A Bit of Spring Fever on this 5 for Friday

I'm so glad that it's Friday!  I am kind of hating that our Spring Break was so early in March because now that the nicer weather is setting in, I have SPRING FEVER!!!  Does anybody else really get this feeling around this time of year?  Anyway -- I'll take a Friday to help ease me out of it if only for a couple of days.  Let's begin with a quick Five for Friday link up with Doodle Bugs. 

 

What in world is this kid doing you ask??  Well -- she was one of my Loof-Lirpa birds.  Every year, on April 1st, my class gets a fun homework assignment of hunting for the Loof-Lirpa bird.  This year I paired it with the great printable sheet I found on Casey's blog (Second Grade Math Maniac) and requested my willing parents to snap a picture of the fun.  If you haven't figured it out yet, Loof Lirpa is April Fool spelled backwards.  It is so funny to hear "hey -- Mrs. Strang -- you tried to trick me"  the next morning.  Which usually means that I did.  And this year I have PROOF!!  If you'd like a copy of my Homework sheet click HERE.

Getting things done...[check].
I have been working on my content vocabulary card packets and have uploaded the first of them.  Yay!  I have had a content vocabulary wall for Science, Social Studies, and Math for as long as I can remember.  In the past, I would always make my own cards by drawing on a piece of cardstock.  But now!  Now that I am fully exploring the wide-world of TPT and blogging, I have decided to create my own.  This is what my charts & old cards looked like before:

I can hardly wait to print my new cards and put them up.  If you would like to take a look at this pack you can click the picture above or visit my TPT store HERE.  And be on the lookout for the upcoming units: Animal Structures, Insect Life Cycles, & Basic Needs/Inter-dependency of Living Things

Our Flat Stanley projects are coming in! It is so exciting to read about so many different communities and environments.  We even had one of our Stanleys visit Prague.  I have begun to create a bulletin board to showcase the many adventures.

This one is the one that traveled the farthest: Prague!!

Mrs. Newton has been busily teaching within her take-over.  She has had the wonderful experience of working on our Expository Writing unit entailing research and report writing.  We decided to take a "team" approach to teaching this content.  These 2nd Graders LOVE researching animals!!  Last year, I randomly picked a book out of my browsing box and ended up learning about a sloth.  Those are truly some fascinating creatures.  Here is a pic of my big-notebook version of our sharing the pen time:

We are planning to have them publish their reports using our Google Chromebooks and then creating a Google Presentation to share with the class.  This unit will cover oh -so many TEKS in reading, writing, speaking, technology, and science!  Woohoo!  That's a way to kill LOTS of birds with one stone.

Last but not least was a super fun idea Mrs. Newton had our Science kiddos do.  It was such a hoot to see them engage in this activity.  We are currently focusing on Animal Structures and how an animal has certain characteristics to help it function in it's environment.  She opened the activity with an outdoor activity that they LOVED!!  They were divided into 3 teams for a relay.  The object was for them to be chickens.  They had to squat low to the ground and put one hand behind their back and the other on their face like a beak.  She then spread some colorful pasta noodles on the ground.  They had to chicken-walk over to the noodles, and pick up what they could find with their beak as a chicken would.  Then they had to bring it back to their team captain and drop them into the cup.  The team with the most noodles would win.  Then they talked about how their short legs & beak worked.  She also discussed the different colored noodles and which ones were easier to spot and find in the grass.  This led to a discussion about camouflage.   It was such a successful way to engage them.  I love learning from my Student Teacher!!

Here's a picture of some of our little chickens.  Ha!

 Be sure to stop by and link up with the weekly fun!!