Mrs. Harju’s Classroom Blog

With the help of Miss Scott, our student teacher who happens to be Canadian, we share some of the facts we learned about Canada along with a few Purely Canadian jokes. We hope you enjoy the facts and jokes, eh?

Our wonderful student teacher, Miss Scott has been teaching us about her home country of Canada! She made a map of Canada on our carpet and we are learning the Provinces. We have learned (Or as they say in Canada – learnt ) some other fun facts about Canada including…

The name Canada means village.
The zipper was invented by a Canadian.
Canada is the second largest country in the world.
Canada has the longest coastline of any country in the world.
The Queen of England is also the Queen of Canada.
Canada has 10 provinces and 3 territories.
Canada has a dollar and two dollar coin. They are called a loonie and a toonie.
In America we have Presidents. In Canada they have Prime Ministers.

The second graders enjoyed learning about the Great Lakes as we transformed our school hallway into a Lake. We added fish (of course) as well as a shipwreck and sunken treasure. We learned about Bessie, the Monster of Lake Erie and water related jokes. Enjoy our video where we share these facts and a few of our favorite hilarious jokes.

After listening to the Voicethread from Mrs. Diaz’s class in TN, We decided to write our own letters about strange and unusual animals that have appeared in our backyard.
We were inspired by the style of Mrs. Diaz’s students to include some facts about why we think we have a strange animal in our backyard as well as a few fun ideas. A few more students need to add their story to the Voicethread. They will be added soon!

We were lucky enough to meet Mrs. Diaz’s class during a Skype Chat this morning. They were enjoying World Maths Day and shared what they love about World Maths Day. They have inspired us to participate in World Maths Day next year. We will be working on a lot of math over the next two days as well. We are all trying pass the 50 and 100 skill master level on ixl.

We had some fun in the computer lab today. Using the camera on our iMacs and Skitch the second graders created some fun Mardi Gras Masks. Enjoy!

The 2nd graders have enjoyed reading about animals in the Vertebrate group – Mammals, Birds, Fish, Amphibians, and Reptiles. Vertebrates are animals with a backbone.  Each student worked in a small group and  researched and wrote a report on one Vertebrate. They created an illustration to accompany their report.  You can see all of their illustrations and listen to each student read his or her report by following the link to the Animal Classification Voicethread. A few students still need to be recorded. Look for those to be added to the Voicethread sometime in the next week.

Aidan is a 6th grader here at St. Stephen School.
When he was in 2nd grade he wrote a book he titled, “Mark’s Mission – Journey to Lock Ness Lake.”

Aidan wrote this book completely on his own, in his free time at home when he was in 2nd grade. He did a wonderful job reading it to the class today. He even explained parts of the book as he read them to make sure the 2nd graders understood. All eyes were on Aidan as he read! His book is also a title on our Accelerated Reader Book Test List. He continues to write and has promised to share more of his books with the class. It was great to have Aidan visit and he is sure to have inspired a few 2nd grade authors!

Follow this link to read Aidan’s Story.

This blog post was written by the whole class.

This morning we again Skyped with an author. This time it was Jean Marzollo the author of the I Spy Books. Ms. Marzollo told us how she got started writing the I Spy books with photographer Walter Wick, and how she gets her ideas. She told us about how her sons help her with the books. They helped her write a new book called I Spy Sticker book. With the sticker book you can make your own I Spy Picture with the stickers. She said her favorite I Spy book was I Spy Spooky Nights and that the hardest thing to find is the Cat with Stripes on the last page of Spooky Nights. She gave us a hint that it was on the bookshelf. We looked for it – it is hard to find! She said sometimes she forgets where things are in her books, so it is fun for her to re-find them.
She liked the I Spy Class Collage we made, the I Spy poems we wrote and our I Spy Glogs. She had never heard of a Glog before. She wants to put our I Spy Class Collage poems on her website. She really liked them and said they were good. We were very pleased to get a compliment from Ms. Marzollo!
We have the I Spy app on our iPads. It is the I Spy Spooky Mansion app and it was fun reading the poems and trying to find the things. Ms. Marzollo is very tricky. One that said two shoes actually meant a regular shoe and a horseshoe.
We loved Chatting with Jean Marzollo. It was fun to learn about her new book and to have her read a page or two of it to us. We all Spied a Great Time!

This blog post was written by the whole class.

This morning we Skyped with author Erin Dealey for the second time. We got to Skype with her again because we all reached our reading goal of earning over 50 AR points. Ms. Dealey was wearing her favorite pajamas. She called them her Goldie Locks Chicken Pox pajamas. It was 10:15 am for us, but 7:15 am for her. We learned that she wrote two new books that are only published in Korea right now. The parents in Korea want their kids to learn English. The books were a Book a About Shapes and one called Potty Time. Potty Time had a plastic toliet seat on the cover!

Ms. Dealey read our I Spy poems on our Kidblogs. She wrote an I Spy Poem about us. We told her what our favorite books are. She knew all of the books we talked about. She must read a lot too!
Ms. Dealey is leaving tomorrow to travel to Brazil to visit schools and talk about her books and reading. We can’t wait to hear about her trip. We love Skyping with Erin Dealey!

Every second grader has earned 50 or more Accelerated Reader Points. We are very proud of ourselves! In order to earn 50 AR points each second grader had to read and take a test on over 60 books! Wow!
Each time a second grader reached 50 points, the class would stand up and dance! At 50 points each child also received some Mars Mud Putty (cool stuff!)

We will celebrate our achievement with a pizza party lunch and a special Skype Chat with Erin Dealey, author of “Golide Locks Has Chicken Pox.” Ms. Dealey is one of our Favorite authors and we enjoyed our chat with her in the Fall. She promised if we reached our AR goal, that she would chat with us again. We can’t wait! (Maybe we will write a poem for her this time?)

Olivia P. was very excited today and she made a video on the iPad with Puppet Pals.