School Spirit Week | Pajama Day and Nerd Day

This year EPAA's School Spirit Week coincides with Red Ribbon Week so our daily dress-up themes fit catch-phrases that encourage kids to stay away from drugs and to also take a stand against bullying.

MONDAY— PAJAMA DAY
“Follow your dreams...don’t do drugs or bully.”
TUESDAY— NERD DAY
“I’m too smart for drugs and bullying.”
WEDNESDAY— BOOK, TV, OR MOVIE CHARACTER DAY
“Drugs and bullying are not in my character.”
THURDAY—TACKY CLOTHES and CRAZY HAIR DAY
“It’s tacky to bully or do drugs.”
FRIDAY—BRIGHT DAY: WEAR BRIGHT COLORS AND SUNGLASSES
“I’m too bright to do drugs or bully.”

 Here are some pictures from Pajama Day:

And two pictures of these cuties from Nerd Day:

Fire Safety Unit

The kids learned all about fire prevention and fire safety. The activity that they enjoyed the most was learning what to do in case they are on fire. We all practiced how to Stop, Drop, Cover, and Roll. We also learned and then practiced what to say if we have to call 911 in an emergency. Almost all the kids were able to tell the 911 dispatcher (role played by none other than me) their home address during the pretend emergency.

Here is a collage of several kids practicing how to Stop, Drop, Cover, and Roll.

The following are educational videos that the kids enjoyed learning from during class that I promised I would share here:

Morning Routine

Here is a part of our daily morning routine. The line leader leads out and we recite the following:

• "The Pledge of Allegiance" to the flag
• "The Star Spangled Banner" (on Mondays)
• EPAA's school motto
• Love
• Learn
• Lead
• Our classroom rules
• Be respectful
• Be responsible
• Be ready to learn
• Be really safe
• Our classroom pledge
• I will do my best.
• I will make smart choices.
• I will have a positive attitude.

Here's a video of the kids doing this part of our morning routine. Enjoy!

Nouns

Today we learned all about nouns. We learned that a noun can be a person, place, or thing. We brainstormed examples of common nouns and drew pictures of them for our anchor chart. Afterwards, we watched this fun Schoolhouse Rock video "What is a Noun?" In our Morning Message we talked about how proper nouns need their first letters capitalized. Tomorrow we will brainstorm examples of proper nouns for our noun anchor chart.

 

Coco Our Class Mascot

Coco is our class mascot. He has been part of my classroom since I started teaching in 1999. Coco turned 15 last month! We threw Coco a birthday party. The kids ate cookies and made Coco a birthday booklet.

Each Friday Coco goes home with one of my students. The kids help Coco write down what he does with each of them on the weekend. I have former students, including college grads, that tell me how much they loved taking Coco home when they were in the 2nd grade.

This past weekend, Coco and his host came to say hello to me during church service on Sabbath. I heard he also attended a fellow classmate's birthday party on Sunday. Fun!

Language Lesson: Types of Sentences and Ending Marks

Currently the kids are studying types of sentences and their ending marks. Here are a few videos by Scratch Garden that we watched in class. I promised the kids that I'd post them here so that they could watch them at home.

For more fun educational videos by Scratch Garden, you can check out their YouTube account HERE.

Playground Bugs

Here's a multimedia video (in two parts) that I recently created for a multimedia class I am taking for continuing education credit. I created it as an introduction for our insect unit that we will be doing later in the school year. I thought it would be fun to share it here. Also, I wanted to point out that I took all the photos in this presentation with my iPhone of creatures we found on our school playground.





As soon as the back to school madness settles down, I will post pictures of our first two weeks. So far it's been fun getting to know the kids who are new to my classroom, and I'm grateful for the 2nd graders who are with me for another year. Those five kids have been incredibly helpful friends to the first graders and the new 2nd graders. I'm a proud teacher!

Throwback Thursday to Thanksgiving

Here are videos (that I thought I lost but just recently found!) of some of our Thanksgiving activities from November.

This is a choral reading of Psalm 100 written by me using the King James Version. We presented to the whole school during the Friday morning assembly before Thanksgiving break.

