Tuesday, April 12, 2016

Story Day!


Throughout the year, the second grade has had four Story Days. Keyword stories are a big part of the curriculum in third and fourth grade, so I have been introducing second grade to the concept. After a week, we finally finished our first official keyword story!

From left to right: Stephanie, Noah, Abigail, and Gabriel

First, we had to pick a story to copy. We had been reading Aesop's Fables as a class, so we picked out the story, "The Dog and The Shadow."

After reading through the story a couple times, we numbered the sentences and started our keyword outline. Going sentence by sentence, we picked out the words we thought were the most important.



Then we went over what we would change for our story. The Dog became a Cheetah, the meat became wildebeest meat, the water was a river, and the bridge became a fallen tree.


Next, we started writing. We would come up with the sentence together, and I would write in on the board. The children then wrote that sentence down on a separate piece of paper.







It took two days to write the whole story.
All the children's manuscripts
Once the stories were done, we got out my typewriter and took turns typing on it.
The children love the typewriter
Finally, our story was finished!

Here is the finished story.

We made four copies of the finished story on colored paper and proceeded to make "books."


Books from left to right: Noah's. Abby's, Gabe's, and Stephanie's
All the children drew illustrations for their books.
Noah's illustration
Abigail's illustration

Gabriel's illustration

Stephanie's illustration




That's one story done, who's ready for another!





Park Fun!

Last Wednesday Eureka was surprised with very hot weather! (It made it into the 80s!) Because of this, the Elementary was surprised with a park day.

The entire Elementary class

Abigail and Stephanie wore matching shirts
About twenty minutes later, we all arrived at the park!

Miss Mandville, Mary, and Leona
The children immediately ran to the slides and swings, ready to release some energy.
Stephanie Mandville

Steven Salinger

Gabriel LaVerne loved the monkey bars!

"Miss Mandville, this slide is really slow!" -James Lewis

"Miss Mandville, look up here!" -Noah Jordan

Ruth and Eleanor Jordan pose for a picture

Abigail Arbec hangs upside down on the small monkey bars

Of course, Luke LaVerne was climbing the nearest tree
Eleanor Jordan hangs upside down





The swings were very popular!





Gabriel jumped from the swings...he didn't land on his feet... 
Johanna and Ruth Jordan are inseparable cousins










All in all, a very fun day at the park!


(photos and videos courtesy of Miss Mandville)

Sunday, April 3, 2016

Making Rocks

Making rocks is a lot of fun!





To make rocks the children get to smear paint on pieces of paper
and all over their hands too!



Rock making can get a little messy.




These are drying rocks, they don't look like rocks yet.



The finished product!
These rocks do look quite realistic