Fascinating Fact Friday

Did you know birds' nest soup is a delicacy in China? They collect the nests of the cave swift. The cave swift makes its nest out of saliva. People climb to rocky ledges searching for the nests and then they are added to soup. It is one of the most expensive animal products.

Elephant Communication: Fabulous Fact Friday

Did you know that elephants communicate by sensing vibrations in the ground? This summer I read a very interesting book about elephants called The Elephant Scientist by Caitiyn O'Connell. O'Connell is a biologist and she and a team of others were trying to prevent elephants from raiding farmer's fields. She wanted to find a way to protect crops without hurting the elephants. As she studied the elephants, she noticed that they seemed to be using their feet and trunks to sense sounds traveling through the ground. She set up a series of experiments, and found that she was right. They use these vibrations to find watering holes and to protect the group from danger.

Elephants are such cool animals!

By the way, this summer I took my own children to the zoo. While there, we were watching the elephants. There is a mother elephant with a three year old baby. The mother pooped and the baby came over and started eating the poop. I don't know if this is common behavior for elephant babies or not, but my kids were quite surprised by it and have talked about it for the past three months.

Fascinating Fact Friday

Been a crazy couple of weeks, and while I've shared fascinating facts with my students, I haven't blogged about them. So here is this week's fascinating fact.

This week's fact comes from this darling book Meerkat Mail by Emily Gravett:

Meerkats live in southern Africa. They live in groups in underground burrows. They take turns watching for danger. They eat scorpions, lizards, and spiders.

This darling book is about a young meerkat that feels his burrow is too crowded, so he sets off to visit some of his mongoose cousins. He sends home postcards (which include facts about his various mongoose relatives) that detail his travels. Super cute book. I highly recommend it.

Tree of Good Citizenship

The beginning of the year seems like the perfect time to talk about being citizens of our school, community and nation. It is the perfect time to discuss the rights and responsibilities we have as good citizens, and to talk about what a good citizen does.

I've read aloud several books including:
Being a good citizen. By Mary Small; illustrated by Stacey Previn.
We live here too! : kids talk about good citizenship. Written by Nancy Loewen; illustrated by Omarr Wesley.
Miss Rumphius. By Barbara Cooney.
Clara Barton: a photo illustrated biography. By Kathleen Deady.

We have made a chart that lists ideas of what good citizens do. They help others. They clean up the school/neighborhood. They make the world more beautiful. They vote. They learn about history. They do their best. And so on.

I've also found these two resources on the internet that I thought were valuable:



We've also created a tree of good citizenship. Any time I see someone being a good citizen, I either write it on a leaf or tell the child to write it on a leaf. I have encouraged them to notice when their friends, family members, and our school community does something that makes them a good citizen. We write each thing on a leaf. Then these leaves get added to our tree of good citizenship. Here are photos of our tree of good citizenship on the fourth day of school. It is already much fuller. I will take photos again in about a week to show what good citizens we are. I think it helps them understand what citizenship means (part of our second grade state core curriculum) and helps to build a positive classroom environment when they see that they are all such good citizens.

Put Your Best Foot Forward

I hung a sign with this saying on my bulletin board in the hall a couple of days before school was going to start...and it led me to this art/writing project idea that I had my students complete the first week of school.

I printed out a shoe (found a template in clipart) and then had students write their name at the top. I had them draw a picture of themselves in the middle (although I could have let them glue a photo of themselves there too...). On the sole of the shoe, they wrote something that makes them special. (I loved reading these!) On the toe of the shoe, they wrote a goal for this year, what they are going to get better at. On the heel of the shoe, they wrote what they are good at. Then they could color and decorate their shoe. I think they turned out really cute.

Star Art

I have my classroom decorated with stars this year. So I thought we should do a star art project during the first week. I originally was going to have it be a writing project where they wrote what they were good at on one point and what their goal was for this year on another point, and drew a picture of themself on another point, and so on.

But I decided on another project (coming soon) instead. But I still wanted to have them create a star. So I looked online and found a great idea on Eric Carle's website. I used Theresa Maddock's idea. My students painted aluminum foil. Then we let it dry overnight. Then I cut the aluminum foil into small pieces and they used it to create a collage on a cardstock star by gluing the pieces of foil all over the star. They turned out quite nice. Next time, I think I would just have them paint paper rather than foil...it seemed a little harder to work with. But it was a nice project just the same.

For the fast finishers, I gave them a blank star and just let them use markers to decorate the star any way they wanted, and they really enjoyed that as well.

Book Browsing

To familiarize my students with the books in my classroom library and to prepare them for Read To Self (part of Daily 5), I introduce the I-PICK strategy for choosing books (from Daily 5). I bring in a variety of shoes... some of mine, some of my husband's and some of my children's shoes. I talk about going running and then show them a pair of my daughter's flip flops. Would these work to run in? No, they don't fit me and they aren't for the right purpose? How about my high heels? No, they do fit, but they aren't for the right purpose? But my running shoes will work. When my husband rides his bike, he wears his special biking shoes. When we go to the beac or to 7 Peaks, I wear my flip flops. And so on.

Just as we need shoes that fit us and that are designed for the right purpose, we need books that fit us too. Just because a book is a good fit for our friend, doesn't necessarily make it a good fit for us. So we use the I-PICK strategy:
I pick a book:
P: Purpose...why am I reading the book?
I: Interest...does this book interest me?
C: Comprehension... does this book make sense? Can I understand it?
K: Know the words...can I read most/all of the words?
(For more information about this, I highly recommend the book Daily Five.

After I introduce this strategy, I show them how my classroom library is set up and the books are labeled. Then I pull some of the book boxes off the shelves and let them browse through books at each table (giving them about 3-4 minutes at each table and then letting them move to the next table) so they can choose about 6 or 7 books to put in their book bag. I watch and assist and listen in. This year, one of my students told me he only liked sports books. So I let him choose a couple of sports books but then encouraged him to just look at books in some of the other baskets. Soon he was coming over to me to show me the other books he'd found that he knew he would love. He said, "Wow! There are a lot of great books here. I found a lot of books to read!"

After this initial time, each table is assigned a day to trade books at the beginning of the day, so they trade once a week. Three or four times a year, I have them empty their bags completely, and then allow them a chance to do another book browsing. They love this activity, and I enjoy watching to see which books they are choosing and listening in to their conversations about books.