Great Job Chicago Runners!!

I'll be running the Columbus Marathon Sunday.

BAILLY'S SUPER WORD OF THE WEEK:

RUMOR

~not based on facts, just hearsay~

1st GRADE LA

Decipher and Encipher:

Monday we were unable to meet due to hearing and vision screenings. Tuesday I reintroduced the words Decipher and Encipher. With our Caesar Cipher Wheel we deciphered our message from last week, "Letters are symbols that stand for spoken  sounds." As a class we worked on deciphering and enciphering different messages. Once this unit is done, the student will be able to take their Caesar Cipher Wheels home and create their own messages. This lesson continues to help students examine the CONNECTION between symbols and meanings. 

2nd GRADE LA

Edward Tulane:

This week we finished our Edward Tulane predictions. We will answer these same prediction questions two other times throughout the novel.With these first predictions, I wanted the students to use personal connections based on observations from the title, cover, pictures and/or chapter titles.The next two predictions will be based on connections from what we've read.

Tuesday we constructed our novel study folders while I STRESSED the importance of organization and listening. It is very easy for us to lose track of time in our 30 minuets if I am constantly having to repeat instructions or have students look for the worksheets in an UNORGANIZED folder. All of our worksheets are numbered kept in numerical order. After constructing our folders, we began the book, reading aloud the first chapter in class. 

HOMEWORK: Read chapters 2-4, no more, no less, and fill out a reading analyzer on chapter 4.

The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane Novel study. 

The students will be bringing this book home in a plastic gallon size bag. The book should stay in the bag at ALL times other than when it is being read. Homework will be written on the first page of a  packet that will always be with the book. This needs to be signed EVERY WEEK. 

With this book study, MOST of reading will need to be done at home, along with a reading analyzer. The students will have 6 days to complete this homework. I have already had student turn in their homework.

PLEASE LET ME KNOW IF YOU HAVE ANY QUESTIONS REGARDING THIS NOVEL STUDY.

3rd GRADE LA

Paragraph That:

Foundation skills in writing are very important. The last couple of weeks we have been working on the "Hamburger Model" for writing paragraphs. On Monday I went over the importance of indentation and details when writing. Details help the reader get a better understanding of what we are writing about. I am also stressing to the students that our readers do NOT get to read the writing prompt. Therefore, we need to be very clear when writing our introductions and examples. I have stressed to the students they can not always use pronouns such as: his, her, it, they, or them, because the readers may not know who we are referring to. Next week we will have a few students read their writings to the class. 

HOWEWORK: There will be little home work to do throughout the year. I will most likely assign this on TUESDAYS so the students will have 6 days to complete it. There is a homework board outside of my classroom and I ALWAYS have the assignment written on it. Third grade walks past my classroom multiple times a day. Last week I had less than half the class do the homework. If homework is NOT completed and needed for the next day, students will be sent back to class. 

4th GRADE LA

BIOGRAPHIES:

I introduced the beginning of our Agent of Change biography project. Last week the students brought home their Agent of Change worksheet that you signed. Everyone got theirs in this week, THANK YOU!! This project definitely runs smoother when we are all on the same page. With the introduction, the students read a short biography on Ruby Bridges. I had them 'actively' read and highlight the biography. They were also given the packet of questions they will need to answer on their Agent of Change. Together we answered the questions on Ruby Bridges. I wanted to show the students it will be very difficult to complete this project properly with one resource. I also wanted to demonstrate the detail in the answers I am looking for.

Next week, I will give the students time to read in class. What does not get read in class will need to be done at home. (If your child currently has their resources, it may be a good idea to start reading now.) I will also be distributing the steps and due dates for each portion of this study.

1st GRADE MA

Think Deeply:

We have had quite the schedule these past 2 weeks. Last week we missed a day due to first grade's field trip and this week we missed a day because of Junior Achievement. However, we are back on track. We finished our Think Deeply over our Zany Lingo lesson. The Think Deeply is a written response, at the end of each lesson, to Imi and Zani, our math bird friends, answering a question over the lesson. It gives the students the chance to WRITE their understanding of the material using their new vocabulary words and pictures; while allowing me to see how well they understand the material.

