Safari Olympic Games

This week, we explored the country doors on display around our school as we answered questions on our Olympic Scavenger Hunt! 

On Friday, we got together with the Elephants for our Safari Olympics! We did Freeze Dance Figure Skating, The Biathalon, Synchronized Bobsledding, and Curling! 

During Freeze Dance Figure Skating, we used paper skates to dance around the room and we had to freeze when the music stopped! 

For the Biathalon, we used paper skis to glide across a "trail" and then we had to knock down a stack of cups with a beanbag before skiing back to our teammates

For Synchronized Bobsledding, we sat in a column of chairs and took turns being in the head seat. The person in the head seat got to come up with moves that the rest of the "bobsledding team" would mimic at the same time. 

For Curling, we took turns sliding our "curling stones" across the tile to our target. The person with the highest score would win! 

We enjoyed following the Winter Olympics over the last few weeks. Germany came in 2nd overall with 31 medals-- 14 Gold, 10 Silver, and 7 Bronze! 

Happy Valentine's Day!

We had lots of fun celebrating Valentine's Day on Wednesday!

After solving some conversation heart puzzles in math and curling up with some books we loved, we got together with the elephants to celebrate our love of science!

We created some paper hearts and used vinegar (a liquid) and baking soda (a solid) to create some carbon dioxide gas! 

After putting baking soda on our hearts, we added food coloring to the vinegar to make it easier to see the reaction and dripped it on top of our hearts. After it fizzled out, it left some cool designs!

After our Safari Time, we headed back to our classroom to deliver our Valentines. Everyone agreed that this was their favorite part of the day!

Each of the giraffes thanked their friends and teachers for their sweet cards and gifts, and enjoyed reading their notes and eating some sweet treats before heading home. 

Thank you to everyone who fills our classroom with so much love and kindness! 

Happy Valentine's Day!

A Toast to 2018!

The Giraffes had a great start to the new year with a short but sweet week!

On Tuesday, we had some fun with the Elephant Class when we created New Year's Toasts during Safari Time! We talked about how people often toast to others in the new year who mean a lot to them and during the toast, they celebrate the things they love most about that person. 

Here are a few of the people we toasted to:

We also continued our work with borrowing and carrying in math this week, and we learned a new math game! Seventeen was so much fun to play, and it helped us practice our math facts as well as our carrying skills! Here are the directions so you can play at home:

Despite the frigid weather, we were able to get outside briefly to begin experimenting with States of Matter! We learned that everything in the world is made up of matter, including the air around us! Matter can be a solid, liquid, or gas, and matter can change its state.

When we were outside, we collected snow to explore and experiment with in the classroom. After we got inside, we explored the question "What will make snow melt the fastest?" 

After brainstorming a list of ideas, each table group worked together to explore a different method for melting the snow. Even though many people wanted to try the same method, the giraffes did a great job being flexible and working together to test all of our hypotheses! One table put the snow in warm water, another put theirs in cold water, one put theirs on the heater, one used plates to squish the snow, and one used bodies to melt the snow :)

We discovered that out of all the methods we tested, hot water was the fastest method for melting snow. But many of us were surprised to see that the cold water also worked very quickly along with squishing the snow! We were also shocked to see how long it took the snow to melt on the heater, and we discovered the fastest way to melt snow using our bodies was to hold small amounts of it in our hands. We can't wait to do some more exploring with matter in the weeks ahead, and we look forward to a new year of second grade adventures :)

Happy New Year!