Zoo Field Trip

What a beautiful day for a trip to the zoo!  They girls collected data in the form of drawings, photos and notes for their exhibition project.  Two wonderful zoo educators, Ms. Sharon and Ms. Lori, taught a Zoo Lab on the design process using the old penguin exhibit and the new penguin exhibit as an example.  The girls are working on this real life problem in art and technology: Design an exhibit that provides the animal, the visitor, and the zoo keeper with everything they need.  They are ready now to build their own designs! 

Art: Rainbows

This week was the perfect week to paint rainbows in art inspired by the color changes in nature.  I

The girls mixed colors with partners and learned about tertiary colors. A tertiary color is a primary color mixed with a secondary color.  They can explain it all to you!

Computer Programming

We have been busy during Tech this month!  The girls have been working on their SketchUp animal exhibits.  We will continue to work on these after visiting the zoo!  Also this month, the girls began an introduction to computer programming by learning about Ada Lovelace.  In 1843, Ada Lovelace became known as the first computer programmer and predicted the future of technology.  During Ada Week, October 13-17th, we watched various short video clips and read articles about her life.  The girls then chose to create a Popplet or book in Book Creator about Ada’s life.

Getting ready for the 2nd Grade Parachute Routine

For the last couple of weeks the 2nd grade has been playing games and practicing moves with the parachute.  We are getting ready for our Parachute Assembly that takes place on November 21st.  We will be choosing our music and putting our routine together soon.

The ZooMobile

The girls had a great experience yesterday afternoon when the ZooMobile came with four different animals and some fun activities. They learned about the relationships and the components necessary to create an exhibit for an animal.  Ask your daughter if she was a polar bear, a zookeeper, or a visitor - they all need different things! 

Science: Learning About Insects!

After learning the characteristics of insects that differentiate them from other animals, the second grade girls went outside in search of specimens to observe. They eagerly used several collection techniques as they found and captured a variety of insects. Afterwards, they closely observed and tried to identify them.

Hunting for insects and collecting them was fun!

The girls enjoyed trying to identify the insects they had collected.

Closely observing crickets helped the girls learn how the parts 

of the cricket's body help the crickets survive.

Happenings in Second Grade

  October is off to a great start in the second grade! The girls are beginning an exciting and new animal habitat unit in art.  To help the girls understand what is needed in an animal's habitat, the Zoo Mobile came to visit us at Bryn Mawr! They brought four animals for us to see. What a treat!

  The second grade has also been sending good wishes to our Baltimore Orioles. Here are two pictures of the class from last week's dress down day. GO O's and good luck tonight!!

Music: Leaf Compositions

Second graders created their own musical compositions by arranging fall-colored leaves.  Here are just two examples:

French: Les Fournitures Scolaires

The girls have been learning about school supplies in French class. This week, they saw a video about what French children were buying for la rentrée. They worked in une papeterie and sold supplies to me and their classmates. They played games and identified objects around the classroom. The first image below shows an activity where the girls pretended that I was their boss (I heard many quips about being fired! But don't worry, they all kept their jobs.) at the school supplies store. They listened as I read off our "inventory" and wrote down the amount the store had of each item.

Je voudrais une trousse s'il vous plaît ! 

And who doesn't love Pictionary? 

From the Library

Second graders are travelling the world with Tim Egan's characters Dodsworth and his friend Duck. They started in New York and have continued to Paris, London and Rome, so far. We are able to slip in a little geography (what country? what continent? what language?) as we follow these travelers around the sights of each city. Dodsworth and Duck get themselves into and out of many scrapes. They ring the bells at Notre Dame, visit the Queen at Buckingham Palace and "borrow" money from the Trevi Fountain. Ask your daughter what Duck is good at and not-so-good at. Ask her where she thinks this travel team will end up next.