Long Ago and Today

One of the second grade standards in History Social Science is:

• 2.1 Students differentiate between things that happened long ago and things that happened yesterday.

Some related Historical and Social Sciences Analysis Skills in the area of Chronological and Spatial Thinking are:

• Students correctly apply terms related to time, including past, present, future, decade, century, and generation.
• Students explain how the present is connected to the past, identifying both similarities and differences between the two, and how some things change over time and some things stay the same.

As we address these standards, we'll be looking at some images from the Library of Congress website. If you click on an image below, you'll be taken to the LoC website link for the photo.

 

Other images:
Classroom photo we looked at last week http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/fsa.8b04325
Classroom with inside of desks visible http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/cph.3b31080
Field trip http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/cph.3a30669 
School house http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/hhh.id0029/photos.060288p
School house http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/hhh.pa0602/photos.135986p
Children playing in school yard  http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/cph.3b15512

I recently attended a workshop about the Library of Congress website put on by The California History-Social Science Project. Here's a blurb about it from their website:

In partnership with The Library of Congress the California History Social-Science Project (CHSSP) has joined a special consortium to provide professional development for teachers as part of their Teaching with Primary Sources (TPS) program. Over 150 teachers across the state, including 25 in Orange County and 25 in San Diego County, will have the opportunity to take part in this free program that promises to support instructional use of primary sources in the classroom. 

I really enjoyed the workshop and appreciated the emphasis on inquiry. I have had quite a bit of training in the use of inquiry for instruction in science, math and art so it's great to see that trend continuing. We have a follow up training this week - I can't wait to see what they have in store for us!

What is Leap Day?

Here's a great article explaining the whole thing:
http://www.highlightskids.com/stories/year-confusion

And a cool website dedicated just to February 29th:
http://www.leapyearday.com/content/kids-pagehttp://www.leapyearday.com/content/kids-page

AND another cool website for kids:
http://www.kidsgeo.com/geography-for-kids/0021B-understanding-time-leap-year.php

This poem is SO helpful when you are trying to remember just how many days each month has...

Thirty days hath September,
April, June and November;
 February has twenty eight alone
All the rest have thirty-one
Except in Leap Year, that's the time
When February's Days are twenty-nine

Super Spellers

I have several students who are incredible spellers so keeping them challenged is always, well, a challenge. Here are some websites that provide some spelling fun:

http://www.spellingbeethegame.com/

http://www.bigiqkids.com/SpellingGame/SpellingGameContest.html

And for vocabulary on the same website: 

http://www.bigiqkids.com/VocabularyGame/VocabularyGameContest.html

http://www.visualthesaurus.com/bee/

http://word-games.pogo.com/games/tumble-bees

Challenging words to practice:

http://www.myspellit.com/need2know.html

Rock Collection Project

Vacations are a wonderful time to spend with the family but sometimes all that family time leads to parents who never get a break. ;) If you are looking for something educational and fun to occupy your little one, why not consider starting a rock collection?

In class, we recently read If You Find a Rock written by Peggy Christian. We enjoyed thinking of rocks as skipping rocks, climbing rocks, wishing rocks and splashing rocks. It gave new life to something we encounter all the time and provided us with a fresh perspective. It also got us talking about rock collecting.

To get started, you may wish to visit Salt the Sandbox, a website created by a parent who has two very curious boys. The site details how his boys go about finding, collecting, naming and playing with their rocks. We visited the site together at school last week and the children were excited about the ideas presented. I offered extra credit to anyone who wanted to create a collection and share about it when we return to school in January.

In addition to the ideas on the website, children also have fun sorting rocks (and lots of other items, for that matter.) They can be sorted by color and size or grouped like they were in the book we read, but here are some photos from rock sorts my students have done in the past to give you some other ideas:

However you decide to approach the project, I hope that it will be fun for your child and maybe even fun for the whole family!

Please note: this is not a mandatory project, just a suggestion.

Raz-Kids is here!

By popular demand, we're now online with Raz-Kids! Thank you so much for the generous contributions you all made to help with the purchase of a year-long license, especially during a time of year when every penny counts. The children are so excited about using Raz-Kids and it's great to see their motivation (especially related to SCHOOLWORK!)

Your child may access Raz-Kids at school or at home so this makes for an ideal learning activity during weekends and vacations. I will put a card in your child's binder with his/her login information on it in case s/he forgets any of it. I will be opening up the Rocket Room during vacation and about once a month so that the kids don't spend too much time in there during school hours. If you'd like me to provide access at other times, just send me an email and I'll take care of it.

Night Under the Stars ~ Happy, Happy Kwanzaa

Are you familiar with Kwanzaa? "Based on African harvest festivals, this holiday celebrates African-American people, their culture and their values." During our Night Under the Stars performance, LdVCS students will be singing songs that honor several different holidays celebrated at this time of year and the sense of togetherness that makes this such a special season.

