"Moving" along in 2-2!

From the desk of Mrs. Schmidt:

We had a great week!  I was impressed with how the children handled their first experience with MAP Testing.  They took their time and tried their best!  The results will be sent home to you.

In Math, we took the Unit 1 Assessment.  Now we will start Unit 2, “Addition and Subtraction Facts.”  This unit will include solving addition number stories that require the children to find parts and totals and change to more to solve the problems.  A review of +0, +1, and +9 shortcuts, doubles facts, and turn around facts will be emphasized.  For subtraction, we’ll explore the -0 and -1 shortcuts and counting strategies.  Fact families will be discussed to show the relationship between addition and subtraction.  We will continue to take timed tests with our addition facts at school, so any additional practice at home would be very beneficial.

We read a nonfiction article called “Fighting the Fire” this week.  The skill of identifying the main idea and supporting details was our focus for this article.  We took our main details/details web that we had completed and used the information on it to create a summary of the selection.  This skill will help us to see the author’s purpose and message as well as pay attention to the important parts of what we are reading.  The children made text-to-world connections as they learned about the responsibilities of firefighters.

I have finished benchmark assessments so our guided reading groups will begin next week.  Thank you for working so hard on the Reading and Fluency Logs at home.  Your support of your child’s reading progress in very much appreciated!

The children have been having a lot of fun in our Motion unit!  Through our explorations, we’ve discovered how objects move, considering the direction (where it moved), the speed (how fast or slow it moved), and distance (how far it moved).  We conducted speed trials of different motions and used forces (pushes and pulls) to start toy cars moving and made them change direction. 

        Here the children are working with a partner to complete main idea/details webs on the "Fighting the Fire" article that we read as a class.

  Math is fun! The children are playing a domino sort game to reinforce finding sums with their addition math facts.  

         Our science program is full of hands-on, authentic learning experiences. The children headed outside to conducting speed trials to learn that the kind of movement affects speed.

More science exploration! The children were given a variety of materials including straws, rulers, and string, and worked to discover a number of ways to get their toy cars to move.

                                                         Those wheels were turning! :)

One more science investigation this week allowed the children to experiment with pushing and pulling the toy cars using increasing levels of force. They were able to see that greater force caused greater motion!