2018-2019 School Year

WELCOME to the 2018-2019 School year!
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Welcome to the Bailly's High Ability Program!

As you may know Bailly has a space theme this year and I can not wait to incorporate this into our school year.  

OUR NORM

I will see my Reading/Language Arts (LA) students on Mondays & Tuesdays and Math (MA) students on Wednesdays and Thursdays. EXCEPT 3RD GRADE, due to a schedule conflict their math and language arts days will be flipped. On Fridays I will be at Liberty meeting and planning with the other elementary school High Ability instructors and teacher. 

LEADER IN ME

I am very fortunate to have began working at Bailly the same time Leader In Me (LIM) was introduced. I try to incorporate the 7 habits as much as I can in the classroom to help reinforce the vocabulary and  the commonality of the habit principles across the different levels of our lives. Our leadership paradigm of SEE, DO, GET will also be a concept I will be utilizing during the school year to encourage a positive growth mindset.

A LITTLE BIT ABOUT ME

I am from Ohio and a 100% Buckeye!! I received my bachelors degree from THE Ohio State University and am currently working on my masters degree at Indiana University Northwest. I love learning and firmly believe "you can learn everyday if you pay attention". This will be my third year teaching High Ability (HA) at Bailly and my past students will tell you I am also a firm believer in learning from our mistakes; this is be a lesson I constantly refer to in the classroom. 

I am an avid runner and very involved in our local running community. I ran my 2nd 50 miler earlier this month while also currently training for my first 100K in October.

I have lived in the area for 11 years and absolutely love it here. Beside the amazing running community and running trials, the beach has stolen my heart as well. The dunes is my happy place, most loved during the off season when few people are around and I can simply listen to the waves collapse upon the shore.

Beyond education, running, and the beach, my life's number 1 are my 3 children. All of my children are part of the Duneland School Corporation ranging from elementary school to high school and between gymnastics, choir, track and cross country they keep me quite busy. 

2nd GRADE LA

CONNECTIONS: In second grade, like first grade, our theme for the year will be the Concept of Connections. Connections have many applications in the real world; they allow us think outside the box and see how new ideas emerge from interdisciplinary thinking. 

We will focus more specifically on the 'Connection of the Heart'.  In all of our lessons we will be looking for how the generalizations of connections are incorporated with our reading and writings. This  will teach the students to look at literature on a deeper level and with a different lens. 

This week we started our lesson over the poem ELDORADO.  We will continue this lesson next week introducing READING ANALYZERS (this tool will be used many time throughout the year) and utilizing a Venn Diagram to compare/contrast a picture of a knight with the poem. 

3rd GRADE LA

INTERACTIONS: Third grade is all about the Concept of INTERACTIONS. We define interactions as 'two or more living beings or objects that communicate or react to one another with a reciprocal effect on both participants'.  We will investigate this concept and the generalizations through different classical readings centered around human and animal interactions. We will also explore how interactions shape us and allow us to tell our stories.

Our lesson this week focused on INTERPRETING INTERACTIONS. This lesson has the students utilize the books "How to Speak Dog" and "How to Speak Cat" to connect specific animal behaviors to specific animal interactions. Not having the time to read the entire book, we focused on how to locate needed information efficiently in nonfiction texts. This lesson will also allow us to grasp the understanding of making sure our answers are supported by evidence from the text and not our opinions or assumptions.

We will continue this lesson next week while also discussing PERSPECTIVE when deciding if an interaction is positive or negative. 

4th GRADE LA

SYSTEMS: We will be studying the Concept of Systems and its generalizations in forth grade. Systems will be identified as a purposeful interaction working towards a goal. 

After familiarizing ourselves with the concept of systems last week we moved onto understanding that organization is a systems of procedures. We read the book "Thundercake" and begin to discuss how the book displays the concept of procedures within it. Ww will continue this lesson next week.

Last week all of the Math classes took their assessment tests. This is simply to see show me what the students may or may not already know about the curriculum we will be covering during the year. This test will also be given at the end of the year.


