Black History Month

As February comes to a close, I thought it would be a great time to share a little bit about how we celebrated Black History Month in our classroom. The month kicked-off with each classroom decorating their door. A large variety of historic African Americans were showcased on the doors around the school, but I decided to spotlight Al Roker on our door. Not only is he a current influential African American, but he studies weather every day (which is a second grade standard) and he has a wonderful book club for kids. My students helped put the finishing touches on the door by writing about their favorite type of weather. We also read James and the Giant Peach as a class, which is a book that was featured in Al's Book Club for Kids. 

In addition to our wonderful decorated doors, our school had an African American read-in. For one full day, we invited influential African Americans from our local community into our school and had them read to our classrooms. We were lucky enough to have two readers come to our room and, boy, did my kids LOVE it! We had an excellent time celebrating Black History Month and my students learned a lot about the many African Americans that have influenced the world around them.

Flat Caroline

Our class had a wonderful new student join us this week! My precious cousin, named Caroline, is a second grader in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, and her class just read Flat Stanley. I was very excited when she asked to send her Flat Caroline to Columbia because it meant that not only would I get to meet a new friend, but my students would have a new classmate for a few days. After showing Flat Caroline around our capital city, I took her to school with me to introduce her to my students. My students adored her, just as I suspected they would, and did a great job of teaching her all about our classroom and school. She played with us on the playground (it was cold, so my students made her a scarf out of toilet paper), ate lunch with us (yum!), and traveled with us to Puerto Rico. We had a wonderful time and my students liked meeting another flat friend. We were sad to see her go, but would welcome her back anytime she's in the Columbia area!

Math Concept Day

We had a half-day this week and my second grade team decided to switch up our usual half-day routines and try a math concept day. The students traveled from room to room and participated in hands-on, engaging math activities during four, 30 minute rotations. Each teacher targeted a different major math standard - graphing, money, geometry, and measurement. I got the chance to do measurement in my room and boy, did we have fun! The students let toy cars go down ramps and measured how far they went (hello, 5th grade force and motion!) and also measured their friends' heights in centimeters and inches. It was interesting to see how the different measurements compared. All in all, it was a fun day and I'm already looking forward to the next half-day so we can have even more math fun!

 Students worked together to measure how far their cars went. It was interesting to see how the rougher carpet (friction!) effected the distance the cars went!

The students had to use multiple yard sticks when measuring their height. They learned to add the two lengths together to find out their true height!