drew out a paper drawing of one of six species of penguins. Then they went to work on filling in graphic organizers with the information they gathered. They worked cooperatively with classmates who also drew the same species of penguin. They worked very hard learning details such as the height, weight, prey, predators, appearance, and habitat and then went to work recording this information. They will use these to write reports on their penguin next week.

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Thomas and Katie hard at work learning about the Adelie Penguin.

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Jayden, Fatima, and Cecily share resources on the Gentoo Penguin.

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The King penguin was the penguin that Hailey and Oorjaa were lucky to get.

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Miss Morning works with the Macaroni Penguin group of Gabriel, Gavin, and Tierra.

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We made a rookery of penguins!

 

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Kendra shared her penguin collage too!

They also made these awesome penguin collages in art with the art para, Ms. Ross. Aren’t they cute!