Hello November and everything fall. It has been a great week here at Brummitt. The book fair had its VIP night and I heard it was an awesome night filled with fun, excitement, and reading.
I hope everyone that attended got all the books they needed to read for the winter ahead.
On Wednesday it was Veteran’s Day and I just want to thank all our Veterans out there that have served our country to help protect our land and way of life. Here is a brief history of this day:
History of Veterans Day
World War I – known at the time as “The Great War” - officially ended when the Treaty of Versailles was signed on June 28, 1919, in the Palace of Versailles outside the town of Versailles, France. However, fighting ceased seven months earlier when an armistice, or temporary cessation of hostilities, between the Allied nations and Germany went into effect on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month. For that reason, November 11, 1918, is generally regarded as the end of “the war to end all wars.”
Soldiers of the 353rd Infantry near a church at Stenay, Meuse in France, wait for the end of hostilities. This photo was taken at 10:58 a.m., on November 11, 1918, two minutes before the armistice ending World War I went into effect
In November 1919, President Wilson proclaimed November 11 as the first commemoration of Armistice Day with the following words: "To us in America, the reflections of Armistice Day will be filled with solemn pride in the heroism of those who died in the country’s service and with gratitude for the victory, both because of the thing from which it has freed us and because of the opportunity it has given America to show her sympathy with peace and justice in the councils of the nations…"
The original concept for the celebration was for a day observed with parades and public meetings and a brief suspension of business beginning at 11:00 a.m.
The United States Congress officially recognized the end of World War I when it passed a concurrent resolution on June 4, 1926
The rest of the week was very busy and full of a lot of wind. This week we continued learning about Life Skills with Kindness.
I think the month of November starts our holiday season and I want to teach the students about how what we do can help and affect others. Small acts of kindness can make a huge difference in others’ lives.
I want them to understand how they treat other students and people can help change lives and make them feel loved. I know that the students see acts of kindness each day and I want them to be more observant and recognize that person when they are doing something kind.
So this is the season of kindness and being generous and grateful. I know they all care so much about each other it will be easy to see all the acts of kindness around them.
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 …. Put on your thinking cap. This one really made everyone laugh because they hear so often in their classes. They all let me know that teachers tell them this almost every day. We discussed times where you would really need to use this to remember to concentrate and get serious about listening and learning. The students were all really excited about thinking of ideas of what they could draw or find to make a thinking cap which was really fun to hear, and I did have one student turn one in at the last minute yippee.
At the end of the day on Thursday I put out the new idiom and I will give a clue. I have a tickle in my tummy because…….. I look forward to seeing if any students can come up with clever ideas to illustrate this one.
Language Arts
First Grade:
This week we continued to work on Pig Latin. The students took their connections sheets from the last lesson and picked one to share and convert into Pig Latin for us to guess. It was such a blast to see them working hard to figure out what the outside connection was. We also started to talk about how we use our connections each day.
This week we also started working on the difference between fact and opinion and had an intense discussion on which is which. It was very interesting for the students to learn that you can change a word or two in a sentence and it can change something from a fact to someone’s opinion. We discussed the term opinion itself and how each of us can have different ones when talking about different things.
On Tuesday I introduced the idea of persuasive writing and using our opinion to write a persuasive paragraph. We reviewed the hamburger model that they learned about last year.
They remembered so much about what they need to create a hamburger model outline. They were really excited to learn the Hamburger Model Song. I am not much of a singer but we tried our best to sing it all together. Here it is:
The Hamburger Model
Song
(sung to the tune of “Mary Had a Little
Lamb”)
We can write to persuade you
persuade you
persuade you
We can write to persuade you
by using hamburgers
The top bun tells you what we think
what we think
what we think
The top bun tells you what we think
it states our opinion
The patties tell the reasons why
reasons why
reasons why
The patties tell the reasons why
we think you should agree
We finish with the bottom bun
bottom bun
bottom bun
We finish with the bottom bun
with what we said before
We can write to persuade you
persuade you
persuade you
We can write to persuade you
by using hamburgers
Next week we will translate
it into Pig Latin and see if we can sing it. I will let you know how that goes.
As a group we wrote our first persuasive paragraph. We worked together to
convince others that all first graders should learn pig latin. I think this
will help the students feel confident when they need to create and write their
first paragraph on their own. Next week
we will continue with Pig Latin and persuasive writing. Next week we will also
continue with connections. Students will have to make connections between words
and figure out what the new word is with the clues provided.
Second Grade:
This week it was very exciting because we started our novel The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane. The students were overjoyed to start the book and talk about it. I wanted the students to look at the cover and think of all the possibilities of what the book could be about. We took the time to answer questions and make predictions. I wanted the students to make predictions about the story and characters to see how those will change as we start to read.
I created a board to place all their predictions on so we can review them through each part of the book and they will have time to make changes to them. I have posted a picture of our board. On Tuesday we discussed the board and our answers and we started the novel.
