Animal Research

It's been quite awhile since my last post and so much has happened. I'm going to share with you what's got my kids so excited about this last class project.

Our last unit of study is in science and we have been learning about animals and plants. When I told the kids we were ending with this unit, they were extremely excited. They L-O-V-E SCIENCE!! In this unit students need to know the sequential stages of life cycles are different for different animals and that many characteristics of an organism are inherited from the parents. We've also discussed how some characteristics are caused or influenced by the environment (adaptations).  We've used "signal words" to help us remember important vocabulary in this unit:

Metamorphosis

Seedling

  

I think the best part of this unit has been the research project the 2nd graders are doing. First, they chose an animal to research and partnered with a classmate who had the same interest. Next, they used the chromebooks to find information about their animal's life cycle, anatomy, adaptations, habitat and more. Once they made their notes, I introduced how to create a Google Presentation. Their is no slacking going on in this classroom! They have absolutely loved making these presentations. Next week, students will be presenting their animal projects to their peers.

  Watch and listen to the video below where 2 kids are discussing which font and size to use for the title on one of their slides and which image to select:
I have been so thrilled to see how motivated and excited the kids have been when I tell them it's science time. I hear grumbling from the kids when I tell them it's time to pack up to go home! Many students have asked if they can do research from home. I naturally encourage them to do research with the help of an adult. If you want to see your child's presentation or other presentations from our class, visit our class website next week and I will have them posted.

Student Blogger-Srivishal

Dear Mrs .Torres, all my friends and relatives,

     Do you know who I am ? Well if you don’t you will learn about me here! I am a Star Soccer Player. I also like to play chess but I always lose to my brother. I have won 5th place in Bay area  National tournament and 1st place in Sacramento chess tournament for my age boys. I have been in chess classes.

    I live with my brother my mom and my dad and a cat. I born in the year 2006 in Mercy San Juan Hospital, Sacramento. My name is officially Srivishal but My mom calls me Kunju(which means tiny  baby bird).My another name is Abhinav.

    Since I watched my brother doing swimming a lot, and I practised by my self while my mom was wacthing me ,when I was 3 years old, even before started learning swimming officially from a coach, when my first coach asked me to jump and swim to the middle of the pool where he was, I was able to do without fear. My coach  and mom was surprised. My coach skipped the beginning session and taught me 2nd session lesson directly.

    I went rock climbing with my brother for his boy scouts,in the year 2012.

       Every year I go to San Francisco to meet my friend he lives in a  3 story house!

I also went paintballing with all my and brother’s friend to celebrate brother’s birthday, last sunday and it was really fun.. My hobbies are to watch cartoon network and play soccer in my backyard.

     

I went to the biggest tree in the world its called the great grizzly in Yosemite last August. Iit was so tall it would take me 3 hours to climb to the top of the tree.

    I went to the science museum with my family and friends too.I i saw dinosaurs, water creatures, and I saw starfish.

     I play tennis and my teacher’s name is John. I learned to jump rope. I did exercises and we did stations. Each station we work or run or we do jump roping. I also like to play basketball. One of my favorite teams that I have been on was called the Otters.

    On Halloween I was spider man and Showmen was Ginga and his brother was a character from anime episode.

      My Grandpa (MOM’s dad) visited us for 3 months from India. He came with us to Bay area chess  tournament  and we had dinner with him in a famous indian restaurant called Poojain west Sacramento.He love me and my brother a lot. We all went to give sendoff to him. We wished him to stay for some more months.

    My Grandpa and GrandMa (dad’s parents) also visited  last year for  2 months and they came to watch my music performance in our school (blackrock drive NCS  auditorium). Me and my brother enjoyed playing Carom board game with them every day. We went to SFO Cruise with them.This  picture is from one of our visit to India with my father’s relatives.

     I went to disneyland I did the bumper car and a bunch of other rides  3 years before.And we enjoyed a lot at Legoland,the Lego boat ride where you are on a ship and you have to shoot down other  ships.

     I hope you all enjoyed my blog  and came to know more about me through my blog.Thank you  very very  much for  your patience!Wish you all wonderful day!! I will meet at school tomorrow.

Bye!

Student Blogger-Emilie

Hi! This is Emilie.

Guess what one of my favorite things to do with my family is? CAMPING !We go camping in our trailer all the time.

