News for the Week of January 4, 2016

Life Skill:  Sense of Humor

Quote:  A little nonsense now and then is relished by the wisest men.
                                                                         --Roald Dahl

Captain's Table of "STAR" Students

(STAR = Stop, Think, Act Responsibly)

                                                   Student                     Life Skill                           

1st Grade LA                           Emmersynn                    Effort
1st Grade Math                           Jessica                   Enthusiasm
                             

2nd Grade LA                               Layla                          Effort   
2nd Grade Math                         Michael                      Integrity

3rd Grade LA                            Samantha                 Cooperation
3rd Grade Math                           Rowyn               Cooperation/Integrity 

4th Grade LA                                 Luke                       Initiative
4th Grade Math                            Riona                      Enthusiasm       

** Important HA News:  

I am currently enrolled in a school counseling graduate program.  As I have moved into the practicum/internship phase of my program, I have found that I will be required to complete a large number of practicum/internship hours, which conflict with my current position as an HA aide.  As a result of these circumstances, it has been with great difficulty and sadness that I have submitted my resignation from the HA aide position at Bailly Elementary School.  Therefore, my last day will be Friday, January 15, 2016.  It has been a great joy to interact with the HA students as I have assisted them in enhancing their learning and fostering their academic growth.  I will truly miss seeing all of them on a consistent basis but will hope to see them in the halls as I am completing my practicum/internship at Bailly for the remainder of this school year!  

Sometimes we make the process more complicated than we need to. We will never make a journey of a thousand miles by fretting about how long it will take or how hard it will be. We make the journey by taking each day step by step and then repeating it again and again until we reach our destination.

                                                                                     --Joseph B. Wirthlin

My hope is that your children enjoy the journey of self-discovery and learning. May their ships reach many distant shores in the process of learning!

This Week In HA...

1st Grade LA

As we began the New Year, first grade students also started a new unit of study.  This week, we worked on decoding the Random Reverse Cipher.  In this cipher, the students needed to recognize that the message was written backwards.  After decoding the cipher, we read Wumbers by Amy Krouse Rosenthal and illustrated by Tim Lichtenheld.  In this book, numbers were substituted for some of the letters in the words.  For example, the word, created, was changed to cre8ted.  It was fun to read this book!  Afterwards, we chose several of the words from the book, which had numbers in them and translated them into real words.  Ask your child to write 2-3 words that they read which substituted numbers for letters.

2nd Grade LA

In second grade this week, the students finished completing our reading analyzer on chapter 4 in The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane.  Therefore, ask your child what we determined the main idea of this chapter to be.  Afterwards, we reviewed the parts of speech and practiced diagramming some sentences.  Ask your child to define the following parts of speech:

• Noun
• Verb
• Adjective
• Adverb
• Preposition
• Article
• Conjunction
• Pronoun

We then began learning about Paul's Wheel of Reasoning, which is a tool to assist the students in learning to ask questions as they read a text.  Each part of the wheel provides a different way to think about the text being read and helps the student formulate questions in areas such as point of view, concepts, consequences, evidence and assumptions.  Ask your child the following questions, "How does asking questions as we read help us make sense of the text being read?" and "How does it help us become better readers?"

3rd Grade LA

This week in third grade, students continued working on labeling words in sentences with the appropriate part of speech.  Afterwards, they finished writing up their retells on the tall tales they read before winter break in preparation for presenting their retells to the rest of their classmates.  

4th Grade LA

In fourth grade, the students worked on diagramming a few sentences before they continued constructing their time lines by typing up the events in the template provided in Google Docs.  After typing up the events, the students printed out the timeline information and began constructing them on large sheets of paper and included the photos they had acquired.  As we approach the monologue portion of the biography project, please ask your child if he/she has planned out a costume and props to utilize while presenting his/her monologue.  In planning the costume with your child, if you find you are in need of something your child requires to complete their costume and/or props, please let me know and I will try to assist you.

                                                                     

Building Vocabulary

The "Words of the Day" for this week were farcical and satire.  Ask your child to explain these literary terms and use them in a sentence.  

1st Grade Math

First grade students have continued to work on coin identification and determining the coins needed to make a purchase for a specified amount.  Some of the students are having difficulty remembering the coins and their associated value.  Therefore, ask your child to identify the coins in a handful of change you give him/her.  Then, divide the handful of coins into a variety of groups and ask your child to calculate the value of each group of coins.  We also worked on a logic puzzle this week, which required reasoning, deduction and problem solving skills.  To introduce these skills to the students, we worked through a practice puzzle together to allow me to show the students tips on completing a logic puzzle.  Our first puzzle is called, "The Cafeteria Caper".  Ask your child to explain some problem solving tips and provide a description of our current logic puzzle to you.

2nd Grade Math

This week in second grade, the students learned about the binary sequence.  Like the Fibonacci Sequence, the binary sequence is another set of famous numbers.  In a binary sequence, the sequence is determined by doubling a number to get the next number.  For example, 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64... is a binary sequence.  After learning how to create the binary sequence, the students compared and contrasted this sequence with the Fibonacci Sequence.  Ask your child to explain the similarities and differences of these two famous sequences to you.  Then, have your child complete the following binary sequences of numbers:

                            3, 6, ?, 24, ?, ?, 192
                             10, 20, ?, ?, 160, ?

3rd Grade Math

In third grade, the students completed two more timed multiplication tests on our quest to master the multiplication facts.  I know all of the students will achieve mastery as we continue on this journey to achieve "sweet" success with our Multiplication Sweets timed test activities.  Please continue to encourage your child to practice his/her multiplication facts.  Afterwards, the students continued to work on our unit created by Ed Zaccaro titled, "The Magic of  Multiplication".  This week, we solved many word problems requiring us to utilize our multiplication facts. 

4th Grade Math

Fourth grade students continued working on our fractions unit.  This week, we continued working on equivalent fractions and reducing fractions to their lowest terms while also looking for patterns within our work.  Ask your child to reduce the following fractions for you:

        3       6       9
       12     18     27

Success is not a destination, but the road that you're on. Being successful means that you're working hard and walking your walk every day. You can only live your dream by working hard towards it. That's living your dream.

                                                                                    --Marlon Wayans

Welcome to January and winter!  What an amazing week of learning the students have had in HA.  The students are making wonderful progress with the continuing units of study, as well as, all of the new concepts introduced this week.

Melissa Valtierra
High Ability Aide
Bailly Elementary School