News for the Week of October 5, 2015

Life Skill:  Organization
Quote:  Nature uses only the longest threads to weave her patterns, so that each small piece of her fabric reveals the organization of the entire tapestry.
                                                                          --Richard P. Feynman

Captain's Table of STAR Students

(STAR = Stop, Think, Act Responsibly)

                                                   Student                     Life Skill                           

1st Grade Math                           Alyssa                    Enthusiasm   
                             

2nd Grade LA                              Aiden                          Effort
2nd Grade Math                           Kali                      Responsibility

3rd Grade LA                            Karalena                 Responsibility
3rd Grade Math                          Emma                    Organization

4th Grade LA                                 Ira                        Enthusiasm
4th Grade Math                         Michael                   Organization

This Week In HA...

**This week, 2nd through 4th grade students completed the writing portion of the language arts pre-assessments.  As I have stated previously, we will continue to work on these assessments over the next couple of weeks to keep the test periods brief and enable us to engage in other LA activities as we work our way through the pre-assessments.

1st Grade LA

First grade has completed all language arts pre-assessments.  Therefore, the students continued working on their "Coat of Connections".  Ask your child to tell you about 2-3 of the patches he/she has created to depict connections between objects, places, ideas, and/or people that are an important part of his/her life.

2nd Grade LA

This week, second grade finished the final section of the language arts pre-assessment.  Afterwards, the students sorted sets of items into groups according to common connections between the items. After sorting the items, we determined if the items could be sorted differently based on other types of connections.  When we finished looking at different ways things area connected, we developed a list of generalizations about connections.  We determined that connections:

• Show a relationship between people, places, items and ideas.
• Can be physical, intellectual, emotional and social.
• Can change or stay the same.

Then, we created a poster depicting things that are connected along with examples of non-connections and listed our generalizations regarding connections.  This poster will be mounted in the classroom for future reference as we will continue to discuss connections throughout our studies this year.  Ask your child to give you a list of items that are connected and provide the category label for their list of items.   

3rd Grade LA

In third grade this week, we reviewed the concept of change and discussed generalizations about change.  We determined that change:

• Can be perceived as positive or negative.
• Can be caused by humans or occur naturally.
• Is everywhere.
• Is linked to time as it is a process.
• Can be orderly or random.

Afterwards, the students chose their favorite examples of change and non-examples of change from the lists we created last week and created a class poster. This poster will be mounted in the classroom for future reference as we will continue to discuss change throughout our studies this year. 

4th Grade LA

Fourth grade students completed an interview with a Bailly staff member.  They asked the staff member questions about an important change that occurred in his/her life.  Ask your child who they interviewed and what they learned about change from the adult they interviewed.
           

Building Vocabulary 

Our "Words of the Day" for this week are salient and facilitate.  Ask your child to define these words for you.  If he/she is unable to give you the meaning of the words, ask him/her to look up the definition in the dictionary.

1st - 3rd Grade Math

This week in first through third grades, the students continued working on "What's the Next Number?", which are math activities created by Ed Zaccaro.  This unit requires students to identify patterns within a sequence of numbers.  The students had to determine how each successive number changed and apply this rule to determine the next number in the pattern.  After completing "What's the Next Number? activities, I introduced our next unit developed by Ed Zaccaro titled, "Don't Let It Break".  In this unit, the students are to use math to determine when things will break.  We discussed why it would be important to know about weight limits and how this impacts our safety.  

Ask your child to give you the rule for solving the problems below and use the rule to solve the following puzzles:

1st - 4, 9, 14, 19, 24, ?, ?
2nd - $1000, $500, $250, ?,
3rd - 20, 15, 10, 5, 0, -5, -10, ?, ?

4th Grade Math

Fourth grade students continued to work on our logic puzzle, Raking Leaves.  Ask your child how they are progressing with their solution to this challenging activity.

Now that we are cruising along with our activities for the year, I have observed a thirst for knowledge in the students and growing enthusiasm for learning.  My goal is to make learning fun and exciting to keep students coming back for more.  My hope is that I leave the students with a thirst for knowledge that is unquenchable as I want to encourage them to be lifelong learners.

Hope you have "smooth sailing" this weekend.  Enjoy!

Melissa Valtierra
High Ability Aide
Bailly Elementary School