May 16th

 Reading & Writing: 

We enjoyed several camping themed activities this week. We wrote acrostic poems about camping, and we sent friendly letters to a first grade class. We also practiced and performed three reader’s theater plays entitled: Smores & Snores, Forest Fun, and Setting Up Camp. A few of the great books we read this week included A Camping Spree with Mr. Magee, The Tent Mouse and the City Mouse, and A-Z Mystery Detective Camp.

Bears visited our campsite! The students were so excited, and they had a lot of fun spending their reading time with their new “bear friend!”

Math: 

We reviewed this week with some camping themed math activities. Creating a graph of how we like to camp was a lot of fun! We played 3-digit addition and subtraction games, and we worked with a partner to solve a measurement math mystery.

S.T.E.M.: 

We created bead maze games for our fellow campers to enjoy. They turned out really cool, and our class had a lot of fun playing with them! We also designed canoes and then we tested them to see how many pennies they could hold before sinking.

May 2nd

Reading: We had a lot of fun reading this week. We finished up our Unit 8 reading in our wind and water unit. Our class has enjoyed several read alouds including the Mother Bruce series. We have also had a lot of fun enjoying some new chapter books while reading with a partner.

In phonics we have been working with words with suffixes.  Our new phonics pattern is the suffixes, -ly, -y, -ily.

Writing: This week we focused on publishing our research pieces on penguins. Later in the week we enjoyed a writing celebration, and the students took turns writing compliments after reading each others' books. 

Math: Our math focus has been on all things geometry this week.  We have continued learning about 2D and 3D shapes. Then we learned about fractions and how to partition rectangles into rows and columns.  Next week we will continue our geometry learning and making arrays. 

Science: On Monday, we walked to each second grade classroom and saw everyone’s Native American Diorama.  The students really enjoyed seeing the similarities and differences in the dioramas. 

We also began our Wind and Water unit in science.  This week we tested what happens to sand when waves and water hit it.  To do this we created sand dunes in aluminum foil trays and used a wooden block to create waves and a blow dryer to create wind.  Today, we tested materials (screen, pipe cleaner, index card, and a straw) in our sand dune trays to see what happens to the material and the sand around it when water and wind hits it. Next week students will be making a tool that will protect sand dunes from erosion.