2nd GRADE MA

MEASUREMENT: In second grade math we are focusing on measurement. Last week we began our chapter on Length. The students were introduced to inch and half inch measurements along with the inverse relationship between the larger the units used to measure, the fewer the number of units needed and vice versa. We will continue this lesson next week while also learning how to measure to the nearest inch and half-inch and building our math vocabulary. 

3rd GRADE MA

GEOMETRY AND MEASUREMENT: The first chapter in our math unit is over Linear Measurement. Lesson one of this chapter introduces benchmarks, estimation, and the difference between our estimate and our actual measurement. Tuesday we went over the centimeters and millimeters on our rulers and the importance of accurate measurements. This lesson will continue on Monday as well. 

4th GRADE MA

FRACTIONS: FRACTIONS .... FRACTIONS .... FRACTIONS ... I LOVE FRACTIONS! We will be working with fractions all year. Our first chapter is 'Making Sense of Fractions'. I make sure we have a firm foundation on our knowledge of fractions so the students can enjoy this curriculum as much as I do!! This week, along with next week, we will be making fractions strips in order to understand the concept of equivalence, estimating, comparing and ordering fractions. Our math vocabulary will be increasing dramatically this year as well!!  

WE'RE GOING TO HAVE AN OUT OF THIS WORLD YEAR!

April 23 - April 26

BAILLY'S SUPER WORD OF THE WEEK

RESILIENT: recover quickly

FREE High Ability Summer School:

This is a wonderful opportunity for your child to be immersed in the study of Medieval Times.  There will be projects, reading, presentations, guest speakers and a chance for students to present what they've learned in the packed full three weeks!  Students who have attended have raved about the experience!  One student regrets not going all three years since he only went as a third grader.  This is the unit that usually has the most students attend.  It sparks the most interest from our students.  I know there's often an overlap between other summer programs; DON'T LET THIS STOP YOU! Mrs. Pethes welcomes any and all even if you need to miss a week or so.  It's worth it plus it's FREE this year!  Your child will still get so much out of this!  Please ask if you have questions.  Friday, April 27th is the deadline for registration!!!!  I have more copies of the brochure if you need one.  Dates are as follows: May 31, June 1, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 11, 12, 13, 14, 18, 19, 20, 21.

1st GRADE LA

PUNCTUATION:  We started the week talking about punctuation and how it can effect the emotion of a sentence. We reviewed our reading analyzers and why we fill them out. We then read a poem 'The Questions Mark ?'. This cute poem gives us silly descriptions of what a question mark could resemble, such as a genie coming out of a tiny bottle. We will dig deeper into the poem when we fill out our reading analyzer together next week.  

2ND GRADE LA

TALE OF DESPEREAUX: We are continuing our novel study.  The class is doing a great job making text to text connections and text to world connections. I love seeing how they are finding key words and why such a word would be key to the story. This book does a great job helping us see a story from different perspectives. The first three 'books' in

the novel are based on a different character's perspective during the same event. The last book, Book the Fourth where we are now, brings the characters together for ending, tying the first 3 books together.  

Have your child tell you about the story when they are done reading or have them explain their reading analyzer to you. This will help them have confidence to share their ideas in class. 

HOMEWORK:

CHAPTERS 41 - 46 

and complete a reading analyzer.

3RD GRADE LA

BLACK BEAUTY: Horses, humans and interactions. We are continuing our novel study on Black Beauty. This is a great classic that gives us a moral or lesson on kindness, sympathy or understanding the treatment of horses in each chapter. We are continuing to see how interactions, whether with humans or animal effect character traits in human AND animals. This novel gives examples how interactions leave lasting impression, positive or negative, purposeful or accidental. 

