Weekly News 9-25-26

 Weekly News for 2-P 9-25-26

*Library books are due on Fridays.

*Sneakers Mondays for PE 

MATH:  We completed the unit 2 test on Monday and that will come home soon for you to see in math portfolios. We kicked off Unit 3 this week, which  will focus on patterns in numbers. We started by skip counting with numbers in the hundreds, identifying patterns on number grids and being able to read, write and manipulate big numbers.

READING:  During reading workshop we practiced identifying fiction as a genre. Students did well giving specific evidence to prove the genre. We also learned how to tell our opinion about a book. Kids did a great job explaining why they thought a book was funny or silly or serious. 

WRITING: *In writing workshop we worked with poetry, focusing on a place poem. Each child chose a special place and brainstormed sensory details about that place, before writing their first draft. Later in the week we learned to add a simile to our poem and then revised and edited our drafts. Our connected grammar work was about singular and plural nouns.

SPELLING/PHONICS: In UFLI this week we reviewed silent e words and continued to practice reading and spelling them correctly, along with our growing list of high frequency words. 

SCIENCE: In Go2 Science we got to  welcome Beth and Curtis back for Mission Cetaceans in the Baja, California Peninsula. We got to hear from a scientist, Dr. Spocter, who is worried that cetaceans are changing their migration behaviors so that fewer species are visiting the Baja California Peninsula in Mexico. We will collect data to  test his hypothesis that there are at least five different species of cetaceans still in those waters. It was wonderful to see Beth and Curtis again, learn about cetaceans, see a school and the money used in Mexico. We also learned about desert farming! 

*We finished our Mystery Science unit on Animal Biodiversity this week with a final performance task. Students researched animals in a project designed to pull together their animal knowledge!

*We kicked off a social studies unit on geography. We will explore how the geography of a particular place impacts the community. We studied what a community is and what types of places you might find there. 

We wrote animal reports to tie together our first science unit on animal biodiversity.

We worked on identifying fiction this week and finished up with reading Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs....we drew about why it was a made up story!

We worked hard on our first poem of the year - a place poem!

Illustrating our poems

Picture day ready!

Free Choice Friday - a tall tower!

Lining the animals up for our favorite game.

Some train building

Playing a UFLI game with partners

Using editing checklists to polish up our writing

Reading partners work hard!

Reading fiction together

Sharing our writing

Weekly News 9-18-26

 *Sneakers are needed on Mondays.

*Library books are due back on Fridays.

  

Open House is next Thursday, September 24th from 5:30-7. Yogurt parfaits are available in the cafeteria starting at 5:30 and then classrooms are open for visitation from 5:45-7:00 p.m. Hope to see you all!

MATH    We have completed Unit 2 of Reveal Math. We have learned to read, write and represent three digit numbers. We are building a strong foundation of place value sense. We also learned to break apart, or decompose, 3 digit numbers in 3 ways (standard form, word form, expanded form). Lastly, we are learning how to compare 3 digit numbers. We have done lots of review work and will  do some assessment activities next week before moving on to unit 3.

READING   This week we worked on identifying the main story elements in literature:  characters, setting, problem and solution. Students enjoyed listening to and reading fictional books and completed story maps that named these elements.This concept will be woven back in throughout the year, as we continue to read fiction and realistic fiction. 

SCIENCE  We dove into two Mystery Science investigations about animal classification and how we can use characteristics to sort animals into groups. We investigated how and why frogs make noises and how the biodiversity of their habitat can impact them. We also did an investigation about birds and how their adaptations and what they eat help them survive. We designed bird feeders to attract particular birds - second graders were great engineers.

WRITING    In writing workshop we learned how to write character sketches and each child took a piece all the way through the writing process. We were introduced to nouns, both common and proper and practiced using them in our sentences. Students also did a great job revising their drafts by adding details! 

SPELLING/PHONICS  Our phonics work reinforced consonant clusters, blends and all the many digraphs: sh, ch, th, ph, wh, ng, nk, ck. We are working hard to master spelling of all the high frequency words we use commonly as writers.

We designed birdfeeder prototypes before building them.

We had a great time using materials....

to build a variety of bird feeder models.

Buddy reading!

Free Choice Friday!

Listening to each other's character sketches in writing

Hunting for nouns!

Place value UNO!

Sorting numbers into standard form, expanded form or word form

Writers get feedback on their pieces

Weekly News 9-11-26

 *Sneakers needed Mondays for PE

*Library books are due back on Fridays

*Picture day info in folders tonight

    Thanks for your support with homework folders this week! 

MATH    We have started Unit 2 of Reveal Math, which will focus on place value. We are working on reading and writing 3 digit numbers and working up to 1,000. Students did a great job with expanded form this week!  We are playing lots of games to build our fact power (knowing facts quickly).

READING    I have almost finished assessing each student’s reading and will use this information to set individual reading goals and plans. I will share this information soon. This week we learned to share our favorite part of a story in writing. Next week we will work on story elements (characters, problems, setting, solution).

SCIENCE  Our first unit is on animal biodiversity. We built background knowledge about animals, their habitats and care-taking habits. We completed our first investigation exploring animal classification (mammals, birds, invertebrates and reptiles. Our second exploration involves thinking about how a habitat provides many necessities for a given animal. 

WRITING    This week we worked more on complete sentences (subject/predicate) and uppercase letter/end punctuation. We brainstormed details about things we like to DO and wrote new pieces, using a rubric to check our own work. We practiced both revising and editing our writing as we went through all the stages of the writing process. This class is demonstrating amazing writing skills and effort. 

SPELLING/PHONICS  We have completed 2 more review lessons in UFLI ( the FLSZ rule and words with -oll, -ull, -all) - the scope and sequence of the program backs up a bit to help ensure mastery of skills. During our lessons we are practicing reading and writing lots of important words and patterns. Next week each student will have an individual spelling list in their homework folders with a few words they are working on.

*We have worked hard on our school and classroom procedures. We are building our work stamina back up beautifully.  Our class community is forming quite nicely and we are a kind and supportive group! 

Beth Pols

Science Exploration on observing animal habitats

Classifying animals by their group

Free Choice Friday Fun

Group science poster

We had to classify mystery animals!

We had a blast playing Last Kid Standing in math!

Playing a game to practice sentence structure, subjects and predicates!

Art class fun

Bae 10 block work in math

Partners work on place value

Animal experts sort cards

Writers share their drafts to get feedback.

We made the coolest towns in art.

Nice group work!