2nd Grade: Bridges

The second graders have been studying and learning about bridges over the last several weeks.  As a culminating project each student chose one bridge to research and learn about.  They used PicCollage to place themselves on their famous bridge, imported their image into Thinglink and added tags with details about their bridge.  Students then wrote an I Am poem from the perspective of their bridge using Google Slides.  They added their poem to their Bridge Thinglink.  When you hover over the tag with their poem, click on the GOOGLE SLIDES in the right corner.  It will open a full size version of the poem so that you can read it.

Closing out 2nd Grade

It has been great fun seeing my previous K-2 GT students as I test them for the 3-5 program.  It is wonderful to witness their strong work ethic in action.  As I have been seeing them in action it reminded me that I never shared one of the very last activities we did together.  I pulled my second graders the last week of school to do one last project…create a bridge using pastels and inspiration from Monet.  This went a long with an I Am poem the kids created.  They researched a bridge of their choice and using that information, wrote a poem.  Below you will see a slide show of the kids art and poetry.  Enjoy! 

Second Grade: Bridges and Biomimicry

In second grade we have been learning about biomimicry, a science that encourages inventors and engineers to look to nature to create solutions and inventions.  My students chose an animal to research.  They learned about their adaptations and considered how one of the adaptations could influence the design of a product that would positively impact our world.  Each student created an advertisement for their product.  They uploaded their image into Thinglink, an amazing app.  The kids used Chatterkids, PicCollage, Comic Book, Educreations, Video, etc. to share more about their product and the animal that influenced their invention.  Many are still working to finish, but here are 2 to give you a sneak peak.  The rest will be posted next week.

You need to hover over the images.  You will see dots pop up on the image.  You click on the various images to see all the work they have done.

By Kaylee
By Dasom (Still a Work in Progress)

We have also started our study of a structure that was initially influenced by nature…the bridge.  We are looking at the way humans developed the design of bridges over time, the forces that impact bridges, and the main types of bridges.

I started by giving the kids a challenge: Build a bridge, with one piece of paper, 5 paper clips, and scissors that is capable of handling a live load of 100 pennies.  Here is a video of the kids creating, redesigning, and testing.

We then discussed some of the forces that caused our paper bridges to fail or succeed.  The second graders learned about the main types of bridges and how to decide which one to build in any given situation.  The 2nd graders broke into 6 groups and each group built a different bridge.

On Monday we will look at the differences and which work better in which situations.  Each 2nd grader will also begin researching a famous bridge for their end of year structure project.