Mrs. Blair's Class SOARS

I am so excited to be back at school, working with 23 adorable 2nd graders!  This year, my mom had a fun idea to implement into our first week!  She visited the school with balloons for each student.  Before she came I had each student write a goal on a sticker that they would want to set for the year.  Many of them chose things like "Make a new friend" or "Work really hard".  When the balloons came, we stuck the stickers on them and went outside.  On the count of three we yelled "Mrs. Blair's Class Soars!" and let the balloons go to symbolize how high our dreams can soar!  It was fun to watch them slowly rise, and then quickly fly away when the wind picked up!
It was a great way to start our day!

Last Day, Hooray!

It is lunch time on the very last day of 2nd grade (2015-2016)!  I can't believe how fast this year has flown by!  I have LOVED each and every one of my students and am proud of all of their accomplishments!  Today we have been partying hard!  We started the morning off by signing "yearbooks" in the other second grade classrooms.  Then we had a surprise visit from Baby Johnson and my mom!  It always warms my heart to see the way my students love my little guy and try so hard to make him happy!  Here are a few picture highlights!  Instead of taking a morning recess, they voted to stay inside with Johnson and play board games :)

 Every student wanted a chance to hold him, so we passed him around the room!

I still can't believe the year is over!  Shoutout to all the awesome parents who helped out in the classroom, and gave support to my students at home!  Have a great summer!!!

Secret Number

Today in math we learned how to "read minds" using this Secret Number game.  Here's how it works.

1. Have someone think of a number and hold it in their head (don't tell!)
2. Take that number and multiply it by two (add it to itself)
3. Take the new number and add 10
4. Take the new number and divide it by two (cut it in half)
5. Subtract your ORIGINAL number
6. Their answer should be 5!

Try it out!

Rocks ROCK!

This week we started one of my favorite units, rocks!  The kids eat this up every year and most of them spend all of their recess time looking at and for rocks to show their friends and me!  One of my favorite activities we have done was our properties sort.  This was our introduction to the unit.  I gave each group of students different colored papers and a pile of rocks and wanted them to sort them in some way.  I was surprised that every group did the same thing: size!  I had them do it again and choose a different attribute to sort by and this time we got some different sorts: shape, color, texture etc

Another fun activity we did was our Pet Rock Projects.   Each student brought a rock that they had found and we pretended to be geologists!  We learned how geologists classify rocks based on different properties such as color, luster, texture, pattern, hardness and streak.  Since we didn't have professional geologist tools to test hardness and streak we used a penny (for hardness) and the sidewalk for streak. :)  

Next week, we will continue our exploration of rocks and learn more about the three main types of rock!

Object Drop Experience

Today in class we had fun being scientists again!  Students were given many objects, and a record sheet and got to conduct their own test on how quickly objects fall through space.  After we collected our data, we came back together as a group and wrote down all of the questions we still had about our tests.  We will be exploring this more in an upcoming unit!   Can't wait :)

Crystal Making

Yesterday was an exciting day in our classroom!  Our friend, Oakley, came to show us what she has been working on for her STEM fair project!  We got to make our very own borax crystals!  Here is the recipe we used.

1 cup of hot water
3 tablespoons Borax
String
Skewer (or pencil)
Pipe Cleaners
Large cup

First we got really hot water and put it into the cup.  Then we stirred in the Borax until it was mostly dissolved.  Then, we made snowflakes out of the pipe cleaners and tied them with the string to a skewer (or a pencil).  We made sure the pipe cleaners weren't touching the bottom or sides of the cup.  Then we let them sit overnight.  When we came today our crystals were formed! 

If you want to make your own, but don't have Borax, you can use sugar or salt!  If you use salt, use 1/2 cup of hot water and 1/2 cup of salt.  For sugar crystals, use 3 cups of sugar and one cup of hot water.

We hope you have fun making crystals at home!

A Very Merry Grinchmas!

Our 2nd Grade Christmas party was a huge success this year!  Our room mom planned a super fun Grinch themed party, which went along great with our Dr. Seuss themed room! 

First, each student decorated a Grinch ornament with green tissue paper.  Then, in order to get a heart to go inside, they had to pin a heart on the Grinch! 

After the craft, we watched the cartoon of How the Grinch Stole Christmas as we ate cookies, cuties and hot cocoa! 

We had a great time!