Month: April 2013

Springtime Acrostic Poems and Pom-Pom Flowers

Our Springtime Acrostic Poems and Paper “Pom-Pom” Flowers

 We finished our Springtime Acrostic Poems

The students wrote about rain, baby animals, and plants…..


I have a collection of spring books we have been reading too…..including the Beatrix Potter collection and some Jan Brett, and a bunch of springtime books to go along with our study of
plants.
Books in my Plant unit that I Love:
1. Planting a Rainbow by Lois Ehlert
2. The Tiny Seed by Eric Carle
3. Flower Garden by Eve Bunting
4. From Seed to Plant by Gail Gibbons
5. From Seed to Sunflower by Gerald Legg

And then we made these pretty paper flowers from 8 strips of 1 x 24 paper. You fold the 2 sides evenly  to the middle…..then put a few dots of glue and glue the strip so it looks like 2 raindrop shapes or a figure 8 (sort of). Then do that with all 8 strips. Every 2 strips of paper together will make a plus sign or cross shape.

Then after making a criss cross or plus sign shape with 2 of the strips glued together, do that with the remaining 6 shapes. Then glue a plus sign to another plus sign overlapping so it looks like an x and a +. .

 Do that with the other 4 strips too. Then glue both pieces together to get a 3D flower. The whole flower takes the kids about 15 minutes to make. Then we glue a real fuzzy pom pom in the center and add a stem and some leaves. If you want smaller flowers just cut your strip length shorter. You could also make them using just 4 strips but they wouldn’t puff out as much. Or you could go crazy and use 12 strips….maybe to decorate for a baby shower or something.

Here is our finished bulletin board…..it makes a pretty cute one dontcha think?

Well, not as cute as my newest grandbaby, and my first grandson! Meet Baby Dylan!

 Our caption is “April Showers Bring Spring Flowers”

 We finished the flowers off with a fuzzy little pom pom in the middle, added leaves and a stem.

 Here is a pic my hubs shot of 3 generations of our family…..me, my daughter and oldest granddaughter Marisa on her 6th birthday party!

Isn’t she a cutie? It was an Ariel and Nemo party. It was so cute to watch 10 little
girls having a great time with a bubble machine and lots of prizes!

And pizza, soda and cupcakes to top it off….
The games were fun;….musical chairs, Nemo hot potato while a bubble machine was going on…and
we also made some little pony bead bracelets on chenille stems…super fun!

        Kids are so much fun. It was quite an awesome week, yup it was! 

Earth Day Activities

Today is Earth Day! We learned a lot about how we can keep the earth’s environment clean.

We painted coffee filters like earth for Earth Day 2013. 

We read books on how to keep our environment CLEAN and how to reduce trash and pollution. 

And we read about Michael Recycle, and the 3Rs (Reduce, reuse, recycle). 

Then we wrote things we can do to help. 

We can do lots to keep the earth clean. 

We’ve been working on planting veggies and herbs and flowers in pots. 

We also learned how to conserve water. We can turn off the faucet when we brush our teeth! 

We can walk instead of drive in the car……

We can pick up litter at the park or school grounds….

We can recycle cans, bottles, and old clothes and toys…..
Or we can reuse things like paper bags and boxes or make them into something new! 
Like these plant holders we decorated and made out of tin cans and scrap paper.
We planted vegetables of all kinds, and herbs and sunflowers too……
Everybody chose something different…..

And we’ll be able to see the roots growing from our Root Viewer…..

We are watching potato roots growing like crazy too!
Then we played a sorting game to decide what type of recycling each item needs to go with; paper, plastic, glass or metal……
Also, here is a Word Scramble on Plants  I found at ABC Teach. The kids loved it!
Then we made Earth Day bracelets. I got the “going green” beads from oriental trading. And  HERE  are some
foam peel and stick shapes for Earth Day. You could make bookmarks on foam 2 x 4 pieces.
  We had a great Earth Day 2013! 

RAD KIDS graduation!

We were featured on Channel News TV on Friday for our RAD KIDS Graduation! It is a self defense program backed by the Elizabeth Smart Foundation.

It  teaches kids what to do in dangerous or stranger-danger situations. They learn how to fight off an attacker, how to yell “Get Back, You’re not my mom!” and pepper the aggressor in the eyes with their fingers and do shin kicks.

 We practice for 8 hours during the week with trained RAD KIDS teachers. Then they practice with the “RED MAN”, who acts out the part of the aggressive stranger. Go Brody, kick him!

Kick him, Get away! Scream “No, No, you’re NOT my dad!”

 They learn the tricks that strangers use to lure kids into their cars; “I’ve lost my dog, will you help me look for him?” Of course kids naturally want to help. Hopefully they will think twice if it ever happens with this valuable training.

 Here were our cute teachers, Mrs. Sheffner and Miss Maggie.

They were with us every step of the way, helping us, coaching us, yelling what to do!

Our principal came to our graduation, explaining the program to parents.

They learn to scream if anybody were to grab them and strategies to get away if they are grabbed by a stranger. They also learn fire and gun safety rules, the importance of wearing seat belts and a bike helmet, and how it is OK to tell if somebody is hurting you. Nobody has the right to hurt you. They start out each day reciting that.

Practicing all our moves together, “high hammer!”, “block!” 
Get him Grace! Pepper his eyes!
Yay! Cambria got away, go girl! Everyone cheers for you. It is VERY EMPOWERING!

Even the quiet, shy kids learn to yell and become fierce! I like that. Everybody cheers for their classmates!

Go! Get away! You can do it! Parents all watch from the chairs.

One of my parents is a producer for Channel 2 News. She organized the TV station to come record and do a story on us. See how cool it was by linking below!  It was a very exciting day for all!

Second Graders Learn Skills to Keep Them Safe | KUTV.com