Blink

BLINK...AND THE WEEK WENT BY!!
(So did the weekend!)
Short weeks go by so fast!! BosFASTic Fast.

Bailly's Word of the Week

FAMILY = relatives or members of a social group who care about one another. 

1st Grade LA

Graphic Alphabet and Connections: This week we started our Language Arts curriculum. Tuesday I read  The Graphic Alphabet. In this book the author/illustrator designed each letter form to become the word it represents. On every page I covered the word and the class had to tell me based on connections, what the letter picture was. Doing this made the children form a metal connection in order to solve the picture puzzle. Next, we did a matching game where everyone received an index card with a word written on it. They had to move around the room and find their connection word. A few examples were, dog/bone, fish/water, brother/sister; everyone did a great job!!

You will notice throughout the year our curriculum emphasizes A LOT on connections. 

HOMEWORK:

You should have received a packet from your students on Tuesday. In the packet there were 2 sheets of 'patches'. Your child is to draw 6-8 black and white pictures that represent personal connections. The packet also included 4 'Coat of Connection' sheets where your child will explain their personal connections. You will NOT need to cut these out and make them into a booklet. 

Please Remember this should be STUDENT lead, PARENT guided. 😉

1st Grade MA

TEST TIME: This week in math we took our beginning of the year assessment test. This test shows me how familiar the students are familial with concepts we will be learning in HA. I informed the students there may be questions they are unsure of and to simply try their best!! The students will take this same test at the end of the year to see the growth they've made. Therefore, I will not send this test home until the end of the year along with the post test. 

2nd Grade LA

CONNECTIONS: Like last year, a lot of our curriculum will be centered around connections. On Tuesday, we discussed connections and categories. The students worked in pairs and had to place given connections into categories THEY created. They realized many connections can be placed in more than one category. They also discovered one person's connection may or may NOT fit into another person's category. We will talk about our connection categories next week.

2nd Grade MA

TESTING AND INTRODUCTION: Wednesday the students took their assessment test. This test is to show me how familiar the students are with the material we will cover this year. I will give the same test at the end of the year to see growth they've made. For this reason the test will NOT be sent home until the students are given the post test at the end of the year. 
Thursday was our introduction into our new math. We went over the expectations of how a math speaker and a math listener should act. In math we spoke about 'adding on' to people's ideas to help figure out problems. We did a fun activity 'adding on' to a class story, you should ask you child about it!!!   

3rd Grade LA

INTERACTIONS: Tuesday was a fun day! Our Language Arts started off with the concept of interactions. The class was placed into pairs and had to act out 3 different interactions they were given on strips of paper. The rest of the class tried to figure out what they were acting out, charades if you'd like. After everyone went and we wrote our ideas on the board I had them try to guess what they all had in common. They were all INTERACTIONS. 
We will dig deeper in this topic next week. 

3rd Grade MA

ASSESSMENTS AND SARAH: Wednesday the students took their assessment test. This test is to show me how familiar the students are with the material we will cover this year. I will give the same test at the end of the year to see the growth they've made. For this reason the test will NOT be sent home until the students are given the post test at the end of the year. 

Thursday we started our math unit with 'Repeating Patterns'. The students were asked if the name 'Sarah' was repeated 30 times, how many times would the letter 'S' appear, how many times would the letter 'a' appear? The students realized they could use multiplications with number patterns rather than writing the name 30 times!!!!

4th Grade LA

CHANGE: Like last year, the concept of change will be the basis for our curriculum. Tuesday we discussed the definition of change. I gave the students 5-10 minutes to come up with as many examples of change as possible. I then split the class in half and had them try to categorize their examples. They will share these categories next week and we will develop some generalizations about change. 

4th Grade MA

ASSESSMENT AND FRACTIONS: Wednesday the students took their assessment test. This test is to show me how familiar the students are with the material we will cover this year. I will give the same test at the end of the year to see the growth they've made. For this reason the test will NOT be sent home until the students are given the post test at the end of the year. 
Thursday we jumped right into our math unit on equivalent fractions. Thursday we took 12" strips and folded them in halves, quarters, eighths, and sixteenths. Next week we will finish our strips with 7 more equivalent fractions, discussing how we were able to use the last strip to help us divide the next one.