Fort and Flashlight Fun

 We earned another reward and Friday we created "forts" and read with flashlights in our fort creation while having a little snack! 

Weekly News 5-22-26

 Weekly News for 2-P 5-22-26

5-28: Chewonki Owls of Maine

5/30 - Run Club Race 8:30 am

6/15- 2nd Grade Bird Showcase 12:15-1:30

6/16 Reid State Park Day for grades 1 and 2

6/17 - Field Day!

6/17 - K-7 Step Up Day (p.m.)

6/18 - Last Day of School for WCS K-8 Students (Dismissal at Noon)

*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.  If you filled it out earlier this year you are all set! 

 

*We are almost done with unit 12 in Reveal Mathematics, the last unit of the year on  geometry and fractions! In this unit we learned about 2D and 3D shapes and equal shares (fractions). We learned to identify shape attributes (sides, angles, vertices) and name thirds, halves and fourths. We also learned how to partition shapes into equal size squares Next week we will learn to name partitioned shapes with repeated addition and multiplication. After the unit 12 test is complete we will do lots of review work and practice securing critical skills. 

*On Monday we took care to do quality final drafts of our owl reports and then practiced realistic owl drawings. Our final projects were completed and we were so proud of our owl knowledge. Next week Chewonki will be here for an owls presentation, thanks to our amazing PTA. 

*On Tuesday we began to study a water bird, the loon. Our research has taken the form of videos, books and bird guides. Students are much more independent taking notes on their graphic organizer. We created posters to share our loon knowledge. We will wrap them up and then tackle our final bird project, an individual research project.

*Our spelling and phonics work was more suffixes, words that end in -y and -ness. As the phonics patterns get more challenging we are adding more vocabulary work to understand the meaning of the words AND learn to spell them!

Cutaways

Loon research

Loon poster!

Working on our loon posters

Geometry game!

Working hard on our final drafts

Playing "Spell Around the Room" with our heart words

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.