One week left until the Brummitt Bash. I know the students are getting excited to celebrate the season at this exciting PTO event. 

Next week students will be able to submit their entries for the pumpkin contest here in the media and library area. 

 I can’t wait to see all the ingenious and creative ideas the students come up with. I hear the theme for the contest is Disney. I hope to see Mickey and the whole gang as well as maybe a few famous villains. 

I am also hoping to even see Jack Skellington and a few friends from Halloween Town.

 This week we continued learning about the Life Skill of Respect. Every morning Mr. Cammarata gives great advice on the announcements of how you can use this life skill every day at school and at home. 

 He reminded student of how important Respect is to give and get. He also spoke of a great quote by Dr. Seuss that says it all. I even found a cool illustration of it. I know that students need to respect themselves and the others around them. I even have it as one of my classroom rules. I want the students to know without respect we are lost. I also reminded them this week that they have to earn it every day by their actions in school and life. 

 I even gave them the definition to remind them of its importance: a feeling of deep admiration for someone or something elicited by their abilities, qualities, or achievements.  

I know that respect is just the first of many life skills they will learn throughout the year and each can build off the others. Respect is one of the most important life skills to learn in order to be a successful student and person.

Idiom of the Week

 An Idiom is an expression whose meaning is not predictable from the usual meanings of its constituent elements. This week’s was …. Don’t cry over spilled milk. Most of the students really understood this one. They got that you shouldn’t cry or get upset about things that can’t be undone or changed.

 We talked about it and they really can relate to getting upset about something and then realizing you can’t change it. Some students even shared their examples of when they might have overreacted about a situation and then realized it was something they couldn’t change. I didn’t have any students try a drawing this week, but I am hopeful that they will try one next week. (Hint: They’re in hot water.)

Language Arts

First Grade:

 This week the students worked on their shields creating the rest of their patches for the front. They also wrote out what each symbol means and why they used it to describe who they are. They also took time to talk about their homework which was to look for four connections they see at home. They came up with some great things. I was so proud of how they could describe in great detail why they chose each pair and what it meant to them.

  On Tuesday we had a few minutes left so they got to create their own Halloween bats for the class. Next week they will make presentations on their shields and we will all discuss each patch. We will also elaborate on signs and symbols and where we see them each day. I also hope to start on the Caesar Cipher.  I am sure they will love using it throughout the year. We will also keep talking about connections.

Second Grade:

 This week we worked on the hamburger model. I wanted to discuss how they could use it when they are writing to help them collect their thoughts and ideas into a usable form. 

 For some this was new and for others they remembered it from last year. They had to choose one of the generalizations about connections and support why it is true.

 They had to come up with at least three reasons why to support it. I want to make sure this year we work a lot more on writing and organizing thoughts into cohesive writing. I want them to feel confident in how they write and what they discuss in their writing. My goal this year is to have them excited and enthusiastic about writing. Wish me luck. We didn’t get to meet on Tuesday because of testing and early dismissal, but we will pick up where we left off on the writing and discuss what each student wrote and why.

Third Grade:

 This week we continued to work on change. They students discussed and presented their lists they created with things that change. They had so much fun talking to everyone in the class about what they had on their lists and why. We also reviewed the five generalizations of change that will be a theme throughout the year. 

 This concept of change is new for these students this year and they are doing a great job embracing the higher thinking ideas and concepts we are discussing each class. 

We didn’t get to meet on Tuesday because of early dismissal but we will pick up next week and go into more detail about the generalizations of change and the students will have the opportunity to create a hamburger model and write about one of the generalizations of change. I look forward to seeing how many students have seen the hamburger model before and know how to use it.

Fourth Grade:

This week we continued to work on change. Monday, students worked on their charts and we talked about all the change that is around us each day of our lives. We also discussed things that don’t change which were much harder to find because of their always being the chance something could change. I also gave the students their first assignment to work on outside of class. 

 They need to complete an interview of someone they know that has been through a change. They will come back in class and write about it and then present it to us. This is the first step to get the students comfortable with writing about real people and about change. It will also give them the chance to present something to us since they will be completing a few presentations this year in class. 

