100th day of school

One of the best parts about being an elementary teacher is having the chance to celebrate the 100th day of school! As a great way to practice place value, it can also be a great spark to practice writing, parts of speech and communication. Below you can see some of the fun classroom activities we did for the 100th day of school. 

First, students walked into the room with a special surprise on their desk! 

A 100th day of school breakfast treat and a 100th day of school sticker from Lakeshore.

Then students worked on their 100th day morning book, writing down answers to some silly questions. Here was one of favorites:

100 of what would make your teacher go crazy?

-One hundred kids following her and not sitting in their seats would make my teacher go crazy!

During our Math rotations, one of the classroom stations worked on counting money. Students had to create 100 cents in as many ways as possible.  In another station they worked in partners on answering tough 100th day of school word problems. 

During Reading Rotations, one of the stations works on a parts of speech booklet. They had to write 100 different words in ten different categories including proper nouns, common nouns, adjectives, verbs, pronouns, adverbs, singular nouns, plural nouns and many more. 

After recess we went on a 100th day of school scavenger hunt. I hid 100 hershey kisses in the classroom. Each hershey kiss had a mini label with a number on it. When a kiss was found, the number was placed on our number chart. We found all of the hershey kisses except tricky number 47, which we found a week later in the bookcase. 

Finally we did a special writing project. Students had to write about what they are going to do when they are 100 years old. Using detailed sentences they had to paint a picture in their reader's minds. Once they finished their writing, they could create a little old person to go with their project. I think they turned out really cute.

It turned out to be a great day! We had so much fun and the kids learned a ton! They started calling it surprise learning because they had no idea that they were learning!

Apples! Apples! Apples!

September is all about APPLES! As any good teacher knows, learning about apples is a primary grade staple. In Kindergarten they count apples and apple seeds, they sort apples and they create lots of apple art. In First grade they learn all about Johnny Appleseed. They discuss folk tales and work on reading and creating graphs in math all about apples.

AND in Second grade we look at the economics behind apple orchards. We discuss how food gets from the farm to the table, and at my school... go on an amazing field trip to an apple farm!

Check out some of our pictures below. It was gorgeous!

How cool is this apple sorting machine!? Not only does it sort by color, and type, it also sorts by size! It literally shoots out the apples that are way too small into bin to be crushed into apple juice or used as compost on the farm! 

Their apple pie was amazing!! Doesn't it look yummy!?

The apple farm was a great way to sum up all their apple learning from Kindergarten and First grade. They were so excited. 

After returning from the apple farm, we made the apples we picked into applesauce. A class mother cut and peeled each and every apple as we discussed the importance of accurate measurement and defined what a unit is. We then as a class measured out the ingredients and placed it in a crock pot all day. 

By the end of the day we had delicious applesauce! I was so surprised at how easy it was to make!

We finally ended our study on apples by focusing on the common core and writing opinion pieces. We discussed the proper way to organize our writing and wrote about how we felt about our field trip to the apple farm. Students made sure to include topic sentences, conclusion sentences, reasons or evidence and details that backed up our topic.

We then used some of the left over apples from our trip to stamp apple trees to add some art to our writing. 

It was a great month and a wonderful study on apples! 

I Am...

slightly overwhelmed.

Transitioning to a new school has been way harder than I thought it would be. The most difficult part being the confusion and learning curve that comes with any new adventure. I've now been working here almost two months and despite an amazing staff, who is always ready to help me, there are still so many things I just don't know. As a result, the OCD perfectionist side of me is going a little crazy.

I'm used to being so organized and so ahead of every step. Yet for some reason, no matter how hard I attack that "to do" list, its never getting any shorter. I guess that's typical for any teacher though. However, I hope I can knock some of those bigger items off soon. I'll keep you all posted.

Anyways... I wanted to give you just a sneak peek into my plan for the year. As someone who loves organization,  was trained to backwards plan, and luckily has a partner teacher who loves to do so as well, I already have a rough idea of how I'm going to attempt this whole modified expedition at a blended learning school.

This year we're going to create a blended expedition or blended style project titled "Who are we?" As a class we're going to think about that question throughout our learning.
We're going to explore...
who we are as Catholics...
who we are as Americans...
and who we are as members of our families and our community.
We're going to look at our heritage, our history, our influence on both society and the environment, as well as the role we play as students at our school.

It's going to be a study where, we look at how we use what we know and what we learn to understand who we are. I'm hoping its awesome.