Our class will be singing Happy, Happy Kwanzaa so we've been learning facts about this holiday and discussing how the values that are celebrated during Kwanzaa relate to all of us. We have also been comparing the holiday to other holidays we are familiar with. Here's a link to the interactive website we've been using as a part of our study: http://teacher.scholastic.com/activities/holidays/kwanzaa/

 
The song we'll be singing can be found on iTunes. Here are the words:

Happy, Happy Kwanzaa

Chorus

Happy, Happy Kwanzaa
Light the candles one by one
Happy, Happy Kwanzaa
Can be celebrated by everyone

The 1st day of Kwanzaa stands for unity
We are one big family

The 2nd day of Kwanzaa
Self-determination
We make our own way under the sun

Chorus

The 3rd day of Kwanzaa
Responsibility
We can do it together
Joyfully

4th day of Kwanzaa
We buy from each other
Sharing with our neighbors
Is helping one another

Chorus

The 5th day of Kwanzaa
Our purpose is to know
Whose shoulders we stand on
And that is how we grow

The 6th day of Kwanzaa
Beautify your world
‘Cause we’ve got special talents
Each and every boy and girl

Chorus

The 7th day of Kwanzaa
Believe with all your heart
If you believe your dreams come true
Each day’s a brand new start

So let’s celebrate this Kwanzaa
Like one big family
We can change the world together
You and me... Everybody

Chorus

Clap your hands, everybody
Stomp your feet, it’s Kwanzaa
Do your dance, be happy
Sing it with me, come one now
Touch your heart, can you feel it
Close your eyes, can you see it
See your dream, make it fun
Now reach for the sky

Happy, Happy Kwanzaa (Pass it on everybody pass it on now)
Light The Candles One By One (Light one everybody light one)
Happy, Happy Kwanzaa (Pass it on everybody pass it on now)
Can be celebrated by everyone

Cause an UPROAR for the Big Cats!

On Halloween, our class was able to collect $65.00 to help the big cats *YAHOO!* and we will be receiving bracelets from National Geographic soon as a thank you. But our work doesn't stop there! When we return to school after the winter holidays, we will continue our focus on animals and we'll be working on letter writing as well. We will participate in the Letters to Lions campaign as a way to practice letter writing with a purpose. (See below for more information.) Tomorrow begins NatGeo's Big Cat Week and they have lots of great educational shows scheduled that you may want to watch with your family.

One of our second grade writing standards is letter writing:
2.2 Write a friendly letter complete with the date, salutation, body, closing, and signature.

National Geographic Kids website offers a great opportunity to practice this form of writing while doing something good! From the site - "Lions are in danger of extinction across Africa. Filmmakers and National Geographic Explorers-in-Residence Dereck and Beverly Joubert want you to help save lions! Write letters to lions and the Jouberts will deliver them to African leaders to let them know how important lions are to kids everywhere. And we may feature a few of them in a gallery on the National Geographic websites and in print!"

For more information about these beautiful animals, click here. Nat Geo Wild will be supporting National Geographic's Big Cats Initiative with Big Cat Week starting December 11th. Check it out and cause an uproar!

Scholastic Book Club Ordering

This week, I will be sending home book orders - our first of the year. The children have varied abilities in reading so I like to provide book orders for all levels. You'll see that there are several different flyers.You can order using the order form on the flyers or you can order from the Scholastic website. http://clubs.scholastic.com/   Our "Class Activation Code" is DL6GB - you'll need this if you order online.

Orders for this round will be due by October 14th. The books usually take just under 2 weeks to arrive.

Frequently Used Websites

In the classroom, there are some websites we use a lot. These sites are available to students for quick access from our school computers, but they may want to visit them at home as well.

http://everydaymathonline.com
This is the online component of our math program. Your child will have login and password information in his/her binder, attached to the Math Letters sleeve.

http://www.worldbookonline.com/kids/home
LdVCS students have access to World Book Online. There are five different options to allow access by all levels of learners. We primarily use World Book Kids but World Book Student is another great option for more advanced readers.
Login: sdcoeldv
Password: library

http://wonderopolis.org/
Learning is happening everywhere, all the time! We have bottled a little bit of that learning in each Wonder of the Day®. Experience a daily dose of time with your child to make the most of each and every moment together — learn something new, try out an idea, create a masterpiece, imagine possibilities. It’s easy. It’s fun. But the learning is big!

 http://www.starfall.com/
Starfall.com opened in September of 2002 as a free public service to teach children to read with phonics. Our systematic phonics approach, in conjunction with phonemic awareness practice, is perfect for preschool, kindergarten, first grade, second grade, special education, homeschool, and English language development (ELD, ELL, ESL). Starfall is an educational alternative to other entertainment choices for children.

http://www.abcya.com/
ABCya.com is the leader in free educational kids computer games and activities for elementary students to learn on the web. All children's educational computer activities were created or approved by certified school teachers. All educational games are free and are modeled from primary grade lessons and enhanced to provide an interactive way for children to learn.

http://kids.nationalgeographic.com/kids/
The kids version of the amazing National Geographic website.

http://www.funbrain.com/
Since 1997, kids, teachers, librarians, and parents have enthusiastically turned to Funbrain for its free educational games, online books, and comics. Funbrain, created for kids ages preschool through grade 8, offers more than 100 fun, interactive games that develop skills in math, reading, and literacy. Plus, kids can read a variety of popular books and comics on the site, including Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Amelia Writes Again, and Brewster Rocket.

Teachers and librarians can confidently encourage students to use Funbrain during their free time in class, assured that kids will enjoy an educational, safe online learning experience. Funbrain's games help students build on what they have learned in class and acquire new skills in reading, math, and problem solving.