Our Last Post

Sadly this is our last post as the 2R Shining Stars.  We have had a great year this year and have learnt many things and gained many new skills.  We are taking this knowledge and these skills with us to Year 3.  Some of us will stay together while the rest of the Shining Stars will be in another class.  We are even taking Mrs R up to year 3 with us.

You can visit Mrs R and our new class at www3jdjs.blogspot.com.  We are now known as the 3J DJ's.  We hope you will visit our new blog and see the great things we are doing in year 3 and leave us a comment. 

THE GLOBAL MONSTER PROJECT

We had lots of fun working together to create our monster for the global monster project. We have sent our photo to Mr Smith at Monster Central to show everyone what our finished monster looks like, we have yet to give it a name. Do you have any suggestions? Leave a comment with your suggestion. All the year 2 children decided that it looked more like a boy than a girl and maybe it should have the word Aussie in its' name.



We spent last Friday morning(29 October) putting our monster together and this was the first time that most of us got to see what some of the other body parts looked like because the other 2 classes were making them.



Our teachers helped us put all the parts together and we were amazed at how it looked when it was all completed. We were very surprised that none of the parts had to be altered or changed in any way to fit together. That must mean we really thought about the part we were making and we collaborated really well with others who were making the other parts.



We made a onetruemedia to show who made the different parts and putting it all together!

Make an on-line slideshow at www.OneTrueMedia.com

OUR MONSTER PROJECT

Our monster for the Global Monster Project has finally been made. We were so excited this morning when we got to see all of the body parts made by 2M, 2BP as well as our own class. Mrs R, Mrs M, Mrs B, Mrs J, and Mr S with the help of Caitlin's mum, had to be very creative when we put all of our parts together to create what we think is the BEST MONSTER IN THE WHOLE WIDE WORLD!!!!!!! We were very surprised at how well all the pieces were able to fit together without any alterations. Mr S set up the video and the Macbooks to record the construction process. Have a look at a snippet of what we did. Keep updated with all the other monsters by checking them out at www.smithclass.org/proj/Monsters/index.htm and click on Monsters 2010.

FUN WITH MATHS

Today (26/10/10) we went to the library for an Incursion to do fun things with maths. The person who helped us was called Greg. First we got a partner to work with, then we sat on the floor and listened to Greg's instructions. He asked Lathan and Jack to volunteer to show everyone how to do the chain activity. The chain activity was when you and your partner were chained up with two chains and you have to try and untangle yourself without taking the velcro wrist bands off, it was very tricky. At the end Mrs M and Mrs R showed us how to do it and it took them 3 seconds.

There were 30 activities, some were called Skyscrapers, shoes, pick a wand activity, the marble race tower, different kinds of puzzles, making a cage for T-rex, number puzzles, weighing activities, treasure search activity, train activity, building the same castle as your partner without looking and the landing pad. These activities were called PROBLEM SOLVING ACTIVITIES. We found out that problem solving was tricky but lots of fun if we WORKED TOGETHER and TALKED with each other and GAVE SOLUTIONS to each other. We found out that there were lots of different ways to solve the problems.

OUR MONSTER ACROSTIC POEM

In class we wrote a MONSTER acrostic poem. An acrostic poem is when you use the letters of the subject or topic of the poem to begin sentences to describe the topic. Mrs R showed us a picture of a monster and we came up with words (adjectives) to describe what it looked like and how it moved. We then chose the adjectives we liked the best to write our poem.

Mouth is like a dark cave.
Oval shaped, lime green body.
Noisy like a trumpeting elephant.
Stomps so hard the ground cracks.
Tiny, flat, yellow teeth with green gums.
Enormous, aqua coloured eye on his forehead.
Runs so fast it is a blur.

In pairs we chose a picture of a monster and wrote our own acrostic poems. You will start to these on our blogs and we have made a class Acrostic Poem book about monsters.

THE GLOBAL MONSTER PROJECT

Our grade 2 classes decided to sign up for the Global Monster Project. The project is about working collaboratively with other people around the world to build a monster. First we had to choose a body part that we wanted to describe, then we came up with 8-12 words to describe the part. We described the ears. Now all of the classes have to build the monster by HALLOWEEN (29 October). After we build the monster we will take a picture of it and send it to the monster project site. Everyone in the project votes for the best monster.

