Life Skill: Resourcefulness
Quote: Think about what you can do with what there is.
--Ernest Hemingway
--Ernest Hemingway
(STAR = Stop, Think, Act Responsibly)
Student Life Skill
1st Grade LA Emmersynn Problem Solving1st Grade Math Alyssa Effort
2nd Grade LA Nate Effort
2nd Grade Math Jany Initiative
2nd Grade Math Jany Initiative
3rd Grade LA Alaina Pride
3rd Grade Math Rebecca Responsibility
4th Grade LA Logan Integrity3rd Grade Math Rebecca Responsibility
4th Grade Math Jacob Initiative
Nick Integrity
This Week In HA...
**I have had several students express frustration and anxiety with activities presented in our HA units of study and become upset when they make mistakes or have difficulty with activities this fall. As a result, I am concerned about the students' mindsets and understanding of the learning process. Therefore, I shared the following concepts during classes where these incidents occurred and will be utilizing this information across all of my classes this next week:
I am sharing this information to enable you to discuss these concepts with your child. Please also feel free to contact me if you have any concerns about your child.
1st Grade LA
This week in first grade, the students completed a vocabulary map for a word from our book on anagrams. Then, we began working on rearranging letters in words to solve some anagram puzzles. It was fun to see so many ways to rearrange a set of letters to enable us to create new words. Ask your child to create some anagrams for you.
In second grade, we summarized chapter 2 of The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane since the students read this independently over the weekend. Ask your child to explain what "The Rosie Affair" and "The Vacuum Cleaner Incident" refer to. After summarizing chapter 2, we continued reading chapters 3, 4 and part of 5. Therefore, we know that Edward learned one night at dinner that the family would be taking a trip on the Queen Mary. On the night he learned of the family's trip, Pellegrina, Abilene's grandmother, told Abilene a bedtime story about a princess. In the story, the princess was a very selfish, spoiled, unloving person, who was turned into a warthog by a witch because she had not learned to love others. As a result of being turned into a warthog, the princess was killed by the king's men, who had mistaken her for game in the forest. Abilene was extremely upset by the ending of the story, as she wanted a happily ever after ending. Pellegrina's response to Abilene's request for a happy ending came in the form of a question, which was "How can a story end happily if there is no love?" The day after Pellegrina told Abilene the bedtime story, the family embarked on their voyage on the Queen Mary. Ask your child to answer this question, explain his/her thoughts about the significance of the bedtime story told by Pellegrina and predict what will happen next in the story.
Third grade students finished categorizing the nouns we identified last week in the excerpt from one of our myths. As a part of this activity, we also reviewed the parts of a sentence. Therefore, ask your child to explain the subject and predicate parts of a sentence and tell you some of the nouns that fall in the following categories:
- Nouns that name people
- Nouns that name places
- Nouns that name things
- Nouns that name ideas
Afterwards, we moved on to begin our next genre of study, which is the tall tale. To begin this unit of study, we began reading Johnny Appleseed. Ask your child to retell you what we have read so far in the story of Johnny Appleseed.
4th Grade LA
This week, fourth grade students began gathering information and completing the biography summary and supporting documentation forms, which will assist them in creating their timeline, power point slide and monologue. Most of the students completed the biography summary page but the photos for the project were due this week and several students have not completed this step. I informed the students that they can email me their photos if needed and I will print the photos for them. Ask your child how he/she is progressing. Please let me know as you assemble the monologue costume if your child is having difficulty compiling the costume and props he/she needs. I have also created to a file in Google Docs, which includes the instructions for the project and forms we will be using to complete the biography project. When your child sets up his/her Google account next week, he/she will share this file with you to allow you to have access to the project information and enable you to view their work.
Building Vocabulary
The "Words of the Day" for this week were embody and liberate. Ask your child to define them and use them in a sentence.
1st Grade Math
First grade students were introduced to a fantastic website called Sumdog. This site provides students with the opportunity to learn math skills through the use of fun and interactive games, which they play against other students from around the world. We had a great time working on math facts through the use of the game, "Junk Pile". A letter explaining Sumdog was sent home this week and had your child's login/password information attached. Therefore, ask your child to log in to his/her Sumdog account and show you how to play "Junk Pile".
2nd Grade Math
This week second grade students, finished working on subtraction with regrouping. Therefore, we moved on to a new unit of study in which we learned about the Fibonacci Sequence. The Fibonacci Sequence is a series of numbers in which the next number in the sequence is found by adding up the 2 numbers before it. For example: 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34,... is a Fibonacci Sequence. After learning how to create a Fibanocci Sequence, we completed math problems associated with this sequence.
3rd Grade Math
Third grade students continued working on mastering their multiplication facts by taking another timed multiplication test. Ask your child how he/she is progressing with memorizing his/her multiplication facts. Afterwards, we began Ed Zaccaro's unit on multiplication. This unit involves word problems requiring students to multiply to calculate the answer to the problems. Ask your child to complete the following math problem for you:
Isaac found that each step he took was 3 ft. long. If Isaac took 1250 steps, how far did he walk?
4th Grade Math
Fourth grade students finished completing math problems involved in Ed Zaccaro's unit titled "How Much Change Should I Get?" Afterwards, we took a pretest for our new unit on fractions. This pretest measures the students' current knowledge on fractions and will be utilized to assess the students' progress when compared to the post-test at the end of this unit. After completing the fraction pretest, we began reading The Hershey's Milk Chocolate Fractions Book. While reading the book, the students completed some simple fraction problems. Ask your child to show you how to create fractions using a Hershey bar. This is a fun and delicious way to practice fractions.
Melissa Valtierra
High Ability Aide
Bailly Elementary School
