During the 2014-2015 school year, the second grade class participated in various learning projects. These included Skyping with authors, scientists, and others around the world to enhance lessons. The highest reading group built a castle out of recycled materials and wrote about its inhabitants after reading a book. Students also conducted experiments on force and distance by launching objects with paper cup cannons and learned about math concepts like area, perimeter, and comparisons through hands-on activities inside and outside.

1. Learning Projects
2014-2015
Here are some of the learning projects
that took place this school year while I
was a second grade teacher.

2. This is a bulletin board used to keep track of all the people and places we
skyped with. We skyped with authors, scientists, illustrators, web
designers, microsoft executives, and other classrooms around the world.
Skype in the classroom was used in conjunction with lessons to help
enhance them. Towards the end of the year the children wrote a reflection
about what they learned from skype.

4. The highest reading group
read Igraine the Great by
Cornelia Funke. They then
were required to pick
classmates that were not in
their group to help them
create a castle out of
recycled materials. They
were also required to work
together to write about the
inhabitants that lived in the
castle and write labels for
the castle. The students
researched the correct
terms. Through this project
they learned how to work
together in groups, resolve
conflicts, history terms,
language arts, and use
creativity.

5. This was an experiment
done on force and
distance. We created
“cannons” using paper
cups and balloons. The
students then worked in
groups and launched
objects of various weight
and shape to see which
would go the furthest.
They made a hypothesis
before the experiment and
conclusions afterwards.
Some of the conclusions
were about the size , aero
dynamic, and force with
which they launched the
object.

6. We did a lot of hands on
activities for Math. Some of
these included marking off tiles
on the floor to talk about area
and perimeter, going outside to
find examples of quadrilaterals,
and as shown in the picture;
less than, more than, equal to.