Our monster is going to live in our school library.

We are looking forward to participating in the Monster Project.

COUNT US IN

Today our school took part in MUSIC, COUNT US IN. Children from Prep to year 12 all over Australia joined in singing the song PLAY YOUR PART. We sang this song to let everyone know how important music is and how much fun it is.

COME PLAY YOUR PART

Year 2 here are the words to Come Play Your Part, the song we are singing on Thursday for Count Us In.

It's your time, what are you feeling?
Look all around, can you believe it?
Give it your all, let it flow through you
I'm by your side, all we need to do is...(sing)

Don't have to hide what's inside you (all you gotta do is...sing)
Let it out, let it surround you

We're gonna shout, we're gonna sing
Let the music give us all we need
Lay down a groove - move to what we feel inside
Feel the rhythm, keep the beat,
Feel it in your hands and in your feet
Lift your voice, find it in your heart, come play your part

Don't have to hide what's inside you (all you gotta do is ...sing)
Let it out, let it surround you

We're gonna shout, we're gonna sing
Let the music give us all we need
Lay down a groove, move to what you feel inside
Feel the rhythm, keep the beat,
Feel it in your hands and in your feet
Lift your voice, find it in your heart, come play your part

ooh x2

Come play your part, sing from the heart
You can't get it wrong, who knows you might even get it right

Come play your part, sing from the heart
You can't get it wrong, who knows you might even get it right

We're gonna shout, we're gonna sing
Let the music give us all we need
Lay down a groove, move to what you feel inside
Feel the rhythm, keep the beat,
Feel it in your hands and in your feet
Lift your voice, find it in your heart, come play your part

We're gonna shout, we're gonna sing
Let the music give us all we need
Lay down a groove, move to what you feel inside
Feel the rhythm, keep the beat,
Feel it in your hands and in your feet
Lift your voice, find it in your heart, come play your part

Making Bread

In class we have been investigating how our food gets from the farm to the table. We watched a youtube video explaining how wheat is harvested and how they then turn the wheat into flour. First the farmer grows the wheat. Then it is harvested. After it is harvested it is stored in silos ready to be transported to the flour mill. After it arrives at the flour mill it is cleaned and ground into flour. Then it is packaged. Finally the flour is transported to shops and bakeries ready to be used.

We then watched a youtube video to find out how bread is made.

After watching these videos we made bread in our classroom with a bread maker.

First we had to put the yeast into the breadmaker, we then added the flour and finally the water. We turned the breadmaker on and left it cook for 3 hours. The yeast helps the dough to rise.

The smell of the cooking bread in our classroom made our mouths water. After it was cooked we had to let it cool before we could eat it. Mrs R cut up the loaf so we could eat it. We all agreed that it was very yummy.

THIS WEEK IS BOOK WEEK

This week is BOOK WEEK. It is a whole week set aside to celebrate Children's Books. At school wek have been doing some activities based on some of the short listed Children's Books. The Year 2's did Shumann the Shoeman.

Create your own video slideshow at animoto.com.

We also had a book week parade. Everyone in the school dressed up in their favourite book character. Everyone looked fantastic. Each class paraded in front of the other classes and a prize was given out to the best dressed person in each year level.

Make an on-line slide show at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Here are the characters we dressed up as.
Book Week on PhotoPeach

MICHELLE TAYLOR VISIT

Michelle Taylor came to our school on Wednesday 25 August. She writes all kinds of different poems. She gave us some great hints about how to write great poems. Michelle Taylor told us that she gets great ideas from her children, schools she visits and from the world around her. She writes all her ideas in a journal. She said that she has about 20-30 journals. She told us two important things about poems, they were short and you needed good describing words.

She wrote here favourite words on rocks and kept them in a collection and wrote titles on pieces of paper to help with her writer's block.

COUNT US IN

Count Us In is on again this year and we need to practise the song. Count Us In was an idea to help show how much fun music is and how important music is in school. We are busy practising the song that every school student will sing on the same day at the same time all around Australia. Year 2, to help you practise the song I have put the song into our document box. All you need to do is click on the song and it should play straight away.