HOMEWORK:

CHAPTERS 32-40

4TH GRADE LA

THE WESTING GAME: The 'GAME' is getting good!!!!!! I was a little worried at the beginning of this novel study because we were taking it at a faster pace. There are a lot of characters to follow and some of the class seemed to have trouble keeping them all straight. HOWEVER, we are on a roll now. By tracking the characters, their traits, their connections to each other, their connection to Mr. Westing, and clues, the class is becoming more excited. The Westing Game continues to help us exercise excellent reading and comprehension skills.

HOMEWORK:

CHAPTERS 22-24

Track any clues or connections.

1ST GRADE MA

NEGATIONS: Big / NOT Big, what???? We have been sorting shapes by their different attributes; color, angles, shape, and size. We have been using Carroll Diagrams to find shapes that match multiple attributes. Our lesson this week had us categorize a Carroll Diagram by an attribute and it's negation. At first the students had to write a given shapes attribute and then its' negation. We then played a game where pairs pulled out 2 negations, fill in a blank diagram and then gave examples for each quadrant. This helps students compare and classify objects based on similarities and differences.

2ND GRADE MA

2-D VIEWS OF 3-D SHAPES: I LOVE this lesson!!! Believe it or not, in high school I wanted to be an architect and loved taking drafting classes and such. Well, these second graders are doing the same type of thing!!! Hopefully it will spark a life long interest. To this day, I love looking at old buildings and comparing the style and structure to new ones. 

In the past lesson we constructed a 'playground floor design' using the base of 3-D Tangram blocks. The base of a blocks were used for the base of playground equipment. With this lesson, we will be drawing the top, front, back, left, and right faces of the equipment. The lesson allows the students to represent 3-D object using 2-D views and perspectives. 

3RD GRADE MA

MENTAL MATH: Monday we started a new chapter, Mental Math. The students were reintroduced to the ASSOCIATIVE PROPERTY OF ADDITION and the COMMUTATIVE PROPERTY OF ADDITION. The objective of this lesson is to discuss the strategies that can be used to add sets of numbers. Mental math helps student learn alternate ways to find solutions to problems, our vocabulary explains why it works. Tuesday, the students worked on a mental math worksheet, alternating partners with each problem. The problem simply had the student draw 3 two digit numbers and use mental math to solve them. The reason behind working with partners is to share their strategies. While each pair had the same set of ADDENDS, their mental math strategies could have been very different. We then gathered together to share our findings. 

4TH GRADE MA

GRANDMA'S COOKBOOK: This week we began our lesson on multiplying and dividing fractions. We will be learning A LOT of new vocabulary with this lesson. However, we are using measuring cups and recipes to help explore the context of the new lesson. It will also help me answer their ongoing question, "when will I ever use this?" If you find your self using a recipe, ask your child if they can double it or cut in half. Then just have them make it😉

March 12 - March 16

Stephen Hawking (quote)

January 8, 1942 - March 14, 2018

BAILLY'S WORD OF THE DAY

Eager: enthusiastic and anxious to begin

1st GRADE LA

A NEW LESSON: We started a new lesson this week. As usual, our new lesson always starts with a message to decipher. By deciphering these messages the students must use clues from the title and other connections to find the answer. These clues always lead us into our next lesson, Connecting Words and Numbers - Text Talk. On Tuesday I introduced the students to the book Wumbers. This book connects number sounds into words. An easy example is L8 meaning 'late'. I asked the students if they ever tried to read licence plates and figure out what word or phrase the letters and numbers made. They didn't know what I was talking about...WHAT????.... I love trying figure them out. This lesson will help the students develop and apply phonological awareness, word recognition, spelling and vocabulary skills. 

2nd GRADE LA

THE TALE OF DESPEREAUX: We have started The Tale of Despereaux. It is written by Kate DiCamillo, the same author of The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane. We will be tracking the text to text connections we see between the two books along with text to self and text to world. The homework is the same format as it was with Edward Tulane, reading a few chapters (no worries, they are short chapters) and completing a Reading Analyzer.

HOMEWORK: Read chapters 10-13. Reading analyzer on chapter 12.

