Weekly News 11-14-25

 Weekly News for 2-P 11-14-25

*Conferences are Monday,  November 24th from 12:00-6:00 pm.  If you haven’t signed up yet, there are still spots available.

*Monday and Tuesday (November 254h and 25th) are half days with noon dismissal.

*Spirit Day info is attached to my weekly email.

          *Our math work this week was largely completing the trimester benchmark assessment.  Students worked really hard to show me all that they have learned in units 1-5 of Reveal math. We kicked off Unit 5 on Friday which will focus on strategies to fluently add within 100. 

*During reading workshop we focused on reading nonfiction texts and pulling out facts and the main idea from the text. There was lots of excitement about the chance to choose their own topics with this work!

 

*In writing workshop we learned to write descriptive pieces about a chosen “hero” in our life. Students wrote facts and details about this special person and took this piece of writing all the way through the writing process. They wrote some truly beautiful pieces!

* In our phonics program we worked on r controlled vowels.

*We completed our Geography unit with a final project where we each drew a continent, named it and added/labeled at least 5 landforms (mountains, rivers, valleys, oceans, lakes, plains or islands). Students had fun naming their continent! 

Hero Writing

We played Last Kid Standing in math and they loved it (place value game).

Our final geography project was to create a continent with at least 5 labeled landforms.

On Wednesday we went to the 3rd floor!

We joined 8th grade scientists.

We worked with them to create a balloon car!

We had several model choices.

In sall groups our 8th grader helped us every step of the way.

Next week we will try them out!

Weekly News 11-7-25

 Weekly News  11-7-25

*Be sure to sign up for parent/teacher conferences. The link is in Mrs. Pratt’s newsletter and my email. 

*In reading we focused on reading a new genre; biography. We enjoyed reading about many important people such as Amelia Earhart, Louis Braille and Jacques Cousteau. Students drew illustrations to represent their learning and recorded facts. They also explored biographies of interest in Pebble Go! 

*During writing we completed our how-to books after revising and editing. Then we shifted to a new piece, a description about someone we consider a hero. Our biography work helped us understand ways in which someone can be a hero. We brainstormed a main idea and details about our chosen hero and wrote our first drafts. 

*In math we worked on two step number stories and dug deep into deciphering what a word problem was telling us in terms of computation - this is hard work! We are making many gains as a class and working cooperatively and collaboratively to solve tricky problems. We reviewed skills and concepts for the unit 4 test, which we took on Friday. We have a benchmark assessment of the first four units next week and then we will start unit 5!

*Silent e words were our spelling focus. Our phonics work centered on -dge, -tch and -le word endings as well as the different sounds a final y can make. 

*We worked more on our geography unit, learning about continents (we loved singing the continent song) and various landforms. Students made their own map grids. We also learned lots of new vocabulary (plains, rivers, oceans, valleys, mountains) and studied the difference between physical and political maps.

*We read a Scholastic News article about Veterans Day and watched a short video about this important holiday.

Writing partners share their plan for our hero pieces.

Subtraction Uno!

Getting and giving feedback on our writing helps us grow as writers.

We loved learning about Jane Gooddall.

We are reading biographies. 

Students drew and wrote about each person we studied.

Practicing subtraction

PJ Day cuteness!

As part of our geography work we made our own map grids.

We worked on matching geography terms in a fun game.

We loved reading about Jacques Cousteau, with a special assist from a 2nd grader for French pronunciation! 

Buddy reading on PJ day

Free Choice Friday: the lego crew

The stuffy crew

School-wide recess (Woolwich Way ticket reward) means you might spot your big sis!

Tic Tac Toe is a fun way to practice our UFLI words.

We are learning about landforms on physical maps.

We used this organizer to plan our hero pieces.

Weekly News 10-31-25

 Weekly News for 2-P 10-31-25

         100 Mile Challenge Update!!!

          Hello Families, Mr. Hutchings here!  Here is an amazing opportunity to earn miles at home for the 100 Mile Challenge!.  Sign up for the November challenge at this link November 100 Mile Challenge Link and earn up to 10 miles!  They will be logged through the site when you enter which allows me to see it and add it to their totals in school. Every month I will put out a challenge to earn some miles at home!  I hope this gets the whole family moving!  Thank you all!  

   

*We are moving through Unit 4 of Reveal Math. We are working hard on problem solving. Our focus has been on representing and solving “add to” problems, “take from” problems, “put together” and “take apart problems,” as well as two step number stories. Students are making great strides creating equations that help them find the unknown number. 

*During reading workshop we read a lot of informational how-to books that give step-by-step directions on how to do or make something. We learned the characteristics of this genre and read many examples so that we could write our own.

*In writing workshop we published our realistic fiction stories by typing them in Google Docs! Students were VERY excited to type their own work. We shared our published pieces and had many proud authors! We switched to informational writing and chose topics for our own how-to books. On a brainstorming chart we planned our introduction, middle (the steps) and conclusion and then composed our first drafts. We will revise and edit these next week.

*Our spelling pattern this week was high frequency words. Next up is silent e words.  Our phonics work focused on the open/closed syllable words and -dge and -tch endings.

*In Social Studies we worked on the parts of a map (key, legend, compass rose). We also learned to use a map grid and answer questions about a map using map tools. 

*We kicked off an exciting new program using Pebble-Go, called PebbleTown, which is an amazing digital research tool designed for kids. This program encourages students to research topics of interest and keep track of their new learning. We use Pebble-Go to help all students access informational text at their level and the kids were so enthusiastic about all the facts they were learning on new topics!

Doing some fun choice activities on Friday

Search and Find Fun with a snack break

We learned all about the many bones in our hands and did this fun multi-step art project!

Buddy reading

We found GIANT feathers blown down on Friday!

Spooky Eyeball math!

Tracing the bones in our hands

Comparing Booklets in math

Pebble Go Partner work

We used Pebble Go for research!