MAKING ICE-CREAM

This term we have been investigating where our food comes from and how it gets from the farm to our tables. We looked at the production chain for milk. We watched a youtube video that showed us what happens to the milk after the cow has been milked.

OUR EKKA EXCURSION

On Thursday 5th August all the year 2 children went on an excursion to the Brisbane Exhibition (Ekka). The Ekka is a carnival that goes for 10 days every August. It is when people from the country bring their animals and produce to the city to be judged and to promote their region. There are lots of things to see and do at the Ekka. We went because we are learning about where our food comes from and how it gets to the supermarket.

We caught the train at 8.43am and got to the Ekka at about 9.45am. When we got there we sat down and had our morning tea. after morning tea we went off with our parent helper to see the cows, animal nursery, lambs being born, milking cows, the produce pavilion, and the government pavilion. After seeing all of these things we met up for lunch. After lunch we went off again with our parent helper to the showbag pavilion. We were allowed to buy one showbag up to the value of $15. After we bought our showbags we met outside the showbag pavilion before we caught the train back to school. We got back to school at 3.15pm. We were all very tired but we had a great day and saw lots of new and interesting things.

See what we got up to on this Flixtime video http://flixtime.com/video/detail/dc273ec761f6702b66e18cc65e8f9e09S5fH4mTRnXiCEusUt6/

SJV DAY AND WALKATHON

On Wednesday 4th August our school celebrated Saint John Vianney's Feast Day. John Vianney was a priest who lived in France over 150 years ago. He worked in the town of Ars. He talked to the people and taught them about God and Jesus. He was their Parish Priest for 40 years. After he died the Pope decided that John Vianney should be made a saint for the great work that he did in Ars. He became a saint on 4th August 1928. As part of our school's celebration we had a walk-a-thon in the morning then we went to Church for a school mass. After lunch we were put into groups that had children from prep to year 7 in them and we did 6 different activities. The activities were organised by the parents. We did Lob-a-choc, drawing on canvas, butterfly making, jumping castle and tug of war, cake decorating and matching the pictures of the teachers. It was a fantastic day and we thin our parents are great for organising it all for us.

SPORTS CARNIVAL

On Wednesday 21 July we had our school sports carnival. It was held at Villanova Park. It was the first time we used our new house colour names. Gold is Collins, Blue is Nagle and Red is Kennedy. We all took part in rotational activities. Our activities were Novelty Relays, High Jump, Ball games, Tabloid Games and 80m Sprints. We earnt points for our team when we completed in the different activities and for great cheering when we were sitting in our house colours. We all tried very hard but on the day Kennedy was the winner.

CHECK OUT OUR LITTLE VISITORS!!

Here is one of the pictures.

HENNY PENNY HATCHING PROGRAM

Today the chickens arrived from the Henny Penny Hatching Program. There are three chickens already hatched and they

are in the play pen under a light. The incubator has 14 eggs in it and one chicken that hatched this morning but it isn't ready to go into the chicken play pen.

The eggs with the pink stamps will hatch first, then the blue stamps, then the ones with purple stamps and finally the ones with the green stamps will hatch last.

The chickens are in our room because we are learning about how food gets to our table.

OUR KANDINSKY PICTURES

In Numeracy Block we were learning about different types of lines and shapes. Mrs R showed us some art work by a famous artist called Wassily Kandinsky. He was an abstract artist and he painted pictures using different types of lines and shapes. He would use thick lines, thin lines, diagonal lines, vertical lines and horizontal lines. He also used a lot of different shapes both 2D and 3D shapes with lots of bright colours. We learnt about these different kinds of lines and shapes and we tried to include these in our Kandinsky style pictures. Mrs R used ONE TRUE MEDIA to show our great work.

Make photo slide shows at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Group 4's Noun Groups

Today in reading block, group 4 read THE ECHIDNA AND THE SHADE TREE. It is an Aboriginal Story told by Mona Green. It is a story that tells how the echidna got it's spikes and why it shuffles when it walks. We found noun groups in the story and put them in a voicethread.