3rd GRADE LA

~We only met on Monday because of IREAD testing Tuesday~

T-CHART COMPARISONS: Monday we worked in two groups comparing our T-charts of the books, Me...Jane and the The Watcher. By comparing our charts and adding details discussed between classmates, students will have more information to help write their persuasive paragraphs next week. 

4th GRADE LA

PRESENTATIONS: We had 5 of our 7 students present their Biography projects. The students have worked hard and have done an amazing job so far!! We are noticing similarities within all of our Agents of Change and identifying that each agent had great determination and a an influence that guided them. I am impressed that the students have seen that not all reasons or influences were positive but the change they created was.  I had the students record each others presentations and will email these to you. 

1st GRADE MA

TWO LOOP GAME: This week we continued to work on categorizing the attributes of our shapes using Venn Diagrams. We then started a worksheet where the students were given the shapes located in the Venn Diagram and the needed to fill in the correct attribute. We will continue this again next week as some of the students are still struggling how to decide identify the missing attribute name. 

2nd GRADE MA

THINK DEEPLY AND REVIEW: On Wednesday we finished our Think Deeply over Lesson 2 Floor Design. This lesson required the students to use 3 Dimensional and 2 Dimensional shapes to create a playground floor design. Thursday we combined foam 3 Dimensional shapes to create different prisms, this was to review for our chapter check up we will be taking next week. I think these guys are more than prepared for it!!

3rd GRADE MA

700's CHART: Find the missing number in the ink spilled 700's chart. The student had to fill in missing squares in a 700's chart. To complete the puzzle, the students were given one number and had to utilize their knowledge of the ones, tens, and hundreds place value and the patterns the hundreds chart gives to answer the questions. 

4th GRADE MA

WHAT MAKES A YARD?: This week the students were given a list of fabric remnants less than a yard; they were then asked to put 2 pieces together to create 1 complete yard. Many found this to be easy, which it should for them at this point. Our next worksheet asked the students to create a complete yard by combining 3 or more remnants. We will continue to do the next week because the different denominators are giving some of the students trouble. There is a pattern I will have one of the other students point out on Wednesday, this will help those who are struggling see what the other options are.

HINT: If you have 4, 1/8th remnants, how is this similar to your 2, 1/4 remnants and your 1/2 remnant.     

January 22nd - February 2nd

BAILLY'S SUPER WORD OF THE WEEK

STAY HEALTHY!!! I miss you!!

This flu hasn't been very nice to my classes. I hope everyone who is sick gets plenty of rest, hydration, and lots of vitamins!!

1st GRADE LA
Letters truly are *MAGIC*

Word ladders: Last week the class was introduced to word ladders. A word ladder is when you take a word and transform it into another word in steps. Each step of a word ladder can only have one letter change at a time. This was a fun and challenging way to have the students work on word recognition, spelling and phonological awareness.

Anagrams: Last week's homework introduced students to phonological awareness by asking them to rearrange the letters S,O,T,P into a word. We then defined the word anagram and practiced the concept with the words DAD (add), FLOW (wolf), and BREAK (baker). The last one was a little tricky for us. This lead us into our next book, The Great Show-and-Tell Disaster. 

2nd GRADE LA

The Finish: Last week we went over our beginning of The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane predictions and our end of the book predictions. We talked about what events changed our minds. I then had the student journal what some of their 'favorites' were in the book. I wanted the students to give an example AND explanation. In second and third grade, I stress the importance of complete sentences and taking into account that many times our audience is unaware of our writing prompt. Therefore, it is imperative for writings to clearly tell and answer our prompt.This week we participated in a Socratic Seminar. This is when the class was divided into two groups, an outer circle and an inner circle. Monday the inner circle were asked a list of questions and needed to discuss the answer to each other, not me or the rest of the class. While the inner group was discussing, the outer group needed to write 2 stars, a wish and an interesting idea. The 2 stars were good discussion points, the wish was something they wished the inner group would have brought up, and the interesting idea was an idea the inner group brought up that the listener in the outer group never thought of. 

