Weekly News 9-23-22

 Weekly News for 2-P 9-23-22

*SNeakers WEDNesdayS for PE and water bottles every day

        

*We are almost through  Unit 1 of Everyday Math. Our work this week focused on facts that make 10, odd and even numbers, equivalent names for numbers, skip counting patterns and quarters.  We began math boxes, which we will do daily in math journals, so that all skills are continually reinforced.  

*During reading workshop our learning was centered around fiction and how authors tell made up stories in fiction books. We read some great selections and identified the ways we knew a book was not real. We practiced identifying story elements; characters, setting, problem and solution. Kids filled out story maps to show these important parts of a story.

*In writing workshop we worked on ways we can bring our small moment stories to life by making the people in our stories talk and move.  We can also include how they are feeling and thinking, as we tell our stories bit by bit. This week we also shared our stories with each other and also practiced using proper capitalization and punctuation.

*We have completed our second spelling unit on short e words. Second graders practiced these words in many contexts and learned about antonyms, synonyms and double consonants. In addition to our spelling work, we began language/grammar work. Students showed a lot of interest in learning about nouns and verbs, vowel teams, punctuation and how to find errors in a sentence. 

*Our first science unit kicked off with a mystery about what scientists might find in a special cave that was filled with “poo.”  The scientists in 2-P were intrigued!  We dove into a Mystery Science investigation about animal classification and how we can use characteristics to sort animals into groups. 

* We also joined Beth and Curtis for Mission Groundwater in Kenya - this is part of GO2 Science, which our second graders have been a part of for two years now.  We are investigating a hypothesis about finding drinkable groundwater under a school in Kenya.  The kids loved exploring maps this week to see where we live in relation to Kenya. We got to see how a family home in Kenya, how they cook, get water and take care of their needs.  Students loved getting their questions answered live by Beth and Curtis!

We used this anchor chart to help us learn about identifying story elements in fiction.

Sorting our short e words in spelling!

We completed story maps to practice identifying story elements.

We each made a hypothesis in our Go2 Science Mission: Groundwater unit!

Story map sample

Student "teachers" in math!

Playing Fishing for 10 to practice combinations of 10!

Math games!

Phonics word work with our own magnetic letter boards

We are getting good at building new words.

In writing workshop we used magnifying glasses....

to look closely at shells....

to find tiny details and transfer that skill into our small moment stories!

We examined our math reference books.

We found lots of pages that will help us solve math problems.

Shell observations

Our first inside recess - fun with building block sets!

Playing with trains

Stuffed animal fun!

Self portraits in Art

We played an odd and even game in math Friday.

Scholastic News on Friday was a fun issue about sloths and how scientists study them!

Our Mystery Science investigation had us sorting animals into categories.

We had groups of furry animals, animals with bones, animals who lay eggs.....

lots of good group discussion as we sorted!