Apps this year

Throughout the year the girls have learned a variety of tech skills using many different apps.  Below is a list of the apps that they used this year.

Acrostic Poem
Art Authority K-12
Art Set
Blocksworld HD
Book Creator
BrainPop J.
Cut the Rope
Doodle Buddy
Edmodo
Explain Everything
Faces iMake
Fotobabble
Google Drive
iLearn Continents and Oceans
iOrnament
Kodable
Make 10 Plus
Math Bingo
Math Champions
Math Doodles
Math Slide
Math Board Addition
Monster Physics
My Story
Nature Tap
Operation Math
Pettson's Inventions
Pic Collage
Popplet
Puppet Pals
Scratch Jr.
Scribble Press
Second Grade Learning Games
ShowMe
Skitch
Smart Cookie Math
Spelling City
SpellTower
Strip Designer
Symmetry Shuffle
The Oregon Trail
Trading Cards

Happenings in Second Grade

 To celebrate our Baltimore unit the second grade went on a fabulous field trip to Fort McHenry and The Flag House.  We were lucky to have such a beautiful day as we learned many fascinating facts about our city's history. At the Flag House the girls were able to walk through Mary Pickersgill's house and see where she made some of the flag.  It was very interesting to see such an old house and hear about what life was like back then.  The girls also had a chance to play outdoor games that were popular during the 1800s.  At Fort McHenry we had lunch outside overlooking the fort. We were able to explore many different areas in the fort and listened to a special presentation about the flags that fly at Fort McHenry today. Here are some pictures of the girls in action!

Inside the fort.

During the flag presentation at Fort McHenry, the girls (and Mrs. Roessler!) got to catch a flag that was being lowered. They loved it! 

Playing outdoor games at the Flag House.

Lunch outside!

The actual size of the flag that flew over Fort McHenry during battle. 

French: La Fête du Fromage

Today, the girls and I had a wonderful time at our long awaited cheese party! They sampled six different cheeses: le camembert, le roquefort, la mimolette, le saint albray, le chèvre, et le pont-l'évêque. They were able to tell me what type of milk each cheese is made of as well as its shape, color, place of origin, and more! The girls were very courageous as some of these cheese are not for the faint of heart. The majority told me they loved la mimolette and, politely, that le roquefort was not their favorite.

Art: Glazing Grandparent Projects

The girls have crafted their grandparent stories in clay using a reductive process called low relief and additive hand building process. They used tools to add textures. Then, they glazed their tablet. They worked hard on their drawings to show relationship and a sense of space. Ask your daughter what her story is about and why it's important to her. 

From the Library

Second grade revisited prairie life by reading Patricia MacLachlan's Newbery-winning Sarah, Plain and Tall. We then read Donald Hall's Oxcart Man and imagined walking ten days to the market, selling everything, buying a few items, walking ten days back, only to start all over again. We read The Lion's Share, a great portrayal of how quickly "half of what's left" is only a crumb, and how quickly "twice as many"means the elephant promising to bake 256 peanut butter pound cakes. We revisited beloved Tim Egan, author of the Dodsworth books we read at the beginning of the year, to read Burnt Toast on Davenport Street, complete with a magic fly who grants three wishes but accidentally turns a toaster into a squirrel and mean dogs into toasters. We dipped into non-fiction with Owen and Mzee, a true story of an unlikely friendship between a tortoise and a baby hippo.