Playing Catch up......

 Playing catch up………

Because it’s been two weeks and I am so sorry!!!

1^st Grade LA

Connecting Letters and Language: We started the lesson reading The Disappearing Alphabet. This book was a lot of fun to read! It showed the kids what our words would be like if we were missing letters. We read funny examples, such as an owl loosing it’s wings and gaining wigs if we lost the letter “N”. After reading the story I introduced the students to a ‘reading analyzer’. A reading analyzer is a worksheet to help us better understand what we read. We can use them when reading poems, chapters, or even entire stories. I use these in ALL of my LA classes. We filled in a reading analyzer over The Disappearing Alphabet. This was to help us think more deeply about our feelings, ideas and images we developed during the story. The analyzer also helps us identify key words we find though out the reading. Teaching these awesome kids you’re never too old to learn, they taught me what a sparkle work is, an adjective.

1^st Grade MA

Think Deeply: This week we wrapped up our lesson on comparing an object’s weight using transitivity. We’ve learned when comparing 2 objects one is heavier and one is lighter. We’ve also learned when comparing 3 or more objects of different weight, one will be the heaviest and one will be the lightest. We have also mastered the skill of transitivity. We are able to find the lightest and heaviest object by comparing them to a third object. Yes, they get that!!!

2nd Grade LA

Edward Tulane: We are getting near the end of The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane. Last week, the students were given 4 chapters to read and a reading analyzer to fill out over their favorite chapter (one chapter). We have done many reading analyzers in class. The children should be familiar with them and able to do them on their own. If they have a question, there are guide questions at the bottom of each section to help. The ‘feelings’ and ‘idea’ boxes should include complete sentences. The boxes are small;  they may finish their writing on the back of the page if needed. I assigned: Read chapters 19-22 and choose a chapter to complete their reading analyzer, DUE January 25th. The students also have in their HA folders, worksheets to help track the settings, Edward’s outfits and names, and his feelings. I encourage the students to track these as they read. We do go over these in class. However, I have noticed discussion flows much better when they have these already written down with out needing to flip through their books.

2^nd Grade MA

Egg Car seats: We have been constructing car seats for our egg crash test the past 2 weeks. The students were given a bag of materials to design and construct a car seat to hold an egg. The egg will be placed in the back of a toy dump truck while going down a ramp then crashing into a wall. This week the students will be drawing ‘prototypes’ and sharing them with the class. We will discuss everyone’s prototypes and provide feedback. The groups will have a few minutes to make any final changes based on class discussion. After that, crash time!!!!

3^rd Grade LA

Modern Legend: We have finished up our ‘modern legend’ lesson with the “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald”. We read the lyrics out loud then drew a picture of the image we formulated in our mind. We then colored our picture only using colors that corresponded with our feelings we developed while reading the lyrics. Next, we listened to the actual song. After reading the lyrics, drawing an interpretation, then listening to the song, the students were asked to write in their journals. The students needed to tell me what generalization they made between the lyrics, the song, their drawing and class discussion. I am still reading through these. This week we will be moving onto Fables.

3^rd Grade MA

Think Deeply: We have finished up our lesson on perimeter. All the students made their own rectangular pens for the Yeti’s pet using the same feet of fencing. We then discussed the differences in their choice of lengths and widths, leading us to area. The students finished their Think Deeply answering which size pen they would recommend for the pet and why. This helped the students see that pens with the same perimeter could have different area.

4^th Grade LA

Change Makers Project: The students are coming along with their change maker projects. THIS WEEK they need to be finished with their events page and have 10 corresponding pictures for their time line. The students are able to come into my class during their lunch recess Monday – Thursday. There should be no reason for anyone to be falling behind. PLEASE check with them to make sure they are following the ‘project due time line’. Remember, this project can be worked on at home through their Google accounts as well.

4^th Grade MA

Think Deeply: We have finished our lesson on 3 dimensional shapes. This was a fun lesson with a lot of hands on learning. Hollow shapes half filled with water worked great for finding cross sections. To help review we played ‘Kahoot’ on their Chrome books. Kahoot is a website where I can pick quizzes over topics we have studied. The students then go to the corresponding website, put in the code I give them, and a quiz pops up they log into. The fastest student to answer the most questions correctly wins. We have quiet the competitive class here in 4^th grade HA, so it got a little crazy!! However, it was a great learning tool! After our Kahoot review the students then needed to complete the lesson’s Think Deeply. They needed to tell me which shapes have rectangular cross sections and if we could make a general rule about these kind of shapes.

Freezing Friday

Happy New Year!!  I hope everyone had a safe a happy holiday season. I am excited to see what 2017 has in store! I registered for my first 50 miler the 1^st of the year; I see A LOT of running and hopefully organization (like every year) in 2017!!!

On Wednesday, I talked about resolutions and goal setting with all the classes. We all wrote goals for the New Year, personal, school, and HA class. I even had the students share a goal they would like to see me have for class. These will be sent home next week.

1^st Grade LA

We did not meet this week.

1^st Grade MA

Transitivity: We continued our transitivity centers we worked on before the holiday break. These kids did great; they didn’t miss a beat jumping back into it. They were weighing 3 different bags of items then writing which was found to be the heaviest and lightest. This will lead them into our next lesson where we will be comparing weight, then using transitivity to determine which bags are the heaviest and lightest.

2^nd Grade LA

The Velveteen Rabbit: Over the break all the students read The Velveteen Rabbit, what a good story!! On Thursday, we made a Venn Diagram to compare what we’ve read (so far) in Edward Tulane and The Velveteen Rabbit. The students were very into this!! The Venn Diagram helped up see similarities and differences we may not have thought of on our own. The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane has given us so many opportunities to read between the lines, compare and contrast, and think outside the box. I absolutely love seeing the kids’ faces when they make these connections!!

2^nd Grade MA

We did not meet this week.

3^rd Grade LA

We did not meet this week.

3^rd Grade MA

Perimeter: Before the break we worked on creating a fence for our Yeti’s pet. We had 56 ft. of fencing and had to create a rectangle pen for the pet. Using graphing paper, the student needed their pen to have the perimeter of 56ft. Thursday; we organized everyone’s pens to see if we could recognize a pattern. We noticed that as the lengths increased the width decreased and vice versa. This will also be the introduction to area.

4^th Grade LA

 We did not meet this week.

HOWEVER: Students need to have 2 or more pictures for their time line cut out by January 10^th. Remember they have access to this project using their google accounts. I highly recommend using this time to work on this.

 4^th Grade MA 

Cross Sections: On Thursday, the students worked on understanding cross sections of 3-dimensional shapes. We filled hollow 3-D models with different amounts of water. This allowed us to see what shapes the cross sections could create. An active 4^th grade class, on a short week, using water in the lesson, makes for a fun class. These kids are GREAT!!