12-3-21

 Weekly News for 2-P 12-4-21

     *Thanks for sending coats, mittens, hats and boots, plus indoor shoes daily!

*Please remember to pack back-up masks and also to check with your child about the fit of their mask to make sure they have one that is working for them. 

          *We completed the unit 3 assessment this week.  Math portfolios will come home next week (with report cards) so you can see your child’s progress in the last two units. We began unit 4 and worked on telling time to hour, half hour and then began to work on 5 minute intervals, which is more challenging. We also touched on AM and PM.

*On Wednesday Ms. Luchies hosted an exciting virtual author’s visit with the author of the popular “I Survived” series for older kids.  Lauren Tarshis has now written a children’s book called Only My Dog Knows I Pick My Nose.  She joined us with her illustrator, Lisa Bronson Mezoff, to read us her book, tell us about their creative process and answer our questions.  Lisa showed us how she draws character’s facial expressions, which we practiced on our own in class.  It will come in handy with our current writing unit too. Thanks to Ms. Luchies for setting up this special visit for us!  

*During reading workshop we read books in the realistic fiction genre and learned to identify the characteristics of this type of book - made up stories that could happen in real life.  We explored different series in this genre and the kids had access to a digital library on EPIC as well. This work in reading is helping us with our work as authors!

 

*In writing workshop we used our realistic fiction series planners, where we had brainstormed our characters’ names, family, friends, likes, dislikes and traits, to write our first introductory book.  Each student is creating their very own series and learning to pull ideas from their own lives.  We made lists of realistic problems that could be solved in our books. Kids are getting the chance to put many of their narrative writing skills to use in a slightly different way.  We also began a 5 minute “Daily Edit” to practice proofreading our writing for spelling, capitalization and punctuation.

*Our spelling pattern this week was short vowel sight words.  In grammar we worked on parts of speech, long vowel sounds, adding details to sentences and correct spelling patterns.  We are doing word chains or other quick dictation activities daily to reinforce new patterns and practice older ones.

*In science we did experiments to help us understand the parts of a plant and how they work to help the plant survive.  We also worked through an exploration lesson to investigate how plants need sunlight and water to grow. We are currently growing radish seeds -one set in the dark and one under our grow light - to see which set of seeds will grow faster. 

Skip counting practice in math

Using our mini clocks to practice time to 5 minute intervals

We planted radishes in science.

Ms. Luchies introduced us to author, Lauren Tarshis on Wednesday!

We read realistic fiction and recorded all the ways we knew it was realistic in our reader's notebooks.

We have had fun exploring realistic fiction during DEAR time. Ms. Luchies set us up with lots of choices!

On Friday we worked on place value and used our slates to draw numbers!

We also wrote and read 3 digit numbers.

On Friday we did tri-folds to show our independence with identifying traits of realistic fiction.

We observed our celery experiment and drew/wrote what we concluded. 

After writing our introductory series opener, we began the first books in our series.

Students used a planning sheet to plot out the main events and then took off writing.

Second graders are using narrative skills from our first writing unit to open their stories with good leads!

We loved this issue about SLIME!

Celery experiment sample

Our grow light is shining on our radishes.  We have a set in the dark so we can compare/contrast light and dark impact on seed growth.