3rd GRADE LA

Jane Goodall: This year we are focusing on the concept of interactions. We have noticed that interactions shape who we are. We are also seeing how interactions can identify character traits. Last week we were introduced to Jane Goodall. We watched an short clip about Jane and her early work observing and interacting with chimpanzees. This week we read the beginning of her autobiography. We discussed her first animal observation and the character traits we noticed in her and her mother because of this event. We then went around the room reading different interaction exerts from her autobiography. We will talk about these interactions next week.

4th GRADE LA

Slides: Last week and this week we have been starting and finishing our slide show presentations. We are all a little off on timing because of students getting hit with this flu bug. While I wanted to be done with the slides and monologues this week, we will need to push it back a week.

1st GRADE MA

Angles and Attributes: Last week we learned about the 3 different kinds of angles: acute, obtuse, and right. The students were given protractors made of bendy straws and with a partner had to find a specific kind of angle. Once they found the correct angle, they had to show me and then were able to look for more. They had to do this for all three types, and were fantastic at it! We then did a "Angle Sort" work sheet. Students were given different shapes and had to color coordinate the different angles they saw. Right angles had to be green, obtuse angles blue and red angles needed to be red. The worksheet helped the students take the hands on learning from the protractors/angle search to finding and labeling angles on paper.  

This week we were introduced to the term attribute. We defined attribute as a describing word, a characteristic of something. The students discovered that angles are an attribute of the shape.
Our discussion of attributes lead to our One-Loop Game. In this game, I place a group of students inside a circle and a group outside. The remaining students sitting in their seats needed to identify the 'secret attribute' all their peers had in common inside the circle. The answer, they all had on blue shirts. The One-Loop Game evolved into playing it with 4 shapes, with 3 different shades, and 2 different sizes.  

2nd GRADE MA

3-Denominational: Last week we had a blast dipping our 3-D shapes we created from straws and pipe cleaner into bubble solutions. The purpose of the was to see what 2-D shapes created the faces of 3-D shapes. We then had to write a Think Deeply explaining what we saw in our cube. Along with a square we saw a HYPER-CUBE!!! Our Think Deeply had us explain what the difference was between a square and a cube. As a group we distinguished the difference between faces, vertices, sides and edges we saw in the two shapes. 

This week we took 3-D shapes to the next level using Tangram blocks. We used our blocks to count the edges, faces, and vertices in triangular prisms, rectangular prisms, a cube and a parallel-piped. We listed these in a chart which enabled us to see similarities. We will continues looking at these patterns next week. 

3rd GRADE MA

Patterns in the 100's: The past couple of weeks we have been working on multiplies and the hundreds chart. The students had multiple hundred charts and needed to find and color different multiples in each chart. For example, for the first chart the student needed to color all the multiples of 2, red. Along with coloring in specific multiples they also needed to list different pattern they noticed. Once this was done for multiples 2-9 we made a list of all the pattern we noticed. Thursday the class was divided into partners answering questions about the different patterns seen. Exploring these patterns helps them develop a deeper understanding of the number system. 

4th GRADE MA

Equivalent Fractions: The past couple of weeks we have been working on equivalent fractions. Last week the students were given a sheet of paper and were told to find the value of the following sections 5/12, 1/4, and 1/3. While finding 1/3 and 1/4 can be found easily with simple folds, the students then realized they had to use the common denominator in order to find 5/12. Once this exercise was completed we went ahead and worked on a workbook page. On this worksheet the students were asked to fold and label a separate sheet of paper according to fractional portion of 'stories' located on the font page of a 'newspaper'. 

