Weekly News 5-15-26

 Weekly News for 2-P 5-15-26

*We will be having our annual Beach Day for grades 1 AND 2 at Reid State Park on June 16th. If you would like to join us, please be sure to fill out a volunteer form on the RSU 1 website right away. VOLUNTEER FORM   If you filled it out earlier this year you are all set! 

 *In math we completed  Unit 11, studying data and graphs. We did a lot of work with line plots this week. One tricky skill is learning to ask specific questions that can be answered with the data in the graph. We took the test on this unit Friday and will head into our final unit next week on geometry and equal shares. 

*After finishing our blue jay project and creating our final “pop-up” projects, we turned to a new research topic. Our literacy and science time this week was focused on a bird of prey, the owl. We read books, watched video clips and used our owl research packet to learn all about this fascinating bird. Each day students read a book in our Epic or Pebble Go library to build their owl knowledge and vocabulary. We recorded what we learned on our graphic organizer as we gained information about beaks, feet, habitat, feathers, diet, size and special features. Students used their notes to write a report. There was a big jump in our independence since this was our second report. Throughout the week we practiced drawing realistic looking owls, using drawing guides.  We wrote first drafts, revised and edited and started final drafts. On Monday we will finish our owl projects. 

*Mission Capybara wrapped up this week. We spent Thursday and Friday analyzing the data and since we are graph masters, we made a bar graph and pie chart to help us decide if we thought the hypotheses were true (they were!). Students will get to see Beth and Curtis in person when they visit us at WCS in June!

*We completed our final spelling unit in the Spelling Connections program this week on compound words. This means formal spelling lists won’t be coming home. I will send some individualized list of words for students who are working on certain patterns.  In UFLI phonics we worked on-sion and -tion and  -ture words. We are reading LONG words these days and doing lots of vocabulary work with them as well. Kids are finding these words challenging to spell; we are breaking them down into syllables to read and spell them accurately. 

This week was all about our owl research project getting underway!

A completed blue jay project

Inside recess Friday - an artist doing portraits! 

We had fun exploring catapults!

Just like Beth and Curtis, we excavated some "poop" (brown playdough) to see what the animals had eaten.....grass or bones.

Partners researching owls

Run Club cuties

Practicing big words!

Weekly News 5-8-26

 Weekly News for 2-P 5-8-26

      Next week Run Club is on TUESDAY! 

*On Tuesday both second grades participated in a gallery walk all about birds. We looked at many artifacts; nests, feathers, eggs, bird photos, books, and more. We loved watching a live owl and osprey web cam as well! 

 *In math we are hard at work on Unit 11, studying data and graphs. We are learning the parts of a graph (title, categories, key, labels) and have learned to fill in and analyze picture graphs, bar graphs and tally charts so far. We will work on line plots next week. Students are enjoying the change of pace in math and are finding the word problems in this unit particularly easy after all the problem solving that’s come before.

*Our reading and writing workshops were integrated with our science focus on birds and their adaptations. After building background knowledge about birds last week, we tackled our first research project on a seed eater; the blue jay. We read many books and each got our own research packets about blue jays. It was fun to watch several videos to see these birds in action. We also listened to their calls. Students learned how to take notes on a graphic organizer. Next we practiced how to organize a report with a topic sentence, details and a conclusion. We built on our earlier writing units as we took our notes and turned them into sentences. Second graders practiced drawing accurate blue jay pictures with how-to drawing guides.  Next up we will edit and write final drafts of our reports, then we will make a pop up blue jay project! 

*Our spelling focus was trigraphs. There is only one more week left in the 2nd grade spelling program!  

*In phonics we worked on words with silent t and low frequency sound for /ch/, /gn/, and  signal vowels. As our patterns get more challenging we are doing extra practice. 

This is our notecatcher as we research each bird in this unit.

Taking notes on the blue jay

We strolled to the atrium to look at all the amazing art!

We loved our clay pieces.

On Monday we joined Mr. H in the gym for ACES and we did a quick HIIT routine as a whole school!

Bird partner work

New math game - Roll Down to practice subtraction from 100

We are learning to draw realistic blue jays!

Project with Charli

On Friday Charli, a former 2-P student, came to do a project with us - we decoupaged cups and planted seeds or plants for our moms or grandmas. Charli is a junior at Morse and she has done an internship at Maine Maritime Museum this year. She gave us some tips for caring for our Earth.

Bird Gallery Walk

 On Tuesday afternoon both second grades took to the forum with their clipboards and a notecatcher to do a gallery walk all about birds. There were artifacts such as feathers, nests and eggs, live web cams of an osprey and owl, posters and books and more,  to get us ready for our big research unit. 

Maine Maritime Museum

 On Tuesday we learned about the lobstering industry on the Coast of Maine!

Weekly News 5-1-26

 Weekly News for 2-P 5-1-26

Next Tuesday we take our 2nd trip to Maine Maritime Museum to learn about the lobstering industry!

 *In math we started the week with review work, completed the 3rd Benchmark Math Assessment of the year and then kicked off Unit 11 on Data Analysis. We learned how to fill in a picture graph from data on a tally chart. We will keep practicing our 3 digit addition and subtraction work to help us master those challenging skills. 

*This week we did a mini social studies unit on Civics. We learned vocabulary such as government, leaders, laws and citizens. Big questions we tackled included, “How can one person make a difference?” and “How can leaders help their communities?”  Students asked lots of thoughtful questions and we had rich discussions. 

*In Go 2 Science Beth and Curtis traveled to a new area to continue testing their hypotheses. We are seeing so many interesting animals: ocelots, a tree climbing anteater, monkeys and more! We are collecting lots of data about capybaras and have a suspicion that the hypothesis may be true! 

*This week we kicked off our annual bird expedition and will be integrating science into our reading and writing for the remainder of the year. This is a highly engaging unit that helps students gain research practice and synthesizes many of the skills we have learned in second grade. We began by studying the characteristics that make a bird a bird. Then we learned about their anatomy. Next week we will tackle learning about the function of their beaks and feet.

*In writing we spent the week joyfully creating poetry! We learned how to add rhythm and repetition to our poems, and how to use line breaks effectively. We are really writing beautiful poems from the heart! The energy in the room of young poets was refreshing. They will each be creating a booklet of their own poems to share with their families soon.

*Our focus was on digraphs in spelling this week. During our phonics time we learned about less common spelling patterns, such as alternate long u sounds and the two sounds of ough.

 

We learned about some historical people who did important things for their communities long ago.

Mr. Libby stopped by to hear all of our poems!

Poem in Your Pocket Day is always fun!

We had several "poet share circles" this week to share our amazing writing.

Social studies collaboration work

We published and shared our book reports before turning to poetry for the week!