Meredith Shares Her Mom With Our Class!

Thank You to Meredith's Mom for Being a Great Mystery Reader!

The Children Listen to Meredith's Mom

We Loved Hearing A Visitor for Bear & A Birthday for Bear by Bonnie Becker

Dr. Michael McHale, a NYS Geologist, Visits Our 2nd Graders

Dr. Mike Shows Us the Tools He Uses When He Digs Soil-He Wears His Sun Hat in Desert Regions

Hailey Examines Dr. Mike's Soil Particle Card That He Carries With Him on Digs

Will Checks Out Dr. Mike's GPS!

Dr. Mike Gives Us a Fun Soil Science Packet

Dr. Mike Shows Us His "After Work Party Hat!"

We Know There are Microbes (like this one) in Our Soil!!!

Our Class Enjoyed Dr. Mike's Slide Show...He Showed Us All the Places Where He Has Dug in the USA. 

Thank You For Sharing Your Knowledge With Us...You Have a Very Interesting Job!  Maybe Someone in Our Class Will Grow Up to Be a Soil Scientist Some Day!

Dear Parents & Students,

I wanted to thank all of you and your children for last week...teacher appreciation week is always a wonderful surprise.  I am always amazed... and touched by the kind words and unwavering support from the families here at Slingerlands.  Everything from the homemade cards to the lovely bouquets of flowers remind me of how lucky I am to work with such fine young people.  I appreciate all the little notes and the tiny gifts, and I especially love the Teacher & Tavish Treat Jar!!!!  Thank you, thank you, thank you!!!!

Karina Collects Organic Material to Create Compost

Shantanu Adds Leaves to His Compost Bag

Helen Collects Various Organic Matter to See What Decomposes 1st!

Jude Carefully Fills His Compost Bag

Soma Carefully Records & Sketches the Contents of His Compost Bag

We are learning about how different materials decompose to create compost (humus)!

Katie Has Both Brown & Green Material in Her Bag

Mikolaj Feels Local Soil with His Fingers

 2nd Graders are busy experimenting with the components of soil.  We have had the chance to work with dry and wet samples of: sand, clay & humus.  We are recording our thoughts in our lab booklets.

Addison Examines Local Soil with a Magnifying Glass

Iraj & Shantanu Take Notes on Their Soil Observations

Katie Finds Organic Matter in Her Soil Sample

Jude Takes a Closer Look

Tommy Adds Water to the Dry Soil Sample to See How its Properties Change

Charlotte Tries to Roll the Clay Sample into a Sphere

Simon Notices That Clay Can Have an Orange Color!

Helen Tries to Roll Wet Sand into a Sphere

Megan Feels the Wet Soil Sample

Lauren, Andre and Katie Mix Water into Their Dry Soil Samples

Tess Shakes a Test Tube with Clay & Water...We Will Observe How Clay Settles Overnight

We Add Diagrams of Our Work to our Lab Booklets

Dhaif Thinks About How His Soil Will Settle in Water

We Discuss our Predicitons with our Teams!

Helen creates Thomas Edison

Ellie Researched Betsy Ross

Andre & Iraj work on Alexander Graham Bell & JFK

Will Designs Barack Obama while Zachary Designs Abraham Lincoln, and Soma Puts a Spacesuit on Neil Armstrong!

Making the Clothing Just Right!

Thomas Cuts Theodore Roosevelt's Clothing

Lauren Works on George Washington

The 2nd graders spent a month on a very extensive non-fiction writing piece.  Each child chose a person to research.  The purpose of the research was to create a biography, including the following parts:  Title Page, Dedication Page, Table of Contents, an Introduction, an Early Childhood Chapter, an Adulthood Chapter, a Conclusion and a Glossary.

We tried to use at least 2 book sources and one on-line website source.  We read A LOT about our person!  The students learned to take notes (trying to take notes on the main ideas and not just the details), then we recorded our notes in our journals in a phrase form.  We arranged our notes in a proper sequence, and then we rewrote the notes into sentences in a 1st draft (we weren't allowed to copy text from any source).  Then we conferenced with peers and teachers to rewrite our sentences in a 2nd draft.  Finally, we edited our pieces...we checked for capitals, punctuation and spelling errors.  The final biographies will be revealed at our Poetry Cafe!  I am so proud of how hard the kids worked!  They were able to read their reports to some 4th grade friends, and the 4th graders couldn't believe that the reports were written by 2nd Graders!!!

Thumbs Up for our Bus Drivers!

We Wished our Bus Drivers a Happy Breakfast:)

Our 2nd Graders Visited Their Bus Drivers to Say Thank You During the Transportation Day Breakfast in the Slingerlands Cafeteria.  Thank you to all the parents who sent in wonderful breakfast treats.

2nd Graders Chant a Thank You to All Those in the Transportation Department!

Megan's Mom Entertains Our Class as the Mystery Reader!

Thank You for Sharing Book! Book! Book!
by Deborah Bruss

Megan Enjoys Listening to Her Mother

Shantanu's Mom Shares an Old Classic, Love You Forever by Robert Munsch

Shantanu Enjoys the Story

Thank You for Being Our Mystery Reader:)

Second Graders Work with the Attribute Blocks During a Geometry Lesson

Team Work!

Experimenting with Different Designs Using the Polygons that We Know

Looking Good!

Using Our Imaginations

Some Pretty Fancy Designs!

Mikolaj's Masterpiece!!!  See the Sun with a Cloud Raining Down on the Flower?!?!

Interesting Things Happen with Attribute Blocks!


Can your child identify the following?

Circle, square (4 sides of equal length), triangle (3 sides), rectangle (4 sides with 2 equal pairs of sides), pentagon (5 sides), hexagon (6 sides), octagon (8 sides), trapezoid (4 sides with 2 sides parallel), parallelogram (4 sides with 2 separate pairs of parallel sides), rhombus (4 sides...a parallelogram with sides of equal length) , quadrilateral (all polygons with 4 sides), cube, sphere, cylinder, cone, pyramid and rectangular prism?

Can your child explain...
vertices/vertex (points), edges (where 2 flat faces meet), faces (flat side of 3D shape), angles

solid figures (3D) versus plane figures (2D)

This unit has a HUGE amount of vocabulary!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Keep practicing analog time...children are still not mastering this.  MUST PRACTICE BASIC FACTS-we are adding and subtracting 3-digit numbers with regrouping sometimes to the thousands place...and children who still count on their fingers are taking excruciating amounts of time to work through complex problems with inaccurate results.

xtramath on the computer takes less than 5 minutes per session, the students can do this independently and the results are proven successful...currently there are 3 out of 24 students who take advantage of this quick and easy program on a consistent basis.

We will continue to review regrouping in mixed 3-digit addition and subtraction problems when we return from April Break.  The last units focus on Money, Measuring Length in Metric and Standard Inches/Feet, and Analyzing Data by Reading Charts/Graphs.  Count mixed coins at home for practice: quarters, dimes, nickels, pennies and half dollars.


Enjoy your April Vacation One and All...See you in May!!!!