A Recap of Our Week
1st Grade LA
Anagrams:
We only met on Tuesday this week, starting Lesson 6, Alphabet Acrobats-Magical
Connections. We began the class by trying to decipher a message written
using mirror writing. At first, the students did not understand how a mirror
was going to help them read a message. It only took a couple of minutes for these guys
to figure it out. We learned that Leonardo da Vinci wrote some of his
ideas for his inventions using mirror writing. While we don’t know for sure why, it’s
believed he wanted to make it harder for people to read his notes or steal his
designs. Next, went over our ‘PTOS’ homework. We made a list of the words
everyone came up with: stop, tops, spot, pots and post. We ended our day with a
question, how are anagrams like magic? This is where we will take off next
week.
1st Grade MA
Area:
We started a new chapter introducing the concept of area. The students
were given 2 different size placemats and had to decide which one had more
space, ‘area’ to eat a snack on. One placemat was a rectangle while the other was
a square. The students went around the room telling me why one had more area
than the other. I
gave each table post-it notes to fill in the placemats. This offered the students a
visual to see the difference in area between the two. Some of the students were
a little surprised. Tuesday, we compared two different targets for a Pom-Pom game
toss we will play later. They were given 1 square inch foam pieces to find the
area of the targets. This allowed them to see targets with different shapes can
have the same area. We then glued 4, 1 square inch pieces of paper to create our own targets.
2nd Grade LA
WE
FINISHED: Wednesday, before we read the last chapter of The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane, we answered our ‘7
questions’ for the last time. These are questions we answered before we
read the book, in the middle of the book and before we read the last chapter.
Next week we will look at how much our answers have changed as we read.
We then read the LAST CHAPTER!!!! It was a great ending! I won’t give it away,
but I’m sure if you ask your child they would love to tell you how it ended. Thursday
was a fun day. We worked on a Edward Tulane crossword as a class. It was a great review of the book.
2nd Grade MA
*CRASH TEST VIDEOS ARE AT THE BOTTOM OF THE BLOG*
We
crashed our eggs!!: We finally we able to test our car seats and see if they would protect our eggs. All the car seats were a success! In order for a car
seat to be considered a success 2 criteria’s needed to be met. First, the car seat needed to stay secured in the
truck. Second, the egg needed to stay secured in the car seat. After our crash tests, we discussed what a
“Consumer Report” would say about our car seats. We talked about cost based on
the amount of material a group used. We also discussed ‘ease of car seat use’. This meant how easily one could get the egg into the car seat. The last criteria we
looked at on the consumer report was the ‘fit to vehicle’. This means, how easy was it to get
the car seat into the truck. Out of 3 stars, all of our car seats received a 2
star rating. We decided that while they all “passed” the crash test, there were
elements we could have improved on based on ideas from the other groups.
3rd Grade LA
Fables: Only meeting Tuesday, we continued our lesson on Fables. We read “The
Lion and the Mouse” and filled out a reading analyzer. While filling out
the reading analyzer, the students did any amazing job relating the main idea
of the fable to some of our 7 Habits. They made this connection completely on
their own!! So proud of them!!! It’s now a game to see how many habits we can relate to a fable.
3rd Grade MA
Area:
On Wednesday we started looking at area. We practiced finding the area of a
rectangle. We looked at two different ways to find area, multiplying length by
width and adding the square units. We then learned how to ‘partition’, section off, a
rectangle. We practiced finding the area for the two NEW rectangles. Thursday was
a crazy kind of day. While we started the next lesson in math, we ended with me
introducing the game of Sets to the students. This math game is an out of the
box thinking game and so much fun. I actually took it home over winter break to play
it with my kids. Sometimes, we just need a little break, and that’s what we
did!4th Grade LA
Timelines
were DUE THIS WEEK!!!!!
I only received 3 of the 12 students timelines. I told the students they could
take them home to finish, no one did. Unfortunately I can NOT give any more
class time to finish them. We must move on with our project. I will email you if your child does not have it
completed.
4th Grade MA
Do
you see what I see? : We have started a new chapter on spatial visualization. Wednesday
and Thursday we were introduced to new vocabulary and the three types of transformation. We
learned and practiced translation,
sliding the same point of a figure the same distance in the same direction. We
started with a star on a grid, a student needed to direct us how to get to it. We then realized when describing translation we need: a starting point, the
direction of the translation (left, right, up or down) and the distance (e.g.
one space). Next, we learned about reflection, a transformation that flips a figure over a line (line of reflection). In
class we worked on a worksheet that showed a trapezoid and a line of
reflection. The students needed to describe and draw the reflection. Doing this
required them to give the direction of the reflection (up, down, left or right)
and say if the line of reflection was horizontal or vertical. Our last
transformation we touched on was rotation, turning a figure about a fixed point at a given amount
in a specific direction. Doing a class exercise, I gave the students non-specific
rotation directions. I had them stand facing one direction. I
told them to turn around, turn clockwise, turn halfway, and turn 90 degrees.
Needless to say, they all ended in different directions. We now know the importance
of rotation direction (clockwise, counterclockwise), amount of rotation (90,
180, 270 or 360 degrees) and the point of rotation (inside, outside, or on).
The point of rotation is where we will begin next week.
2ND GRADE CRASH TESTS
*All of the videos are unlisted, unsearchable on You Tube. No one can see them unless they have the link.*
2ND GRADE CRASH TESTS
*All of the videos are unlisted, unsearchable on You Tube. No one can see them unless they have the link.*