January 8th - January 18th

Bailly Super Word of the week:

IMPATIENCE:

unable to wait or demanding results immediately

1st Grade LA

The Disappearing Alphabet: Last week we read The Disappearing Alphabet. The book was placed on the overhead to allow the students to clearly see what happens when a letter is removed from a word. This book gave us silly examples such as, if we lose the letter "P", a banana peel would turn into a banana ell. We then began our first Reading Analyzer. We use Reading Analyzers to help us think more deeply about sorties and poems we read. They help students take a deeper look at feelings they had during the reading, what kind of image or description went through their mind, what they thought the main idea the author was trying to get across and what were some  key words in the story.  Students will use this in upcoming grades as well.  

2nd Grade LA

The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane: WE FINISHED OUR BOOK!!! On Tuesday we were able to finish the last chapters of our book! If your child hasn't told you about the ending, you should ask them. The look of shock, surprise, and disbelief on their faces was amazing to watch. To hear them say how much they "loved the book", they "want to keep the book", and they "want to get the book" lets me know I did my job. They found the connections! The story is littered with connection between different characters, feelings, and lessons. We will continue using Edward Tulane for a the next novel study.

I have already chosen the title for our next novel study. I haven't said anything to the students about it because I still want all of their attention on the last of Edward Tulane. 

3rd Grade LA

The Flowers: The past two weeks we have looked at 'interactions in poetry'. We read the poem, The Flowers by Robert Louis Stevenson. This poem celebrates the interactions with nature and a child's imagination. After we read the poem aloud, we began to fill out a Reading Analyzer together.  Together we discussed key words through out the poem and what made them key words. Alone the students needed to finish the rest of the reading analyzer. I wanted to see how each student understood the poem by digging deeper into their feelings while it was read, their understanding of what part was important and what the main idea and key points were. The Reading Analyzer also had the students tell me what interactions they noticed within the reading. 

Leading into the NEXT lesson, the students needed to fill out a vocabulary web on the word "naturalist". A vocabulary web, like a Reading Analyzer, helps us look deeper in to the meaning of the word. 

HOMEWORK: At the end of each lesson students have been assigned a homework assignment. The students are given 6 days to complete this writing and drawing. Each assignment has consisted of a journal entry replying to a writing prompt and a drawing associated with our lesson. PLEASE make sure you are asking to see these journal entries before they are being turned in. Many are coming in incomplete.

4th Grade LA

Timelines: Class time for timelines is OVER. If your child has not completed their timelines they were sent home over the weekend to be finished. The ones that are done look GREAT!!! For the next two weeks students will be working on our slideshow and monologue. The slideshow is being done on Google Slides and can be accessed through any computer with internet. When our presentation dates get closer, I would recommend having your child practice their monologue at home in front of someone.

Testing Information

Second Grade High Ability Identification Process:

Second Grade CogAT Testing:

We have now finished up all the testing for second grade CogAT.  Originally all students were screened and those who received a 77+ percentile rank, then took the full.  As a parent you may be asking yourself, "Should I be worried if my child did not take the full CogAT test?"  No.  This is only one of the two ways to qualify for high ability.  Please remember, CogAT is a test with zero reading.  It is a test which shows how students think.  It often identifies your out-of-the-box thinkers.  There is no way to prepare for it, nor does it test things that are taught in class.  It's just the way the student thinks.  We have the data, but will not make any final decisions until the NWEA data is in.

Second Grade NWEA Testing:

 Two scores listed, yours will have one.

The window for the NWEA test will open April 19th.  NWEA data from the end of the year is an achievement test.  Students who are shining in the classroom often score high on this test.  The big change going from second to third grade is the "Language Arts" section.  Students need to score in the 95th percentile or higher, on not only the "Reading" section, but also the "Language Arts" section.  Quite frankly, we do a lot of writing and reading in our third and fourth grade curriculum.  The LA section is not available to kindergarten and first.  A good suggestion that I give parents who are anxiously waiting their child's test scores, look back at past NWEA scores from this year.  Look at their Fall and Winter scores to see how they've done this year so far.  The score you need to look at, is the middle one similar to the highlighted snip above.  The middle, bold number needs to be 95 or higher in order to be considered for HA.  The number of students identified will be around ten percent of the second grade class.  Please don't hesitate if you have questions.  I'm sure this is a little overwhelming.  I'm here to help and answer any questions or concerns that you may have.  The bottom line, we want our kids to be where they need to be!  At the elementary level, that's during our WIN time.  What I Need.  Students are looked at each and every year for high ability.  Just because they were not identified in elementary school, does not mean they will not be identified later.

