We're goin' green!

What a fun, adventurous day we had on March 17th! We had more fun than a bunch of little leprechauns should be able to have!

Our brassica rappa plants!

We planted brassica rappa plants to learn about the life cycle of plants. After only a couple days they started sprouting! It's been so interesting watching them change and grow each day. First the seed leaves appeared, then we noticed the true leaves. After a few days we leared about the importance of thinning our plants. It was hard, but we carefully selected the strongest one in each section, then sacrificed the rest. Talk about hard!!

Field Trip to the Aquarium!

Our field trip to the Living Planet Aquarium on Friday was amazing. We especially loved touching the sting rays. We could have stayed there all day! The students also were intrigued by the penquins, the sea jellies, and the anaconda! What a wonderful trip!

As Clear as Crystal!

We tried making our own crystals in class yesterday and were amazed to see them this morning! They were totally gorgeous! Each student took a pipe cleaner and made a shape that we put into our special 'crystal-making solution.' We left them overnight, and viala! We got amazing results. Here's our recipe for the solution:
1 cup boiling water
3 Tablespoons Borax (in the laundry section at the grocery store)
Food coloring if desired
In a glass jar, disolve the borax into the hot water, then wrap the top of the pipe cleaner around a pencil and place on top of the jar, allowing the shaped part of the pipe cleaner to be submerged in the solution. Be sure not to let the shape touch the bottom or sides of the jar, otherwise it may 'glue' itself to the jar as it forms the crystals. Leave undisterbed overnight. Then remove and let dry!

Hoopin' It Up!

Today for PE we got out the hula hoops and had a ball getting creative while seeing how coordinated (or not-in the case of their funny teacher). I was so impressed with the ability and creativity of this great group of 2nd graders!

Petroglyph writing!

We learned that for 1000's of years rocks have been used for recording stories. So today we became like the ancient Anasazi and recorded our stories for history as they did! We discovered that it was a lot more work, but a lot more fun than we would have expected!

Making Fossils...

We learned that fossils are created in the layers of sedimentary rocks, so we decided to make some of our own. What fun it was to chisel them apart and find our fish between the layers!

We rock!

We've loved learning about rocks for the last few days! I think it's turned the entire class into rock hounds! The children have been sorting and examining all the rocks they can find. We learned that rocks are made of minerals by finding all the 'mineral parts' of a cookie rock! We also made our own igneous rocks from melting crayons down, then letting them cool, and from melting down chocolate chips to make a chocolate igneous rock! We can't wait for science each day to learn more cool rock stuff!