To kick off the study and overall expedition... we began looking at who our students think they are now.

We looked at famous self portraits by different artists, including Frida Kala's "Self Portrait with Monkey" and Van Gogh's self portraits. We discussed symmetry and how artists often draw through the use of symmetry. They learned how to draw themselves as cartoons and created their own self portrait.

We then discussed how one can also share who they are through more than just pictures, but the use of words. We described ourself in detail through the writing, "I am" poems. Its amazing what insight they provide into the minds of who these kids think they are. I posted two, although I changed their names and just kept their words.

Our next step is to work on learning about where specifically in the world we live and how it relates to the rest of the world geographically. Then we're going to create timelines of our lives and discuss becoming members of the church through baptism. I'll post more soon.

Until then check back later this week for a post on our field trip to an apple farm! I can't wait to pick apples and make applesauce with the kids. It's going to be great! :) 

Dinosaur Project

Throughout the Month of May, rather than embark on another expedition, we spent our Social Studies and Science block of the day learning about Space and then about Dinosaurs. Taking a more PBL approach rather than a full expedition. Both topics are merely introduced in my curriculum, but act as an amazing stimulus for reading and writing. As a result we did a fully independent research project on dinosaurs. Each kid was given a different letter of the alphabet and had to research a dinosaur with that letter. They then had to create a paragraph with a topic sentence, details sentences and a conclusion sentence. They finished their project by drawing their dinosaur and working as a class to compile them into the book below.

Americans Past and Present Expedition

Below is the Expedition my Second Graders finished in early May on Early America. I summarized the learning in various parts below in tables. If you scroll down to the very bottom, you can view the Shutterfly book we made for the classroom and find the link to the coloring book we shared with the Pre-K and Kindergarten at our school.

The Expedition was an amazing way for my students to not only see the history of Early America and the influence of various Americans but also learn valuable reading and writing skills.

Title	Americans Past and Present
School	St Rose of Lima Catholic Academy
Grade level	2nd grade
Discipline(s)	Social Studies, Language Arts, Writing
Specific topics:	Timelines, Historians, Early American History from Columbus to the American Revolution, Famous Americans, Simple US government, Parts of a Paragraph, Nonfiction, Writing Process, Comparing and Contrasting.
Start & end dates	January 31- May 2
Author	Meaghan Crowley

Summary

Second grade students at St. Rose of Lima Catholic Academy looked at Early American history and the effect that humans can play in influencing the country and world around them. They looked at how our country treated Native Americans and its moral implications as well the way in which many different Americans in both our past and our present make a difference in how our country develops.

Long Term Expedition Target

I can describe how different humans shape history and make a difference today.

Guiding Questions

How does someone become famous or remembered? How do humans change history? How can humans make a difference today?

Social Studies Learning Targets	Language Arts Learning Targets
L1: I can define history, historian and time line.	L1: I can identify the Beginning, Middle and End of a story.
L2: I can explain who the Native Americans and their part in the history of this country.	L2: I can sequence a story.
L3: I compare life today to the life of the early colonists.	L3: I can give my opinion.
L4: I can explain why colonists in America wanted independence from England.	L4: I can sequence a story using transition words.
L5: I can describe different famous Americans from our History.	L5: I can present information like an expert.
L6: I can list other reasons someone might become famous and how they influence a country.	L6: I can explain the difference between a biography and an autobiography.
L7: I can recognize how the President, Mayors and Governors influence our country today.	L7: I can read fluently and accurately.
	L8: I can give helpful feedback on my friend’s writing.

Case Study #1
Case study title	Native Americans
Target	I can show that Native Americans tribes are not all the same.
Big Ideas/Broad Concepts	Culture, Native Americans tribes, Columbus, The Rough Faced Girl, The Legend of the Indian Paintbrush, Sequence, Historians,

Case Study #2
Case study title	Colonial Life for kids
Target	I can compare my life today to the lives of the kids during the colonial period using a Venn diagram.
Big Ideas/Broad Concepts	Venn Diagrams, Comparing two ideas, people, books, and ideas, Hornbooks, clothing, rules and expectations, school curriculum,

Case Study #3
Case study title	Famous Americans
Target	I can write a pretend autobiography for a present or past American that has made a difference in this country.
Big Ideas/Broad Concepts	Autobiographies, Biographies, The parts of a paragraph, Americans, History, Historians, identifying important information, Nonfiction texts, Writing Process, Peer Editing

Americans Past and Present Coloring Book

Click here to view this photo book larger