Weekly News 11-13-26

 Weekly News for 2-P 11-13-26

*Conferences are Monday, November 23rd from 12:00-6:00 pm.  If you haven’t signed up yet, there are still spots available.

*Monday and Tuesday (November 23rd and 24th) are half days with noon dismissal.

*We had a presentation from Lynn Vajda, our speech therapist, on Tuesday about her career as a veteran. This was so impactful for students to hear! 

      *In math this week we kicked off Unit 5, which will focus on strategies to fluently add within 100. We worked on doubles facts and how we can decompose one addend of an addition fact to make adding more efficient. We also practiced turnaround facts and adding 2 two-digit numbers using place value strategies. We are playing lots of fun games to practice our facts and improve our mental math skills.

*During reading workshop we continued to connect our reading with our science unit. We focused on reading nonfiction texts about seeds, plants and pollination. We worked on the skill of “going back to the text” to pull out facts and the main idea, and also to draw conclusions.

*In writing workshop we turned our attention to writing news stories, which was a fun change. Some topics included our Chewonki visit, new pets and the new balls purchased for our playground. Students got a chance to practice writing a piece that answers who, what, where, how and why information about their topic. It was a challenge to keep it to the facts but we persevered!

* In our phonics program we worked on r controlled vowels. There are a lot of words that have r controlled vowels! Time, exposure and practice help students know which vowel is the one to choose as they learn to spell these words. 

*We completed two more Mystery Science investigations this week and wrapped up our plant adventures unit with a special virtual field trip to three special places in Death Valley!  One was designed to help us think about plant habitats and how much water and sun a plant needs and another was to see if a plant can survive without light. We are checking our radish experiment daily and the kids love watering and caring for them. Our observational skills are growing! 

We are getting our portfolios ready for our families! 

Drawing how our radishes looked after two weeks

Cold weather? Better jump rope to stay warm!

Playing a doubles math game!

We love to play math games to learn our facts!

Our young scientists loved our visit to Death Valley - we saw three special parts of the area on a virtual field trip and compared the source of water in each location!

Mrs. V did a wonderful Veterans Day presentation for our grade in the forum. We learned a lot!

New math game called SCOOP - we loved it!

We did a fun experiment that helped us learn about how plants in different habitats can thrive or die.

We had lots of questions about the MREs Mrs. V brought to share. 

Weekly News 11-6-26

 Weekly News  11-6-26

*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 the main idea in nonfiction texts. Most of this work was centered around books relating to our science theme of seeds, plants, pollinators and seed dispersal. 

*During writing we shifted to a new piece, a description about someone we consider a hero. We brainstormed a main idea and details about our chosen hero and wrote our first drafts, then revised for sentence variety and published our final copies. Our grammar tie in was compound predicates and using commas in a series.

*In math we completed the unit 4 test and also the benchmark assessment of the first four units.  We will kick off unit 5 next week, which is about strategies for adding fluently within 100.

*Our phonics work centered on -dge, -tch and -le word endings as well as the different sounds a final y can make. We also started reviewing r controlled vowels. 

*We completed 3 more investigations in Mystery Science about seeds and plants. We made flower models and bee models and used pollen-like substances to see how pollen is easily spread by helpful bees. We also planted radish seeds and will be watching to see how sunlight or a lack of sunlight impacts their growth. 

*We read a Scholastic News article about Veterans Day and watched a short video about this important holiday. Next week our very own speech pathologist, Lynn Vjada, will share her background as a veteran. In addition to this work, we also read a book about elections.

flower model

Spreading pollen on our flower models

We made our "bees" go back and forth between flowers.

This helped us see how bees help spread pollen.

Four square in math - a fun addition game

Planting and watering our radishes

Writing!

We published our final drafts of our hero pieces on Friday

.

We had two visits from a former Wildcat who helped us with our work.

Amazing hero writing!

We are recording facts from nonfiction texts.

Weekly News 10-30-26 (Scroll down for Chewonki pics)

 Weekly News for 2-P 10-30-26

  

   

    *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 started on Friday. We have a benchmark assessment of the first four units next week and then we will start unit 5!

*During reading workshop we read more nonfiction books and focused on text features such as headings, captions, photos, glossaries and the table of contents. We did scavenger hunts in books as we practiced finding these features and also identifying what information they gave us. We read lots of texts about seeds and plants to tie in with our science unit.

*In writing workshop 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. After revising for signal words (first, next, then, second) we edited and published these pieces! 

*  Our phonics work focused on the open/closed syllable words, the 3 jobs of y, and  -dge and -tch endings.

*We kicked off a new science unit called “Plant Growth and Interactions.” Our first investigation helped us learn how seeds can travel far distances and our second investigation had us making a model called a “fluffadoo” to mimic how some seeds can stick to animals and travel that way! 

*We concluded Mission Cetaceans with Beth and Curtis this week. After the final livestream we charted our data and analyzed the hypothesis. We came to consensus that the hypothesis was true: there are at least 5 species of cetaceans in the waters of the Baja Peninsula!

We wrapped up our current mission by reviewing the data to decide whether we thought they hypothesis was true or false! 

We made fluffadoos to help us see how plants travel.

Flufadoo testing in process

We learned about the bones in our hand and made these cool pictures of our hands.

Jammies!

Testing our seed models to see how they travel

Our Wacky crew!

We loved using our mini banks to practice coin work.

Bats in art!

Mega Star Monday!

Playing Ready Set Add in math!

Lots of Jane Goodalls in our wing!

We loved learning about the super bloom in Death Valley, California.