Happy April Vacation

 Mrs. Kennedy's Second Grade Super Stars have some great ideas for vacation week that they shared in this video. I hope everyone has a fun April vacation week.  Please add pictures or comments to the vacation padlet during the week so we can share about our vacation week when we return.

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Poetry With Our Kindergarten Buddies

Since April is national poetry month one of our Fuller Meadow Traditions is to celebrate by sharing poetry with our  buddy class the Friday before April vacation. We shared many of our favorite poems from our poetry notebooks with Mrs. Libby's kindergartners. The kindergartners enjoyed showing off their reading by sharing their favorite poems with their second grade buddy. The second graders also did a retelling of the folktale, The Mitten using stick puppets. It was a fun afternoon for all.

Dash Week 3

Our final week of DASH was super interesting. The second graders explored different stations for the visually impaired in small groups. One group used adaptive aides to help visually impaired children do many of the same things that we can do such as read books, play cards, and play wonder ball. The students also learned how to write their name in braille using the braille alphabet and a stylus. Another activity was using a brailler machine to type our initials. The children also were able to experience what is like to walk by yourself when you are blind. Each student used a walking stick to help them navigate the obstacles in the hallway. Hopefully, the Fuller Meadow second graders have learned to have  an awareness of what it is like to have a visual disability as well as  how we can help and have empathy for visually impaired people. Most importantly visually impaired people can do almost everything sighted people can do.  We have two more DASH activities to look forward to, a special guest speaker on April 28th and a visit from Helen Keller at the end of May.Thank you again to our parent volunteers who made this program possible for our students.

Nutrition

During the month of March which is Nutrition month Mrs.Marshall taught us about how to be

healthy eaters. The first lesson was learning about the food groups and how to make a healthy plate. The second graders each were able to create their own healthy plate. The next lesson was about reading labels on foods and figuring out the sugar content of some of our snacks. We were very surprised by the amount of sugar in some of our snacks that we thought were "healthy". During our  final lesson we worked in stations on different healthy activities. The activities were exercise/aerobic activities, a nutrition Kahoot game, and the card game Go Food (Go Fish). This past week was healthy color week. Everyone brought in a colorful healthy snack everyday. We had great healthy snacks everyday! Thank you to Mrs. Marshall for teaching us how to keep our bodies healthy.

Our Food Plates

Measuring Sugar Grams

Red Healthy Snacks

Animal Adaptations

This week Mrs. Kennedy's  Second Grade Super Stars continued their learning about Animal Adaptations. Each child chose an animal to research  adaptations of the animal. The research was done digitally on the ipads. The children then used the Explain Everything App to record their learning using technology. Using the ipads each child chose a picture of their animal using google images and then using their research wrote about the adaptations of the animal . This was the first time the students used this app individually to share their learning. The focus was on the creation of the content and not so much on final editing. We hope you enjoy our learning video about Animal Adaptations.

Ipad Research

Mrs. Baker teaching students Explain Everything 

DASH Week 2

This week during DASH the second graders experienced what it was like to eat and walk if you are blind. The two activities were the Guided Walk and the Restaurant. The students worked in partners. One partner was blindfolded and pretended to be blind and the other partner was the sighted guide. The guide had to describe how to eat and drink by using the clock method. The guide was also responsible for making sure their partner could walk safely in the all and avoid bumping into obstacles. Then the partners switched roles. The students were able to learn and understand what it would be like to be blind and try to do everyday activities that we take for granted. Thank you to our parent volunteers this week, Mrs. Brown, Mrs. Dalton,Mrs. Forde, Mrs. Fullerton,and Mrs. Quimby.


                         

DASH

This year we are very lucky to have our DASH program back. Just in case your child has not shared about DASH with you, it stands for Disability Awareness Starts Here. In the second grade we learn about the disability of Visual Impairment. During the next few weeks the students will be participating in several activities to teach the children about what it means to be visually impaired and how people with disabilities can do all the things we can do. They also learned about a very important word this week- empathy.  The students have been asked to do some optional homework before the next session on Tuesday. They should try eating part of a meal with their eyes shut and/or getting dressed in the dark. Thank you to all our wonderful parent volunteers that are making the DASH program possible for the second graders this year.

Learning what is like to have tunnel vision

 Using the sense of touch to figure out what is in the mystery bag.

Learning how our optic nerve sends messages to the brain

Learning what is like to have blurred vision 

Yellowstone National Park Virtual Field Trip

Last Thursday afternoon Mrs. Kennedy's Second Grade Super Stars were lucky enough to travel to Wyoming and back -virtually of course! This skyping session took us to Yellowstone National Park to explore four different habitats and how different animals from each of these habitats adapts to its habitat in order to survive. Students journeyed through four habitats in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem – the alpine, forest, mountain meadow, and plains/basin environments. We visited immersive museum exhibits that highlighted animals in each of these unique habitats. Then the students compared the adaptations of animals like a grizzly bear, beaver, and raptor to those of animals in their own region. This was another wonderful learning experience for our second graders.

Essential Question
How do animals adapt to their environment both physically and behaviorally?

This video shows some of the learning that took place during our field trip.

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