Weekly News 1-12-24

 Weekly News for 2-P 1-12-24

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

*In our Illustrative Math pilot unit, we have continued to add, subtract and solve problems within 100. We have practiced finding the unknown addend in equations within 100. As we finished the first section of this unit, students are making great gains with solving problems and explaining their computation with place value language. We are two lessons into the second section of the unit which focuses on subtraction with larger numbers. 

*In social studies this week we focused on the purpose of government. We learned why we have a government, what a government does for communities and what services are provided. Kids did a great job making connections to their own experiences. 

*We read books and a Scholastic News article and video about Martin Luther King Jr. this week. We talked a lot about what we can do every day to treat people fairly and with kindness and respect. Students decorated our door with their own “I have a dream….” statements!

*Our reading workshop focus was again integrated with science as we read lots of books about force and motion, friction and gravity.  We are building up our background knowledge and vocabulary so we can conduct experiments and write lab reports.

*In science we kicked off our force and motion unit with an anchor phenomenon about how old fashioned ice boards relate to skateboards.  Students were hooked into thinking about many concepts of force/motion.  They built an initial conceptual model through this investigation. So many great questions and theories! We made “hopper poppers” as we learned about pushes and pulls in our first exploration. Then we built strong paper bridges and put our knowledge of push/pull to the test. Great engineering in 2-P! 

 

*In writing workshop we did mini lab reports, learning to go through the steps of the scientific method. Our first experiment was to see if a car could go farther off a ramp onto wax paper, tin foil or a napkin. We made a hypothesis, conducted the experiment, collected data and wrote conclusions. More of this next week!

*Our focus was on silent letter patterns in spelling this week. During our phonics time we practiced more long vowel teams.

*We kicked off the next Go2 Science Mission this week: Mission Invasives in New Zealand. We learned about endemic and invasive species and got to see a dairy farm at work and many native and invasive species as Beth and Curtis made their way around some new territory.

Capture the Squares! A fun new math game in our pilot program

Students add numbers together and then have to choose which side of a square to "capture."

The person who captures 4 squares first wins the game!

Lots of good logic was used!

Making hopper poppers in science! 

Cute picture on this hopper popper!

Enjoying Monday's SNOW!

Snow angel crew!

Science partners getting air on their hoppers poppers

Great teamwork

Playing another math game

Recording data

Capture Squares Game 2 with a spinner to add a wild card option!

With this game you get the option if you land on WILD to pick the addend you want to close a square

We were overjoyed to see Beth and Curtis and learn about New Zealand!

We have vocabulary booklets where we are keeping definitions of important force and motion words 

Complete with diagrams

.

Our social studies work this week was about our government. We worked on a chart of how we benefit from government services. (Sorry it's sideways!)

We worked together as a class to think about how government services impact us daily.

We are tracking data with Beth and Curtis about the species they see on this mission.

Our first mini lab report following the steps of the scientific process.

We set up our ramp!

Bridge building in Mystery Science

We worked in teams to build strong paper bridges.

Seeing how many pennies our bridge could hold

Working hard!

Revising the design

Success!

Proud of this strong bridge!

We kept track of our bridge designs and data.

We studied Martin Luther King Jr all week.

We decorated our door with our dreams for the world.

One of our new math games - sample recording sheet to show our thinking

Fitness Friday!

PLANK!