Having Second Thoughts: October 2012

Wednesday, October 31, 2012

There Was An Old Lady Who Swallowed A Bat...

Enjoy our audio of the story There Was An Old Lady Who Swallowed A Bat. We enjoyed practicing our roles to put together a shared reading for you! Click on the link...

Sunday, October 14, 2012

Hands On Clocks

What Time Is It?

Let's face it...the world is digital. So it just makes sense that reading an analog clock is more difficult than reading the digital time.

Check out the fun we had trying to simplify telling time to the nearest hour and half hour. (With some more challenging ones thrown in there to stretch our brains.)

Sydni shows us 2:00.

Andrew finds 10:30.

Tyler demonstrates 9:30.

Jaxon displays 5:30.

Lynde's big stretch shows us 6:00.

Hunter at 9:15.

Jorja with 7:00 on her mind.

Branen displays 8:00.

Quinlyn at 1:00.

Ben striking his 11:30 pose.

Kaden's right on time at 3:00.

Braylon showing us 2:45.

Blaize displays 4:30.

Camryn stretches to show 9:00.

Olivia, displays her hat on 'Hats On Day' and shows us what 7:30 looks like.

School's out, Gavin...it's 4:00!

Ella rocks her sequin hat at 11:30.

Kiersten stretches the brain at 2:55.

Carstyn proudly displaying 11:25.

Wednesday, October 10, 2012

Fire Station Field Trip

This fire boat is on standby in case a fire breaks out near water.

The firefighters show us the oxygen tanks needed when they're working a fire.

Here we are peeking through a camera that is used when fighting a fire inside a burning structure.

We all got a turn to peek through and look at our friends!

We all got to enter on one side of the fire truck and come out the other side.

Kaden climbs on out...

This is the gear that the firefighters have to step into within 30 seconds when called to a fire. It adds almost 40 pounds to their body weight!

We watched the firefighter put on the gear and listened to him talk through the oxygen mask.

It was a beautiful day to be outside looking at all of the firefighter's tools that they carry with them.

The firefighters show us their hoses and how they hook them up to their water supply.

Lynde tries her hand at 'firefighter for a day' by spraying the hose.

Olivia takes her turn blasting the water...


We toured the inside of the fire station where the firefighters live while on duty. They even let us peek into their refrigerator!

This is also used in fighting fires near the water.

This is the technical rescue truck that is called out for large emergencies state wide.


The bonus for us is that we got to listen to a real fire call come in. We had to move out of the way so the firefighters could jump into their gear, jump on their truck, and head to the location of the fire. Fortunately, they were back quickly as it was a non-emergency. We had a great time getting to see what a true day in the life of a firefighter looked like.

A BIG thanks to all of the parents that joined us for our day out.

Fire Station Video

In honor of Fire Safety and Awareness month, our second graders visited Fire Station Number Eleven. Enjoy this video of the fun things we got to see and do...

Monday, October 1, 2012

We incorporated measurement into six Olympic events in our classroom. Teams moved through each event estimating, completing an activity, measuring the results, and recording awarded points. Check these photos our of our second grade Olympic athletes in the following events: Right Handed Marble Grab, Left Handed Link Lift, Smelly Sock Squeeze, Free Standing Jump, Raindrop Penny, and the Cotton Ball Blow.