10-1-21

 Weekly News for 2-P 10-1-21

*Sneakers Tuesdays for PE and water bottles every day

     *Students have a brand new copy of Those Shoes by Maribeth Boelts, courtesy of Invest in ME READS (InvestinMEReads.com). This book is theirs to keep!

        

*In math we completed the first unit with lessons on base 10 blocks and an introduction to area through tiling rectangles.  Students worked hard on the Unit 1 Assessment and that will come home soon for you to review.  Unit 2 starts Monday and focuses on fact strategies. 

*During reading workshop we shifted focus to nonfiction and learned to identify common text features found in nonfiction books (captions, photos, table of contents, bold words, headings).  We read books about different ecosystems to tie in with our science unit.  Second graders recorded facts in their reader’s notebooks about what they learned in each book.

*In writing workshop we learned strategies for writing strong beginnings, ways to add little details that make our stories “pop,” and how to stretch our writing all the way down a page.  We also practiced how to know where to put ending punctuation when you are writing.

*We have completed our third spelling unit on short i words. Next up is short o words.  In addition to daily practice in our spelling books using the words in a variety of ways, we also do dictation with our words to use the words in context and practice sentence mechanics.

*This week our science work centered on an investigation called “Why Do Frogs Ribbit?” This lesson is a case study in biodiversity using the frogs of North America. In the activity, Who's Calling?, students learn to identify frogs by their unique calls and investigate which of two locations has a greater variety of frogs. After listening to recordings of frog calls, students create words that will remind them of the sounds, and then use those words to identify frog sounds in different environments.  We had a great time working as a team to figure out these frog sounds! 

(Writer's tool for crafting good leads - sorry kept turning sideways no matter how many times I fixed it)

We wrote about nonfiction texts in our reader's notebooks - all focused on biodiversity!

We learned a lot about coral reef ecosystems.

We explored frog calls and how they differ.

Then we examined the different calls in two locations.

Thanks to Jameson for our pumpkins!!!

We loved this special treat!

We listened really carefully to each habitat to see which had a greater number of frogs living in it.

Our Mystery Science investigation kept us thinking all week - so many insightful scientists in 2-P!

We finished James and the Giant Peach on Friday.

We were so sad to see it end......

that we all had to draw pictures about it!

On Friday we learned how to do the Rocket Math routine with a partner......

to help us learn our addition facts.

We LOVE playing Mummy Ball at the end of Guidance.  It helps us work on listening, good sportsmanship and our motor skills all at the same time!

We built structures with base 10 blocks and counted their values!

We used templates to tile rectangles in math.