I found a fantastic writing project on Teachers Pay Teacher via Pinterest. The kids wrote persuasive pieces. In their writing the kids pretended they were turkeys writing letters to the farmer trying to convince him not to eat turkey for Thanksgiving. Then they decorated their turkeys with disguises. This is by far one of the most popular projects of this school year!

After each of the kids read their persuasive letters in class, they paraded their turkeys in disguise in all our lower elementary classrooms.

2014 Scientist of the Week :: Egg Power

2014 Scientist of the Week :: Raw Egg Peeler

2014 Scientist of the Week :: Making Perfume

2014 Scientist of the Week :: Drinking Plants

This is what happened to one of the flowers after letting it sit in the colored water for 24 hours.

To make things interesting, we split the stem of one of the flowers. We put half of the stem in blue water and the other half in red water.

After 24 hours, the flower petals on the side of the blue water turned blue
and the flower petals on the side of the red water turned red! Amazing.

2014 Scientist of the Week :: Making Butter

The kids really enjoyed this experiment that demonstrates a physical change of matter.

2014 Scientist of the Week | Soda Geysers

2014 Historian of the Week :: Elvis

2014 Historian of the Week :: Jane Goodall

2014 Historian of the Week :: John Loagie Baird

2014 Historian of the Week :: Albert Einstein

2014 Historian of the Week #9 :: Joan of Arc

2014 Scientist of the Week #8 :: Homemade Trumpet

2014 Historian of the Week #7 :: Henry Ford

2014 Historian of the Week #8 :: Nelson Mandela

Flashback: S[no]w Much Fun and New Years Goals

After two winters in Florida, I must admit that I do miss having snow during the winter months. What I love most is how beautifully crisp and clean everything looks when covered by newly fallen snow. However, I do not miss the frigid cold, dry hands, chapped lips, and taking what seems like forever to bundle up in winter gear. Living in Florida does have its perks!

Here is a super cute craftivity project that the kids did back in January during our winter unit that was inspired by a pin I found on Pinterest. (Sorry I can't remember what blog it came from!)

Another fun craftivity that we did in January featured our New Years goals. The one on top is hilarious. Her goal is to stop screaming at her brother. And I'm totally scratching my head over the second one. I think that sweet little boy is already so nice to me! Kids are so funny.

2014 Scientist of the Week #7 :: Tuning a Glass

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2014 Historian of the Week #6 :: Cleopatra

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2014 Scientist of the Week #6 :: Air Pressure Rockets

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Happy Heart Day!

Since we had a noon dismissal, we weren't able to squeeze too many Valentine themed activities into our day. We did have fun, nonetheless!

A popular activity that I have done for a few years now involves conversation heart candies. The kids' favorite part is being able to eat their candies at the end of the assignment!

 

Activity from this fabulous unit by one of my favorite teacher bloggers, Lindsey, The Teacher Wife.

For our writing activity, the kids did a fill-in-the-blank poem called Things I Love. This poem was a reminder to the kids that poems do not have to rhyme! Here is a video of some of the kids reading their poems.



We spent our last hour passing out Valentines and enjoying birthday cupcakes in celebration of one of our 2nd grade friends who was born on Valentine's Day! The ribbons had balloons attached, but they couldn't fit in the photo.

2014 Historian of the Week #5 :: Charles Lindbergh

2014 Scientist of the Week #5 :: Cover a Nail with Copper

Chinese New Year

At the beginning of the month we read two books in class to start off our Chinese New Year unit.





The class learned about Chinese New Years traditions and compared them to American New Years traditions. One of the activities that the kids really enjoyed was finding out what animal they are on the Chinese calendar. However, the most popular activity of all was learning how to use chopsticks. I made a run to my local Asian supermarket the week before and bought each of the kids a pair of chopsticks. We watched a tutorial on how to use chopsticks which was quite helpful for the kids. Following the tutorial I gave each one of them an orange and a cup of rice. Both foods are Chinese New Year symbols for wealth and prosperity. Then they attempted to use their chopsticks to eat their oranges and a cup of rice. Afterwards we voted, tallied, and then graphed who was able to successfully eat with chopsticks.



 

 

Below are some of the videos that we watched to learn more about Chinese New Years. (I promised the kids I would post these so that those who were allowed on the blog could watch the videos.)