Week of 5-6-22

 Weekly News for 2-P 5-6-22

*Remember to send an extra snack for Run Club on Wednesday!

*We are all out of tissues; donations would be greatly appreciated.

 

*In math we completed Unit 9 in Everyday Math.  We worked on the trade-first subtraction algorithm for regrouping, equal shares/fractions and multiplication concepts. We will do review work for the Unit 9 assessment and then will have time to solidify important concepts, do extra problem solving projects and work to master our math facts.

*During reading workshop we read lots of books by local author, Jennifer Richard Jacobsen. We especially liked her Twig and Turtle and Andy Shane series.  Her visit on Thursday was a big hit with 2-P.  She was incredibly engaging and drove home the point that the best writing comes from your own life experiences.  A huge thank you to Ms. Luchies and the PTA for bringing us this fabulous opportunity. 

 

*In writing workshop we shifted to a new genre; poetry.  Our initial lessons helped us see how poetry is all about looking at everyday objects through a different lens. We read lots of examples of poetry and then tried our own.  The kids were naturals and had the best time writing small poems on a variety of topics; their pets, favorite objects, classroom items and special sports. We began our own personal poetry anthologies!

*Our spelling focus was r controlled vowels.  Next week we will tackle ch/wh digraphs.  

*In science we completed our unit on matter with two more experiments.  We learned about what items melt well in hot water and how cooling impacts their shape. In a fun engineering lesson we discovered how we can change the properties of an item to make it sturdier - we built towers with only index cards and paper clips.  

*We also began our annual bird exploration.  Students enjoyed seeing lots of bird artifacts on our science table this week.  We learned about the characteristics of a bird and their anatomy.  Next week we will investigate their beaks and feet in depth. 

Testing out how hot water melts various candies

Each candy type was in a bag and we used popsicle sticks to move them around in the hot water to see how they would react.

The gummies didn't melt too. much.

Snack break!

Frisbee was a big hit this week!

Paper towers taller than 12 inches?  Challenge met!

Building index cards houses....

We had to get creative to see how we could make the cards sturdier.....

Paper clips helped.

Cutting helped.

This one was strong enough to hold a book!

Proud engineers!

Success!

Indoor recess play dough time

Getting a game of Mummy Ball in!

Run Club - another rain day.  We are due for sunshine next week!

Students shared their poems with the class during writing workshop.

Turns out 2-P is full of talented poets

Ms. Luchies introduces Jennifer Richard Jacobsen.

We loved her stories!

She told us about her series Twig and Turtle.

She was a great storyteller!

Bird Anatomy

We decorated our new bird folders.

Sharing a special project

We solved a tough math problem.

Poetry was our new writing genre

After we finished our fourth poem we got blank books to use for our very own anthologies.

On Friday we finished the fourth and final book in the Cat Pack series.  It was hard to find ourselves at the end but we love, love, loved this action packed group of mischievous felines!