Brummitt's High Ability Blog Spot: Farewell February!!

Well it’s another week of changing weather. I think we are finally getting the winter weather but let’s hope it leaves soon. I know that we missed all the Math classes this week so we will pick up those where we left off last week. We are all ready for spring. This week at Brummitt we celebrated the great Dr. Seuss. All the students really enjoyed dressing up this week and having lots of fun with all the activities that were planned. I hear there is a special surprise planned for today. I can’t wait till Monday to hear all about it.

I have finished up the first part of my CogAT testing with all of the kindergarten classes. Next week I will start with the second grade classes. I hope it goes as smooth as the first part went. We are trying a new method this year and the students are getting to use the I-Pads to take the exams. I feel it is working great. I might have a few classes change in the next few weeks but I hope to not change the schedule too much.

There is so much going on in March at Brummitt. I want to make sure to give you a heads up about all the great events planned. The book fair will run from March 2^nd thru March 8^th. The theme this time is Feelin’ Groovy Book Fair: Love and Books! The library is already starting to look really cool. The VIP night will be March 8^th, grades K-2 at 5:30 and 3-4 at 6:30.

Jar Wars start Monday February 29^th and run to March 4^th. Make sure to bring in all your change each day.

The Festival of Learning will be March 3^rd from 6pm to 7:30pm. I know I am really excited to see all the projects created by each grade and the entire school’s hard work. I hope to see everyone there.

This week we continued learning about our Life Skills with Perseverance steadfastness in doing something despite difficulty or delay in achieving success. I think it is so important for all students to learn and understand to be successful. I think that with all the students preparing for the festival of learning they need to remember that their perseverance will help them complete their projects and goals. I want them to understand that the difficulties and delays only help them to become stronger and better students and people. They just need to keep pushing toward their goal to get it done.

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 …. His head is in the clouds. I think we have all been there when we just can’t stop daydreaming. I asked the students when they might feel like that.

They all agreed during class sometimes. I told them I understand, but they have to persevere to get their heads back down to earth to learn and they all agreed. No takers for a picture this week, but maybe next week. Here is the hint: it involves feet and we have all been there. Good luck and I hope someone decides to draw this one or find a cool illustration online.

Language Arts

First Grade:

This week we continued with the Rebus puzzles and words. The students got to read and listen to The Fantastic 5 & 10 Cent Store A Rebus Adventure.

We all took turns reading the story and figuring out each rebus word as we went. The students loved the adventure and all the cool words they could create with the clues.
On Tuesday we reread the story for fun and then the students were given a list of grocery store items and they had to figure out their own rebus words. They all were brainstorming with me and each other to see what they could come up with. They all drew out a few of their ideas before they each found the one that they really wanted to use. Next week they will finish up their creations and we will share them with each other.

Second Grade:

This week the students started their word clouds about The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane by Kate DiCamillo. The students will create a word cloud about the book. They all got the chance to look for words, characters, and items in the book that they felt were most important to them.

They then made a complete list of those things to enter into a word cloud next week. They also took time to write in their journal about the book and their thoughts about it.

Tuesday they got the opportunity to use the laptops to start inputting their lists into a document for their word clouds. Next week we will continue with the clouds and start a fun Jeopardy game on the novel.

Third Grade:

This week the students met with their partners to finish their reading analyzer on the Tinder Box. They also each had a section of the story where they found all the verbs which they will share with us next week.

On Tuesday after finishing up with their partners, the students got to watch video on Tinder Box. The students will complete a comparison of both the video and fairy tale to share the differences. Next week we will finish up on all these projects and share our findings.

Fourth Grade:

This week we had one last student finishing his monologue and some students showing us their prezi presentations. We still have a few students that need to finish up the prezis next week.

On Tuesday I had the students start the next lesson on Tecumseh and American History. The students started reading an article about him. Next week they will compare his life to what was happening in America during that time period.