More on the Top?

Hello and happy Saturday!!

So right now in second grade, we are working on double-digit subtraction with regrouping. Honestly, this entire year in second grade math, the kids have known how to do everything already or caught on CRAZY fast. This is the first topic I've taught them where they haven't flown through it. It feels good to finally challenge their brains!!

The verbage in my book to teach this fantastical topic was so dry. So I remembered the subtraction poem I read on The Inspired Apple and taught it to them!

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After I taught them how to do double-digit subtraction, I wrote a problem for each kid on the whiteboard and then they took a dry erase marker and solved it. After I checked their work, they made up their OWN problem and we did a mini Scoot game where they'd move around to solve their friend's problem! It was fun and they loved making up their own problems.

That's all of them.... all 5 second graders.

I'm looking forward to going back on Monday and working more on this super fun concept! They are loving the challenge so far!

Marvelous Matter

We wrapped up our matter unit today! I think I saw some tears. Haha! The first and second graders looooove matter.... it's a little strange, but I'm down.

So here are a few more things we did this week!

Yesterday, we played Matter Scoot! I saw this activity on a few people's blogs so I tried it out. If you've never played before, I will fill you in! On each kid's desk there should be a question (or task) and a number. You give the students a paper with an answer space for each numbered desk, and they move from desk to desk filling in their answer sheet. For my matter scoot game, the students looked at pictures and had to write whether the object in the picture was a solid, liquid, or gas and a property of the object.

They looooved this! I even took a video for you!

Today we took our end-of-the-chapter test. Part of it was the traditional paper-and-pencil situation (which they all did amazingly on!), and another part was completing a states of matter foldable.

They did well with this! I asked them to cut out 3 solids and 3 liquids and just try to find a gas. If they couldn't find one, they were allowed to draw a picture and label it. They had a good old time. I didn't grade these yet but based on my circulation around the room... I think they all rocked it. :)

And I'll leave you with something cute. As I said yesterday, we had indoor recess for both the morning and lunch recesses. At lunch recess, since it's almost 30 minutes long, we do Adventure to Fitness, but in the morning I let them do whatever. I have some games or they'll play on the geoboards.

Anyway, 3 of the kids came up to me during recess and said, "Look! We made solid, liquid, and gas out of legos!!"

The big white part is ice. There is a little blue because it's melting a little bit, haha. The big blue part is water. The little white part is a chimney with air coming out of it! We had just talked about how the heating or cooling can change the state of matter, so this really made my day!!