We read chapter one and all the students we so upset that we needed to wait until next week to read any further. We discussed it and they all agreed that they would like to complete some reading at home each week. I have included a note on each book for you the parents to know what they can read over the weekend.
Please make sure that they don’t read ahead of chapter 3 because we will be making predictions each week as we read and I don’t want them to know too much beforehand. Also please make sure they bring the book back with them on Monday for class. We will need them. I think this unit will be so thrilling for the students, they are really looking forward to getting into understanding and deliberating each chapter. Next week we continue on our journey with Edward Tulane to see what will happen to him next.
Third Grade:
On Monday this week the students wrote in their journals about this quote: "Aim for the stars; if you fall short, you will land on the moon." -Unknown author. After they wrote about it they shared their thoughts and feeling on what it means. It was a great discussion to see how different students interpreted it.
They really did a great job sharing their thoughts. We then reviewed what we had learned so far about genres of literature. We discussed Myths and Legends and how they influenced the people of those times. We also discussed how the people’s backgrounds played a huge part in what they believed and learned from the myths.
The students also saw a lesson in each myth that was being taught to the people. The Native Myths really wanted their people to believe and learn from each story. On Tuesday I wanted the students to take time again to write in their journals so I posted another quote for them to write about and then discuss.
What you do today can improve all your tomorrows. - Ralph Marston They really took the time to think before they wrote about it. They wanted to make sure that they wrote down what they really felt about the quote. We had an enthusiastic discussion about what they thought.
Then we started to work on grammar and parts of speech. The students got to work in groups to dissect one of the myths finding all the nouns in the story. Then they had to figure out if it was a person, place, thing, or idea.
We didn’t get to complete it so we will pick right back up with it on Monday. We will then see what each group found and where they placed them in their chart.
Fourth Grade:
This week we continued to work on Greek and Latin root words. The students worked on their worksheets to figure out each word and what the roots were. Once they completed the sheet they got to start on the fantastic wizardly activity. It is a Harry Potter root word assignment where they will figure out each word and what it breaks down into to find the meaning. They will then decide whether it is a spell, curse, charm or object. Then if they know the book the word is introduced in they get a bonus. I know it will be challenging for them, but they were really excited to start working on it. I did let them take it home if they wanted to look at it over the weekend. Next week we will go over Harry Potter words and start to look at biographies and people who have made a difference.
Math
First Grade:
This week we continued to work on the chapter called How Much Change Will I Get? It didn’t go as well on level 2. I think that this group needs to learn more about money and making change before we could work on the other levels. I decided after finishing up on Wednesday that I wanted to teach them as much as I could about making change and money.
On Thursday the students got to watch two short videos on Brain Pop Jr. on counting change and saving money. We discussed each section of the video and talked about saving and sharing money. They were very interested in discussing chores and ways they can earn their own money. Then they each went up to the board and we solved an addition money problem. They all did an awesome job grouping the numbers together and adding different amounts of money. Next week I think we will continue on this path with some fun activities about money and counting lots of coins.
Second Grade:
On Wednesday I decided we needed a break so we worked on sumdog.com on the computer and talked about money and saving .On Thursday we continued to work on the chapter called How Much Change Will I Get?. We completed level 3 and went back to the last chapter and finished up level three there too.
We also talked about what we like about these chapters and if we wanted to work more with money before moving on. We decided that working more with money sounded like an awesome idea. So we will dig deeper into money and making change and what things cost.
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. This week was Divisor. Divisor -the number by which another number is divided. The number you divide bydividend ÷ divisor = quotient Example: in 12 ÷ 3 = 4, 3 is the divisor This problem was a review for most students and they did an awesome job answering the question quickly.
For some of the third graders they didn’t read the definition first and missed
it because they didn’t read the wall. They went back and read the info posted
and then got it right immediately. This taught them a valuable lesson always
read directions first. Since some students also did it last week I am hoping
two weeks in a row they have figured out to look before you answer. I guess we
will see next week.
Third Grade:
This week we continued to work on How Much Change Will I Get? but most of the students finished up everything in the first ten minutes of class. I decided to take the rest of Wednesday to move on to the next chapter and let the last few students spend Thursday getting caught up because they were out or missed part of the class. We started Balance It. This chapter works on fractions and figuring out how to make things balance.
The students really liked working out what is needed to make the sides even. I had a few students not listen carefully when they answered some questions because it was asking for something different then what it was showing which tricked them but once they went back and I reread it to them they caught their mistake and fixed it.
On Thursday I let them break into small groups to work together on the new chapter and finish up their last chapter. It was nice to see them all work in teams to complete a common goal. Next week we will continue on this chapter and finish up all the levels and work more on fractions.
Fourth Grade:
This week the students all started the next chapter called Don’t Let It Break. This chapter is all about problem solving. The students did a great job reading through and solving the first two levels on Wednesday. Some worked alone while others worked with a partner.
I let them chose which worked best for them. Next week we will take a break and start on multiplication with a cool awesome lesson.
Have a great weekend!!
Mrs. Lutterman
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