Writing, Centers, and Our First Project!

It's been a fantastic August; I can hardly believe we've been in school a whole month already! The transition to second grade and a new school building has been an adventure but I think we're all finally settled. Here are a few of our fantastic ELA centers in action:

We got our classroom iPads and learned how to take care of them while exploring our new apps! 

We also started visual art class with the amazing Ms. Bradford!

We read our first nonfiction unit story of the year, "Exploring Space," learned about main idea and details, and tried our hands at expository informative writing. These kids amaze me everyday!

For this story we also incorporated some visual art experiences by creating sentences and murals to define our amazing words for the week. Each group of students had two words to incorporate into a sentence and picture. Here are some of the collaborating groups in action: 

We also had our first drama/theater class. The director, Ms. Fleischman, focused on projection and expression while reinforcing the importance of listening to directions through Shel Silverstein poems. Can't you just see the emotion expressed with each child's face and body language? 

Our first class project was a "Me Project" in which the students designed a mini-me and presented it to the class. Students were to focus on what made them unique. The listening audience was to compare and contrast what similar interests they shared with the presenting students.

Download project instructions HERE. 

We've had a blast so far and can't wait to share more of our learning!