High Ability Summer School:

Brochures will go home today with the information about high ability summer school.  It will be taught again by Mrs. Pethes, a fourth grade teacher at Liberty.  I'm so impressed with her program!  Students really enjoy getting immersed in the theme of Old England.  It's hard to believe, but it's time to start planning your summer to see if you can schedule all those fun activities and educational camps.  It will run Friday, May 31st-Thursday June 21st.  If you have any overlap, no worries.  Mrs. Pethes is very adaptable.  It is offered to all current high ability students grades 1st-3rd grade.  Please fill out the form and turn it into the office by:  Friday, April 27th.

December 11- December 15

BAILLY'S SUPER WORD OF THE WEEK

DECISION: to make up your mind 

1st GRADE LA

Persuasive Paragraph: Monday we tried to finish up our persuasive paragraphs. I allowed students to be PROACTIVE and take it home to finish. I was happy to see many of them chose to do so. If it was not completed in class or for homework I will allow a few minutes on Monday for completion. The hamburger model and persuasive paragraph has allowed the student to utilize a higher-level thinking skill while planning and writing. 

Tuesday the students were on a field trip.

2nd GRADE LA

 Journals, Review, and Metaphors: Monday I had the students finish their journal entry. Last week I asked the students, Would Edward be better off staying with Bull and Lucy? If you are not reading The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane with your child, I highly recommend it. It has quickly became one of my favorite books. This book can be an easy read or studied for its' deep metaphors and endless connections. The journal entries allow me to see how deep the students are reading and relating to our discussions. 

I love the way we review our homework readings with each table getting to explain a chapter to the class. We have charts in our room to help us track the book. If a new character or setting is introduced, Edward's name or outfit changes, or Edward has experience another emotion, we track them with post-its. It's kinda a big deal to get to write the post-it 😉.

As I mentioned above, this book has a lot of connections when you look beyond the surface. This allows the perfect opportunity to introduce metaphors. We read an excerpt from the Testing Tree found in the beginning of Edward Tulane. Once I set the path, they saw how the excerpt relates to our story. They realized metaphors, "describing something by calling it something else", are all around us. We will continue our metaphor lesson next week. 

HOMEWORK:

 Read chap 18-21

 Reading Analyzer: FAVORITE chapter

3rd GRADE LA

Writing & Homework: We finished our Beatrix Potter lesson this week. The students wrote on a chart similarities between the theme, setting, plot and character traits in their books. We then identified the different interactions and how they affected the plots of their different stories. This lesson continued to help develop the understanding of interactions while also analyzing classic fictional texts. 

We finished up by starting this weeks HOMEWORK. 

HOMEWORK: Finish your interactions journal. Think of a time you interacted with nature in an imaginative way. Write a paragraph describing your experience. ILLUSTRATE your paragraph with colored pencils, crayons, or markers. 

4th GRADE LA

Computer Lab & Project: Monday we were able to get into the computer lab and print out our pictures for our biography project. Not everyone had their pictures ready. This task is now their responsibility to complete on their own time. However, it is known that they are always welcome to come into my class during lunch recess to complete this!! Once students are done typing out their time line events they will start gluing everything to the time line!! Hopefully, this is where we will be close to ending at before the break. 

December 18 - December 22

BAILLY'S SUPER WORD OF THE WEEK

CARPE DIEM: seize the day

Change/Gifted Children/Best Practices

Duneland's high ability program will be changing starting with our current kindergarten students.  Change is not always easy, but if it benefits our students then we know we are moving in the right direction!  More details will soon follow . . .

