Dinosaurs, Dinosaurs, Dinosaurs!

     It is all about Dinosaurs this month in my second grade classroom.  Rawrrrrrrrrrrr!  Our unit began right after we returned from Spring Break.  I introduced the unit with a very sorry looking "egg" made out of a brown paper bag (I just can't bring myself to paper mache anymore).  Inside was a triceratops puppet.  We had done some inferring previously during our read alouds, but I think we need to keep working on that strategy (as you can see from some of their answers after each clue). 

The idea for this chart was inspired by one Deanna Jump posted on her blog.

     After discovering our unit of study we dove into it by reading Professor Potts' book, Uneversaurus.  This is an excellent book that explains how we know what dinosaurs looked like even though no human has ever seen one.  After reading the book we used our imaginations, bubble wrap, white butcher paper, sponge rollers and yellow, magenta, turquoise and black Crayola tempera paint to mix colors and create our own dinosaur skin.  The kids loved this!  We then traced one of three dinosaur patterns onto our skin to create our own version of a dinosaur.

     This week we are also learning about fossils and did a mini dinosaur dig in the classroom.  Again, my students LOVED this!  A couple of years ago I found a great replica of a T-Rex skeleton at Costco of all places.  I layered the "fossils" in a clear tote with potting soil and let these budding scientists have at it.  My class is small this year (15 cutie pies) and two were absent today so I broke them into 3 groups.  We had "diggers," "recorders," and "washers."  Each group rotated through each job.  In order to give everyone a chance to discover a fossil I had to stay on top of the rotation of the first two groups.  By the third group they were on their own.  I love standing back and watching kids discover and learn without me in the way.  The "washsers" started trying to figure out how to assemble the pieces.  They kept encouraging the "diggers" to keep digging for fossils they thought they still needed.  Then there was a whole conversation between the "recorders" about how archeologists don't always find all the bones they need to assemble the skeleton.

     It was pretty exciting...to say the least.  Stay tuned for more of our dino discoveries.

Water Cycle

We live in Eastern Oregon.  Winters are typically freezing, windy and full of blizzards.  Today it was 49 degrees, sunny and calm! I  have to admit that I am enjoying the sunshine and warmth immensely.  However, at the same time I find the change in our weather pattern disconcerting and somewhat alarming!  What better time to dive into some scientific inquiry about the water cycle, world habitats and weather!

I launched our study of the water cycle with Barbara McKinney's book A Drop Around the World and the first Water Magic lesson: water transformation, from her companion lesson plan book.  The kids ate it up and it was a great way to find out what they already knew.  While I read the book we followed the drop on a world map that I had projected on the promethean board.  We payed special attention to evaporation, condensation and precipitation.  After our science experiment, read aloud and class discussion students made flip books with our three vocabulary words and drew illustrations to show their understanding of each process.

Students illustrated each process of the water cycle to demonstrate understanding.  The student illustration for condensation is showing the water molecules attracting to each other.  So, so smart!

I also found this great video/song on Youtube about the water cycle.  We listened to it a few times before the kids went home today. They were all  humming the tune on their way out the door.  LOVED IT!

For homework tonight students were asked to think about how they can use what they are learning about water and the water cycle in their life outside of school.  What do you think they might say?