2nd GRADE MA

Manipulating Triangles:

The past couple of weeks we have been manipulating small triangles in order to make squares. The students were given 2 colors and needed to make squares using 4 yellow triangles and 4 purple triangles. Many students struggled with this at first until we divided the square into quarters. Doing this helped them realized they needed 2 triangle in each quarter.

Going back to lines of symmetry, the students have learned a square has 4 lines of symmetry. Using their squares with colored triangles, I asked them to find the lines of symmetry.  This was a bit more challenging factoring in the colored triangles. Once the students realized what to look for in the placement of triangles and the colors, they started to get it!!!

Next we went onto Triangle Combinations. The goal of this activity is for partners to make specified shapes using CONGRUENT triangles. They are able to FLIP and TURN their triangles in order to make: another triangle, a rectangle that is NOT a square, a square and a parallelogram. We will finish this activity next week. 

3rd GRADE MA

Think Beyond: 

This past week we have had missing students because of field trips, therefore I did not want to move ahead to our next lesson. Our Think Beyond cards are review problems used for each lesson. This week I split the class up into two groups. Each group received a different Think Beyond card. They worked together to solve it. Not only did they need to answer the question, but they needed to be prepared to teach it to the other half of the class. These kids did great, at answering, teaching and seeing patterns to help solve repeating pattern word problems. With a small class and not a lot of time left, I allowed the students to work on their fellow students repeating question problems they created. I love seeing the students work together to sole problems and help teach each other where they may have made a mistake. 

4th GRADE MA

Fold the Feet: 

This week the students were given 3 feet of adding machine tape. They were told it was 3 feet, THAT WAS ALL THE INFORMATION I GAVE THEM. They worked with partners to find 1 1/3 feet. They needed to mark ALL their folds to show me how they found 1 1/3 feet. They were then given another 3 foot strip to find 2 3/4 feet and 5/4 feet.  

Once the distances were found we gathered back as a class and discussed different strategies used to find the lengths.  

This lesson incorporates improper fractions and mixed numbers. The second activity helps us understand the concept of common denominators. It will also lead us into identifying and renaming equivalent fractions along with ordering fractions of all types, including improper fractions and mixed numbers. 

Learning Leaders

Balliey's SUPER Word of the Week:

RESPECTED: having a good opinion about you

1st Grade LA

Shield of Connections: We finished our Shields of Connections this week. Students were given time in class to practice what they wrote since their connections were written a few weeks ago. We discussed important presenter roles such as of eye contact, voice level and familiarity of content. We also talked about important roles the listeners needed to practice.The students did an AMAZING job sharing!  I was more than impressed!!!! Classmates graded each other's presentations and I graded the product. I will display the Shields in class but will hand back the evaluations next week.

1st Grade MA

Short Week: Wednesday we did not have class because I was out of the building. Thursday we played Zani Lingo. WE LOVE THIS GAME! It is similar to Bingo with the goal to get four chips in a row. Our game boards are filled with different polygons. I roll a number cube and pending on the number rolled they need to put a chip on the corresponding shape. Since they now know, no polygon is made up of 1 or 2 sides, they must yell out "OH NO, NO SUCH SHAPE" when the number cube lands on a 1 or 2. I call on students to tell me the name of that shape when the number cube lands on a 3-6. Once they get four in a row they yell out "ZANI LINGO". In the near future the students will need to tell the class what polygon their chips are on for their Zani Lingo to count. I see that to be no problem for this class, they are rock stars with their vocabulary!! 

2nd Grade LA

Eldorado: We are finishing up our Eldorado lesson. This lesson has quite a few important concepts that will be used through out the year. The students were read the poem, then needed to journal what they thought the poem was about. Even though I made it clear to the students there was not right  or wrong answer, this proved a difficult for some. The reasoning, the students needed to think far outside the box because of the different the metaphors in the poem, when they really just wanted to write black or white answers.

