Donating Glasses Through Lions Club International

All this week our class will be collecting eyeglasses, reading glasses, and sunglasses to practice what we learned on Earth Day about reducing, reusing, and recycling. More importantly, we will be helping change people's lives (adults and children!) around the world. According to the website AllAboutVision.com:

Many of the more than 250 million visually impaired people worldwide could easily be helped with a pair of glasses. Instead, they have to live with functional blindness — the inability to see well enough to do basic everyday tasks, such as reading, writing, cooking and earning a living.

We will be working with our local Lions Club for this endeavor. If you are local to us in the East Pasco area and would like to help our cause, drop off your donations at our school office! If you are not local and would like to participate, please CLICK HERE for more information about Lions Club International's eyeglass recycling program to see how you can help.









Here's an information video I found about this program.

Happy Earth Day!

Today was filled with many activities on how we can each take care of our planet so that we can do our part to help make it a better place for us to live. We learned more about what it means to reduce, reuse, and recycle. We even learned a poem that we turned into a rap with actions to help use remember these three very important Earth day vocabulary words. Check out the video below! At the end of our day each student wrote an Earth Day pledge stating one way they would help to take care of the Earth. Then the kids read their pledges out loud to the class. (Earth Day image swiped from Google Images.)

Poem from Little Miss Hypothesis blog. Click HERE for a free printable of the Earth Day poem.

Scientist of the Week #12

Scientist of the Week #11

Busch Gardens Zoo School

One March 14 we took a field trip to Busch Gardens Zoo School with the 3rd and 4th graders. It was a chilly day, but that did not affect the kids' excitement one bit! Our trip began with a train ride that featured animals from the African savanna. We saw rinos, hippos, zebras, giraffes, ostriches, and even wildebeest! (The wildebeest are one of my personal favorites thanks to the BBC's series Planet Earth. If you have never seen the series, you absolutely must! My family loves the series as well.)

After our train ride, we took a attended a presentation about various animals that live in the different levels of the rainforest. One of our 1st graders was chosen to see a rainforest animal up close and personal on the auditorium stage!



The best part of our trip (in my opinion) was when we trekked on foot around the amusement park learning about all the different animals that live at Busch Gardens. Our tour guide, Ms. Megan, was a phenomenal zoo school leader. She was a natural with the kids. In fact, she was so good at keeping the kids engaged, I asked if she had any classroom experience. On top of that, Ms. Megan knew her stuff. Favorite animal fact that the kids learned from her - spotted hyenas have white poop because their jaws are strong enough to eat their prey's bones. The kids still talk about it.

On our tour we met a bald eagle. She's a teenager that got shot in her wing. Amazing bird. I was happy that the kids got to see a bald eagle up close especially since we studied a little bit about the bird during our national symbols unit back in February.

We said hello to the American alligators. We are in Florida, after all. Thankfully, I still have yet to see one out in the wild.

Towards the end of our tour with Ms. Megan, she let the kids pet a flamingo. That was a definitely another highlight of our trip!





After many years of school field trips, I must say that this trip definitely ranks as one of the best I've ever taken with my students. As a native Chicagoan, that says a lot considering that the city has top notch museums, zoos, and other children's attractions. Can't wait to visit Busch Gardens Zoo School again!

For any of you Floridian teachers out there planning a trip to Busch Gardens Zoo School, you must request Ms. Megan as your tour guide. She really was that good.

April Fools Fun

While adding teaching ideas to my boards on Pinterest this past Sunday, I came across THIS POST on one of my favorite teaching blogs, Sunny Days in Second Grade. Now I'm not one that has ever been into April Fools pranks, but after seeing this teacher's fun classroom activity about finding the "elusive lirpaloof" I just knew I had to send my kids on a lirpaloof hunt.

Here's a look at the activity sheet which you can download HERE:

Since I didn't have time to run to the grocery store to buy carrots (lirpaloofs love carrots, haha!) the kids made carrots out of orange construction paper. It took quite a bit of self-control to not laugh out loud while the kids were waving their carrots up in the air singing "Lirpaloof!" while searching for the elusive bird. After about five minutes of searching, two girls ran to me telling me that they were absolutely certain they had seen the colorful bird flying away. Too funny!

When I finally let the kids in on the prank, we all had a good laugh followed by questions of when I was going to pull the next prank. As I already mentioned, a prankster I am not. However, I'm thinking that this year's April Fools fun has started a new classroom tradition.



Click the image below to visit the wonderful teaching blog Sunny Days in Second Grade. To visit her TpT store for excellent resources and activities for the classroom, click HERE.

Scientist of the Week #10

Scientist of the Week #9

Presidents' Day Unit

*A little late posting this, but still wanted to get it up on the blog.

February was definitely a month of themes! During the week of Presidents' Day we learned about our past presidents and American symbols. This book, What Presdients are Made Of, was a huge hit with the kids.

We also read other books of two very famous American presidents, George Washington and Abraham Lincoln. We created tree maps of each president. We compared and contrasted both. We watched video clips to learn more about their lives outside of being president. Each student wrote about what they would do or what changes they would make if they were the president.

Sketching George Washington and Abraham Lincoln the highlight of our studies. YouTube tutorials of our drawings down below.

Though the class already know quite a bit about our current leader, President Obabma, from our election day unit back in November, we learned more about him through several children's books. The book Kids' Letters to President Obama was by far the most popular book of our Presidents' Day unit. After reading many letters to President Obama from children across the nation, each of the kids in the class wrote a letter to President Obama.
























Here are some of the letters that the kids in our class wrote:



For any teachers who are interested, CLICK HERE for a wonderful unit full of activities and resources that are perfect for Presidents' Day.