Weekly News 4-3-26

Weekly News for 2-P 4-3-26

*We are in need of tissues and cleaning wipes for our desks.

   

*In math we began unit 10 on subtraction. This unit will mirror our addition unit so the strategies will be well known already! We started with mentally subtracting 10 and 100. Then we practiced strategies to subtract 3 digit numbers. We worked on  decomposing one number and using an open number line to subtract by place value.

*This week we finished our matter unit with two new Mystery Science investigations. We learned about reversible and irreversible changes in “How is an ice cube like a crayon?” and we tested heating and cooling in “Why are so many toys made of plastic?” We had so much fun seeing which types of candy would melt in hot water. Chocolate chips for the win! Young scientists are doing loads of questioning, hypothesis testing and experimenting. Toward the end of the week we dove into our last Mystery Science unit of the year about seeds and plants. 

*In writing we completed our persuasive letters to Mr. Libby - he loved them so much he came to talk to us about our convincing, well-written letters. Then we started  another persuasive piece; this time an essay to convince others about a location for a great field trip. We learned to write pros and cons for an idea and will continue this piece next week.

*Our reading workshop time was spent exploring mysteries. Students read a variety of detective stories and worked to identify the clues along the way, any unexpected twists and explain how the mystery was solved. It was exciting to explore a new genre. 

*Our focus was on contractions and abbreviations in spelling this week. During our phonics time we learned about spelling change rules (doubling final consonants before adding suffixes and changing the y to an i to make words plural). 

 

Science collaboration

Investigating how animals use water to survive

The last snowball of the season (we hope!)

The Symphony Trip!

Mystery Science work exploring reversible and irreversible changes

Reading mysteries

April Fool's - reading the upside down morning message

Breakfast Surprise!

We tried to find the mysterious Lirpa Loof Bird!

Testing melting with candy

The chocolate chips melted quickly!

Mr. Libby came to talk to us about the persuasive letters we wrote for him.

Working on the genre of mystery books

We kicked off a new seed unit and are learning about the Superblooom in Death Valley, CA.

Seed Model Testing

Additional Pics (scroll down past this post for newsletter and more pics!)

 

Indoor Recess Monday

Paint Crew

Reading Fairy Tales with partners

They made a whole town!

Paper Tower Designs

Engineering a sturdy paper tower

Our first design needed to be 12 inches tall!

Amazing spelling!

And this second challenge had to be 6 inches and hold a book. Very hard!

Prefix/suffix sorting

We created longer wrods

Weekly News 3-20-26

 Weekly News for 2-P 3-20-26

*Parent/Teacher conferences are happening next Thursday between 12pm - 6pm. Both Thursday and Friday of next week (3/26 and 3/27) will be half days for students, with dismissal happening at 12pm.

*In math we worked on regrouping ones and tens when adding 3 digit numbers. We used our place value knowledge (decomposing numbers) to help us do this and also learned the strategy of decomposing only one number and using an open number line to solve. Another strategy added to our repertoire was  to adjust addends to friendly numbers. Because we did all these strategies during our earlier addition unit, they were familiar to students.

*Our reading workshop time was spent exploring fairy tales. We read many different ones and got familiar with common features in a fairy tale, such as good and evil characters, forest or castle settings, elements of magic or talking animals. Students filled out fairy tale charts as they examined each story for these elements. They loved the chance to read different versions of fairy tales too.

*We finished the annual Chickadee Award program and heard the last three books. We will vote in library with Ms. Luchies next week and can’t wait to find out the schoolwide results. 

*As we continue to learn about materials and matter, we did a fun exploration called “Can you build a house out of cards?”  Students worked hard on two challenges to build towers using only index cards and paper clips. The teamwork and perseverance was fantastic. We had a lot of success and had to think really hard about the properties of materials that make them fit or unfit for building.

*In writing we worked on a persuasive speech. Each child came up with an idea of a club they would like to start at school. Their speech was written to persuade others to join the club and ended with a “call to action.” Our grammar tie-in was prepositions and prepositional phrases.

*Our focus was on -er and -est suffixes in spelling this week. During our phonics time we practiced suffixes and prefixes and doubling rules for words that end with one vowel and one consonant before we add a suffix (i.e. hopping, bagged, bigger, flattest).

The MUD TEST!

Our "data"

They were able to make balls with two different soil types

Messy experiment

This one aced the clump test

Teamwork!

Mixing and checking

Stirring process

Toothpick test

Proud persuasive Writers