11-5-21

 Weekly News for 2-P 11-5-21

*Monday morning we have a Chewonki presentation, “Mammals of Maine.”

*There is no school next Thursday (Veterans Day) or Friday (Professional Development Day).

     *Students had a Fire Safety presentation.  Remember to talk with your child about your family’s meeting place in case of a fire.

        

*Our math thinking this week was all about fact strategies. We worked on fact families and writing four facts from the three numbers in a family.  We also practiced subtraction strategies such as counting up or counting back.  Kids loved the game SALUTE, which helps them find missing addends.

*During reading workshop our work was centered around the author’s message in a fiction text.  We practiced being able to name the lesson or “big idea” the author wanted us to learn.  The kids showed a lot of insight as they named messages such as, “You should be kind to everyone you meet.” or “It’s important to be yourself.”

 

*In writing workshop we finished our last small moment story and turned our attention to beginning to “fancy up” our favorites for an upcoming author’s celebration.  We will illustrate, revise and edit these pieces before sharing them with others.

*Our spelling pattern this week was consonant blends.  We did a lot of work with synonyms, antonyms, vowel teams, nouns and verbs and writing complete sentences with proper capitalization and punctuation.

*In science we explored the question “How did a tree travel halfway across the world?  This was an intriguing mystery that made us really think.  We had lots of ideas about how seeds might travel.  Students learned how seeds must get away from their parent plant in order to survive. In the activity, “Fly Your Own Seed,” students created a model seed from paper. Then, they released these seeds to model how they disperse and observe if any seeds are able to escape the parent plant’s “Zone of Darkness” and survive. We had a lot of fun flying the 3 seed prototypes!

*On Monday we had a fun trip to the Outdoor Classroom. Ms. Macauley led us in a “fall color hunt,” talked to us about how to be good stewards of nature, and read us some beautiful poems that helped us use our senses.  We will see her there again next Monday for a seed related lesson!

We do quick word chains often during the week to practice patterns, manipulate sounds and strengthen our phonics knowledge.

We spent a beautiful afternoon in the Outdoor Classroom with Ms. McCauley on Monday!

We talked about being great stewards in nature.

We gave examples of what we heard, saw and felt outside.

Writing subtraction number stories in math

Our Fall Color Collage!

Subtraction stories

Salute is always a favorite game in 2-P.

Chief Demers talks to us about firefighters and how they help.

We saw a firefighter dressed in all the gear.

We learned a lot from this terrific EMT.

We don't always stand on chairs......

But you have to do test out your spinners.....

The goal is to avoid the zone of darkness!

We flew all three of our spinners after we worked hard to build them.

Students tried their spinners from different starting angles.

We finished our third Lulu book (series by Judith Viorst).  The kids loved these books and drew Lulu pictures.

This is Lulu being naughty!

Students recorded the best spinner and drew/labeled the process.

We made "Fall Walk" books about our time with Ms. McCauley.

We work hard to keep our desks organized and take a few minutes every day to tidy up!

Small moment cover

We are adding illustrations to get ready to share!

We worked on identifying the author's message in literature this week.

Many insightful comments were made!