We have been studying the seven continents for quite a while now. In fact, we have finally made it to our last continent for in depth study, Australia. During our continent study, students picked a country to research. The whole second grade is participating in this research project and in June parents are invited to a continents performance. We have representation from each of the seven continents, with the exception of Antartica, for obviously chilly reasons. Since most students are close to finishing their research on their country, I thought it might be fun to do a little side project. We […]
Finland STEM Boating Challenge
What a week back from spring break! It was go, go, go from the moment we returned. We received our eggs to hatch, students wrote a class book of poems to send off to Student Treasures to be published, we started a new unit in math on money, Thursday was poem in your pocket day, and we had boat building and a big boat race on Friday for STEM. There was a lot to be excited about but the STEM lessons were some of my favorites. We kicked off the STEM lesson with a social studies connection. I wrote a small […]
Simple Machine STEAM/STEM Lesson Brings Amsterdam to Massachusetts
With a loud and clear love for travel, it was probably no surprise to my students that I would find a clear connection between travel to another area of study, STEAM. It all started with our study of Europe. After talking about places around Europe, I gave students a small book I wrote about Amsterdam (which you can grab for free on my TpT store). The book gives general information about this major city in Europe based on my travels there. One particular section of the book, about gables on homes and buildings in Amsterdam was the link to STEAM. I still remember […]
Let’s Explore Asia
Before April vacation we were able to explore two more continents, Asia and Antartica. First up, Asia. Having traveled to Thailand a few years ago with teachers, I was excited to share pictures and videos from a small section of such a large continent. In addition to that, it was fun to share the class book my student made from the year I traveled there. After learning all about Thailand, students wrote about their favorite facts creating a Student Treasures book. (Side Note: If you haven’t heard about this free student publishing company…check them out!) Bridging our study of Europe […]
Let’s Explore Europe
Our classroom travel through Europe started out much the same as with North and South America. If you haven’t had a chance to read those posts, you can check them out here: North America, South America. But now, back to Europe. First we had to identify Europe on a map, read a fact sheet, and highlight important information. At this point, students knew the drill, and what to expect for the first day studying a new continent. The rest of the week brought a few new activities. First, I stumbled across a YouTube series called Travel Kids. It was a great fit to include in lessons […]
Let’s Explore South America
My class continued their continent exploration by traveling south, from North America into South America. I was secretly thrilled to get to South America so I could share about the countries I visited there; Peru and Ecuador. Although, I’m sure my enthusiasm for the entire continent study is pretty evident in class. Geography/Travel nerd alert! The timing couldn’t have been better to travel south of the equator in our studies, as the setting of that weeks anthology read was Chile. Included in our reading program’s materials was a small vocabulary reader on Chile to provide students with more background knowledge. This […]
Explore North America
To kick off our continent exploration unit students first got set up with some papers and a place to store them. Just like for Holidays Around the World from December, I gave students a manila folder so they could decorate it and use it for storage. Stowed inside to start were a blank world map and reading packet. With those things situated we were ready to begin! Love the look of this resource? Check out my blog post Seven Continent Exploration for a link to the TpT store where I found it. I thought it would be best to start with the continent […]
Seven Continent Exploration
We have finally reached the part of the social studies curriculum I have been dying to get to since my grade change to second grade, an in depth look at the seven continents, yay! The holidays around the world unit we did in December was a great intro to the seven continents, but now students will dive deeper into each continent. Not to mention they will get to listen to countless anecdotes of my travels (trust me they love these). My passion for travel and learning about countries could not have found a better fit. Now is the time to install a love and […]
Schools Around the World
I couldn’t be more excited about the story in student’s anthology this past week called, Schools Around the World. I mean could there have been a more perfect story for me to talk about?! This week has given me a chance to share with students my travels and visits to schools around the world. Sharing my experiences went perfectly with the text. Students started the week by listening to the story online and answering a few questions on our classroom blog. Later in the day we talked about some of the things they learned in the story and how that connected to […]
Holidays Around The World
Starting next week my students will begin a big journey traveling around the world. And while we will be doing this trip virtually, since a teacher salary is not quite enough to buy a class set of multi country plane tickets, I know students will love it. At each country we stop at along the way we will take a close look at how people from that country celebrate the holidays. These are some of my favorite lessons to do with studnets and this year it will be even better. This year in addition to readings, videos, doing a few […]