The children and our chaperones seemed to thoroughly enjoy our field trip to the Carpenter Theatre today for the Richmond Symphony Orchestra performance of Benjamin Britten’s Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra. The performance introduced the children to the many instruments that make up a symphony orchestra, and they learned about the families of instruments in the orchestra by listening. It was a treat for all of our 2nd grade violinists to see the symphony violinists play as part of the performance. More pictures can be found on our Photos :-) page.
To celebrate their last day teaching Spanish in our class, our Spanish teachers from Maggie L. Walker Governor’s School brought a variety of fruits for the children to enjoy as they were learning to say the name of each fruit along with the phrases, “Me gusta” and “No me gusta”, which mean “I like” and “I don’t like.” We’ll miss having Spanish class on Wednesdays and our teachers! As part of our daily reading activities, the children have been working to better understand contractions. They use them all of the time, but didn’t have a clear understanding that a contraction is actually a word made by shortening and combining two words – words like can't (can + not), don't (do + not), and I've (I + have) are all contractions. To practice their learning, they’ve been having fun playing contraction concentration during word game/academic free choose time. Below is a video that memorably illustrates making a contraction Everyone was so excited to start swimming lessons today at the Downtown YMCA. Second grade is an ideal time for children to take on new challenges, learn more skills, and enhance their feelings of competence in a variety of areas, including swimming. Through "Learn to Swim,” the YMCA offers children lessons in swimming skills and water safety that will keep them safe and build physical and social skills. It is also a lot of fun! Visit Photos:-) for more pictures. Yesterday we celebrated the birthday of favorite author Dr. Seuss and Read Across America day! The children buddy-read some of their favorite Dr. Seuss books, and then each child received a copy of the biography, Dr. Seuss: The Great Doodler by Kate Klimo to add to their home library. This biography is about Theodor Geisel and his transformation from a doodler into the beloved Dr. Seuss. It shares his life from the time he was a little child who and always had a sketchpad and pencil in hand. To his time in the Boy Scouts and his a penchant for creating zany creatures. It shares how he grew up with a love of books and words from his mother, and how his inventor father spawned a wildly imaginative side. It’s no wonder that these qualities led to the beloved work of Dr. Seuss, the Great Doodler. It also Includes fun facts and several of Dr. Seuss’s original sketches and artwork! How strong are different magnets? Let's do an experiment to test their strengths! The children had a BLAST with this experiment. Each table team was given for different magnets (each a different size and strength), a box of paper clips, and a blank bar graph to chart their individual results. The experiment was to see how many paperclips the magnet can attract, hanging the paperclips end-to-end with only the first paper clip touching the magnet. Check out more pictures at Photos:-). |
AuthorMrs. Tappen and her CategoriesArchives
April 2017
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