Friday, May 4, 2018

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 31June 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 it๐Ÿ˜‰