My favorite thing about camping is seeing all the creatures of nature and the wildlife. Of course, we can’t forget about roasting marshmallows on the campfire at night.

 

We go swimming and hiking to. I have a fishing pole that has a rubber fish at the end of the line. Mostly I catch seaweed. I was only 6 weeks old the first time I went.

I also love traveling.We have all of our family in Norway and Sweden. Two years ago we went to Norway for two whole months. I made some new friends there. Did you know kids start to learn English in first grade there?

This picture of me and my sister was taken at one in the morning,but the sun doesn’t go down in the summer so it looks like its daytime.

We have a lot of pets too. I have two dogs, four parakeets and two fish. On my last birthday,we went to a place that rescues exotic animals. I just love everything about nature!

Thanks for reading my blog entry !

Student Blogger-Rylan

Hi, my name is Rylan.

I am seven years old boy. I live with my 3 years old younger sister and my Mom and Dad. I was born here in Sacramento, however my Mom and Dad were born in Indonesia. Indonesia is a tropical country in South East Asia not far from Australia.

Currently, I only have a fish tank with tropical fishes - a pair of them is Checkered Barbs which originally came from Indonesia.  My dad has a small black and white dog. He is a Tibetan Spaniel mix, his name is Nemo and he is old, about 10 years old. His weight is about 18 lbs. and sometimes he still acts like he is a puppy.

Although I don’t have lots of animals right now, animals, especially water animals, reptile and insect are my passion and I would like to share this passion with all of you. My favorite places to visit are all animal places, such as Monterey Bay Aquarium, California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco, Sacramento Reptile Show and our Sacramento Zoo.

In addition, in town,  I usually visit all pet stores, such as Petsmart, Petco, Pets Extreme and Exotic Aquarium and my old favorite place, Capitol Aquarium (which is closed for good awhile back).

In 2010, when I was 4 years old, we had a chance to visit Indonesia.  We were there to visit my Mom’s family and my Dad’s uncles, aunts and cousins.  Two of my most memorable animal encounters are below:

In this picture, I was holding a tiny baby house lizard on the palm of my hand.  This house lizard is commonly found on Indonesian’s houses.

 

On one of the local restaurant, they have hundreds Koi fishes on a big pond, that you could feed and  touch.

In  2012, we became a member of the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco.

Their most famous animal is Claude an Albino American alligator.

There are also stingrays, one of the biggest is this huge gray spotted stingray.

Since 2011, I have been going to various Reptile Shows.

This picture is me, when I was 5 years old, with a snake from one of the show’s vendor.  This is my first experience with a snake on my neck.  

The best and the biggest show is the Sacramento Reptile Show, which is an annual Reptile Show and Expo in the Sacramento Convention Center.  We have been going there for the past 3 years. They have all kinds of reptile, such as all kind of snakes, frogs, turtle, tortoise, alligator, crocodile, lizards, iguana etc.  Also all kinds of spiders, tarantulas, beetles, etc. My favorite part is their Wild Animal Show on stage and also their petting zoo.

In the following pics;

I was petting a Tortoise, Big Lizard, small Lizard in the show’s petting zoo. They also have an Albino Alligator, although not as big as Claude.

The next three pics are me pose with Izod, the 10 fts 100 lbs American Alligator in 2011, 2012, and 2013.

I hope my passion for water animals, reptiles and spiders, will encourage you to get closer and learn more about wild animals in general and their habitats.  Only through learning and understanding, we could help effort to save and preserve their existence for our future generations.

Student Blogger-Ava

Hi everyone in the world, I am Ava.  I am going to tell you some facts about me. I have 5 members in my family.  Me, my mom, my dad, my brother, and my sister.

My family loves to go on trips. We don’t go to many places because mostly we go to Disneyland. This summer we are planing to go there and maybe we will stay at the hotel inside the park.

My whole family does sports. Me and my sister and my cousin do swimming. My other cousins do karate. My youngest cousin does softball. Me and my dad are trying to find what sport William, my baby brother, should play. My mom wants him to do swimming but I think he should play soccer because he loves to kick balls or baseball because he loves to hit balls with his bat and he also loves to hit other things. Maybe he should play basketball because he loves to shoot hoops with me.

In class we are doing a mystery  book report and we are doing it online. We can do a google drawing or we can do an iMovie . We can only do the iMovie if we have an apple device.