Having the students write what they believed the poem was about correlates with our connection theme. I wanted to see how personal life, experiences, and feelings helped them create their 'meaning' of the poem. As a class, we shared our different ideas on what we thought Eldorado, the knight, the shadow/shade/pilgrim meant. We also defined metaphor and why writers may use them. We then and discussed what the metaphors in the poem meant.

Last, we filled out a READING ANALYZER, remember this name, you will being seeing them a lot. A reading analyzer is a tool we use to help take our reading comprehension to a deeper level. By using this tool, we were able to grasp a better understanding of Eldorado. This will be a tool we use regularly during the year.

2nd Grade MA

Lines of Symmetry: We have been working with lines of symmetry for the past couple of weeks. This bunch is getting pretty good with it! We are using lines of symmetry in a square to create triangles. Students needed to fold, draw and cut these lines making triangles to create new squares. This activity allows students to manipulate the triangles creating patterns and designs. We will then need to find lines of symmetry in our new squares after throwing in the element of different colors. We know the lines of symmetry in a square, now we need to make sure the colors are symmetrical as well.

3rd Grade LA

Interactions and Character Traits: We read the book THE GIRL WHO LOVED WILD HORSES. While reading to the class they needed to fill out a worksheet listing different interactions they characters had. Once the story was over they were able to work in groups and share the interactions they found. We had to take a double look at interactions and what defines an interaction. Some of the students were getting confused with cause and effect verses interactions. THE GIRL WHO LOVED WILD HORSES. We will continue this next week.

One key difference, in an interaction there is an exchange between those involved. Next, we looked at what the interactions showed us about the character, their character traits. We are using this list to write a character trait paragraph for the girl in

3rd Grade MA

Think Deeply: We have begun our second Think Deeply. Almost everyone understood our first Think Deeply asking to find the 137th letter in a repeating pattern of SARAH. Having 5 elements in the pattern, it was easy for the student to figure out. However in the next one, student are needing to find the 137th letter of a repeating pattern for SAM and it's proving to be difficult. We will be finishing this together next week to make sure we have 100% understanding!!!

4th Grade LA

Changes in Vocabulary: We have been looking at the change in Language. This week we finished up our Greek and Latin Word Element Packets. The students have read how our language is filled with Greek and Latin elements and why/where they came from. They were given a list list of Greek and Latin prefix, suffix, and roots along with the meaning. The students then needed to use the word element charts and give the meaning of the word.

This allowed them to see, how we have developed words in our language. Using the element charts they were asked to make up their own words and define them. They found a lot of the words they wanted to put together were already real word. As for the others, they were VERY CREATIVE!!

Beginning with the end in mind-we are working towards a MAJOR Biography project that will start towards the end of September.  Now is a good time to start the conversation with your child about who they'd like to research.  They will really dig deep with this person, so if they already have an interest in them, it will be a win-win.  Almost anyone will work for this project, but they need to be able to justify it.  They need to be able to tell how their person was an agent of change  . . .how they made a difference in the world!  You could even start browsing your local library to see if they have any books or check on Amazon. They will need two reliable sources.  One may be an online source, so we will talk about acceptable ones later. We will use the library books here at school, but they may not have the specific person they are looking for.  Have your child check our library out now.  They may need to bring them in from the public library.  Don't check them out just yet.  At this point, we are being proactive which will help a GREAT deal down the road.  Thank you!

4th Grade MA

Think Deeply: I think we have mastered equivalent fractions! I will find out for sure after reading everyone's Think Deeply, but I think we got it! This week we worked with our fractions strips and white boards to prepare for our Think Deeply. They were able to see equivalent fractions using our fraction strips, we saw that 2/8 and 1/4 have the same (EQUIVALENT) value of a whole.

The students were also able to mathematically find any equivalent to a fraction by multiplication. The students were taught multiplying the numerator and denominator by the same number gave them infinite amounts of equivalent fractions.