1st GRADE LA

Finish to the start: We finished our persuasive paragraphs on Monday. I wanted the students to learn a few different concepts with this writing. First, I wanted the students to understand if you wish to persuade someone, you must give them reasons for following your thinking. In our paragraphs we gave three reasons we believed all first graders should speak Pig Latin. Next, I wanted to emphasize the idea of introduction and conclusion. 

We want our readers to understand what we are writing about because they do not have the opportunity to read our writing prompt. By writing an introduction, it allows us to explain what we were prompted to write. In the conclusion, I wanted the class to recognize we are simply restating the introduction. Last, I wanted to stress basic writing skills.

The class now knows we indent at the beginning of paragraphs and we ALWAYS start a sentence with a capital letter and end with punctuation!!!

After our persuasive writing we went right into our next lesson, Connecting Letters and Language. Monday we did a fun activity changing one letter in a word to create a new word. However, the new word had to match the clue given to us. Tuesday we started class with the usual beginning of a lesson task, deciphering a message. We had 1 rock star who got it right away. The others soon followed once they found the clue and noticed the connection, OVER & UNDER. This lesson will show us how letters are kind of like magic; by simply changing one letter in a word we have something completely different.

2nd GRADE LA

Metaphors & Main Ideas: The class was introduced to metaphors last week.We began this week with a metaphor matching worksheet to reveal how common metaphors are and how often we hear them. Rereading chapter 4 in The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane the student now understand how the story Pellegrina told Abilene is a metaphor of Edward's life.

We also read a quote from the beginning of the book. Until now, the students would not have known how this exert would fit into Edward's journey. They clearly understands how this metaphor relates to Edwards life.  

3rd GRADE LA

~NO CLASS DUE TO FIELD TRIPS AND HOLIDAY ACTIVITIES~

Nature interaction paragraphs AND pictures are still due!!

4th GRADE LA 

Pictures, Timelines and Slideshows: As of Tuesday, everyone has had a chance to print all of their pictures for the timelines. Next, students will need to finish typing their dates, print and cut them out and glue the pictures and dates to their timelines.

We have ROCK STAR done with her timeline. These dates can always be typed at home on the student's school google account accessible from any computer with internet. I will allow the students to finish up any typing our first week back from break, then we need to put the timelines together and start on our slide show and monologue.  

1st GRADE MA

What Happened: This week was game time. We played the game 'What Happened' where each table was split into 2 groups, the guessing group and the spinning group. The guessing group had to pull a card from our Grupo deck, recreate it with shapes we made with post-it's from a previous lesson and memorize it. The spinning group will spin the the game dish either landing on 'MOVE ONE SHAPE', 'DO NOTHING', OR 'TAKE OFF ONE SHAPE'.

With the guessing team's backs turned the spinning team alters the shape. The guessing team most then decide what component of the shape has been altered.

This game allows the students to use their spacial visualization in order to see how the shapes were manipulated.

2nd GRADE MA

NO CLASS THIS WEEK: I hope everyone enjoyed Roles Poetry Cafe and their holiday parties! I had a great time helping out with Mrs. Ahrendt's holiday party.

3rd GRADE MA

Chapter Check-Up: What a way to end the last week before Holiday break, with a Chapter Check-Up! I am so sorry, but I wanted to get it done rather than after break when we may have forgotten a few things.........

4th GRADE MA

Least Common Denominator: The last couple of weeks we've been comparing unlike fractions. We have learned a few different methods to find our answers. We learned a couple of generalization rules when we have common numerators and common denominators. 

Our last day we were missing one of our classes and were unable to finish our least common denominator worksheet. We instead did a fun word/fraction worksheet.

The worksheet forced students to simplify, allowing the concept of our fraction strips we did at the beginning of the year to be used.  The worksheet looked at a word to be the whole and letters to be part of the whole. It was a fun class.