 I hope they have fun interviewing someone close to them. On Tuesday we had some students that needed to complete their last assessment because they were out. The rest of the class worked on a writing project. 

They had to choose one of the generalizations about change and write why they feel it is true. They had to use at least three reasons to support their opinion. They had to make sure they used a hamburger model to outline what they would be writing about. Next week they will continue to work on this and their interviews.

Math

First Grade:

 This week we completed the next chapter which covered problem solving. This was really hard and they worked on it with me. We completed each problem together. I drew pictures to help explain each one as we went through them. It was so adorable that they actually think my drawings of little rats were cute.

 I can’t draw, as you will see throughout the year on the board in the background, but they think I did a great job. J So this helped them all to better understand each step to solve the problem. Some students only got to meet with me on Thursday so we only completed level 1 this week. 

  I wanted to give them a few minutes at the end of class for some fun since they worked so hard and we played on the IPads. After that entire high level math thinking I knew they could use the math facts to relax. 
Next week we will move on to chapter three How Much Does it Cost? It will be so much fun since it is all about money. The kids will enjoy the change of pace and the stories are really cute.

Second Grade:

 This week we worked on the next chapter in our packet which is all about problem solving. This chapter was harder than I first expected but we pushed through it and completed as much as we could. I sent the rest of the packet home in case anyone wanted to complete the other levels on their own. It was fun to see each step on the problem solving process. I would read the question and let the students figure out how to solve it. They came up with some clever ways to figure it out.

 I wanted to reward them for all hard work, so we took the last few minutes on Thursday and worked on the whiteboard to play math games. It was so much fun to take the time to unwind after all that thinking. Next week we will start on the next chapter called How Much Does it Cost? This will be much easier since we have worked on money problems before and we should be able to work a level or two up. I look forward to the challenge.

Third and Fourth Grade: Math Vocabulary Comic Relief

This year I am starting something new we will be doing each week on Wednesdays. I have the Math Vocabulary Comic Relief board. Each week when the students come in on Wednesday they will go to look at the board and grab their problem. They will have five minutes to read and solve it. Once they have their answer they can turn over their paper and raise their hand and I will check it. This week was all about Probability. The question has some funny terms and names which link back to probability, like the teacher’s name is Ms. Likely. Some of the students get it and laugh and others need the joke explainer to help them out. There is also a cartoon that is posted each week which is funny and the kids all love that part. I then review the definition and we take a few minutes to discuss it to make sure everyone understands. I think this will give the students a chance to learn new math terms and review some important ones. I look forward to seeing how much they already know and what will be new. Next week will be Associative Property. I wonder how many students will already know it without realizing they do.  

Third Grade:

 On Wednesday after we discussed probability, we started on the next chapter called Don’t Let it Break! This chapter was all about problem solving. Seeing how much weight something can handle before disaster sets in. I read the first part so we could discuss the sample problems and they loved it. Then we broke into small groups and started working. They did a great job helping each other. 

 They also even got me to help out with some problems they were stuck on. It was very much a class effort. On Thursday we kept working to see how much we could get done. Everyone completed level three and some even got through most of the genius level. I gave them the last ten minutes to have some fun with the IPads. They got right into working on their math facts to beat their opponents in the game of their choice. They had a blast this week pushing their minds with the problem solving and ending the week with a little fun. 

Next week we will move on to the next chapter called How Much Does it Cost? I think they will rock through this with ease at first. I also know they should be pretty challenged by the genius level though. I look forward to seeing them figure each problem out.

Fourth Grade:

This week we continued working on logic. We finished the first puzzle and finished the second. Once the groups got moving it became much easier for them to understand. 

 I worked with most of them and I think it helped them to hear someone read the puzzle over and over so they could figure each part out. I also had one student complete the entire puzzle in one day.  Congrats to Josey great job! 

Next week we will start on the next puzzle. I look forward to seeing how they do on this one. I think they will rock through it quickly if they all work together.

 I almost forgot that on Wednesday they also completed the comic relief question and they loved the humor. They totally liked it. I am happy they got it.

Have a great weekend.

Mrs. Lutterman