Brummitt's High Ability Blog Spot: Hello March!

This was a fabulous week here at Brummitt. There was so much excitement getting ready for the Festival of Learning. All the students worked so hard on their projects. They all looked so great. I enjoyed seeing each and every one of them. I loved getting to see all the hard work every student does pay off. It was so fun getting to see all my students Thursday night at the event. I hope everyone had as much fun as my children and I did. At the bottom of this week’s blog are some photos from the event.

CogAT continues this week. I started screening the second grade students. This will continue through March. I only had to miss one class. We also had I-Step testing this week so a few classes were affected by that. We are completed with the CogAT for the kindergarten and we have received scores. We will be sending home the results soon. These results help determine who will be eligible for high ability.

Also, students will now be monitored at the end of each school year. This is new. Next year, there will be new students added, many will remain, and some will be removed. It's common to have a flow "in and out" of a gifted program. The High Ability Team is excited about the continuing process of our services. Not only is Duneland's process of high ability identification becoming more spot-on, but the new curriculum is geared towards meeting the needs of gifted children. We've also just purchased a new math curriculum that we'll be using at each grade level next year. The future of the HA program is bright!

Don’t forget 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.

This week we continued learning about our Life Skills with Responsibility. I think many students showed this with their Festival of Learning projects this week. I know they took on the project and did everything they needed to do to make it succeed. I hope that they will keep that up in all they do.

I want them to use what they learn here at school and have the feeling to be responsible for their education and success. I hope that they can also use it here in high ability to take on every activity and project and want to complete it. I want them to understand they have to be responsible for their own success and to reach their goals they have to take that responsibility to the next level.

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 …. I put my foot in my mouth. Well I can say that this has happened to me on more than one occasion. The students found it pretty funny. They all thought they had heard this one many times before in different ways like he or she or even we put our foot in our mouths.

We all had a great laugh thinking of some actually put their foot in their mouth, yuck! No takers for a picture this week I think it might have been too hard to draw too easily, but maybe next week. Here is the hint: it involves punching and books. 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 all shared their puzzles and we discussed them and other ideas that could be turned into rebus puzzles. We decided that we wanted to continue with these types of puzzles. We decided to research and see what other puzzles are out there. We found Plexer Puzzles. Word plexers are word-based puzzles that describe a word or phrase without actually spelling it out. For example, KCART would be backtrack since it is the word track spelled backwards. The students were so excited to try to figure some of these out. So I found some and we started decoding the clues to figure out the solutions. They had so much fun figuring each one out. I did have to give clues on a few because they were really hard to figure out. They did a great job and had a blast too. Next week we will travel back to ancient Egypt to learn about how they communicated and what they used to write. I think they will love this and all the deciphering they will learn.

Second Grade:

This week the students continued their word clouds about The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane by Kate DiCamillo. The students created word clouds 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 took their lists they created and we entered them into the website and they created their clouds in several shapes: hearts, snakes, and love signs. They had so much fun designing and creating them. We have one student still putting the finishing touches on theirs and then I will take more pictures of the finished products. Next week the students will have to chance to play Jeopardy about the novel. The game has questions about the novel and all the characters. There are several sections so this will be lots of fun to see who will come out as champion of Jeopardy.

Third Grade:

This week the students finished up watching the Tinder Box video. We then took the rest of the class on Monday to have a discussion on the differences between the original fairy tale and video. They did a great job finding all the differences and things that were changed between the two. They all had very detailed opinions on why they thought the video might have been changed and why it was a great idea. On Tuesday we started our next adventure into the writing of The Pied Piper of Hamelin by Robert Browning. To be honest with you, I was very worried whether the students would like or even be interested in this because it is very hard to read and understand. I had the students make prediction on it by answering true and false questions about it. They all got to vote on whether they felt the statements were true or false. They loved this and got really excited to see if they were right. I found an awesome audio version of the story. Here is the link: Pied Piper

This sold it for sure. They hung on every word and were so excited to see what would happen next. I would stop and ask them questions and make sure they were all following and understanding what was happening. They were so intrigued to see where the story would go next. Next week we will continue with The Pied Piper of Hamelin.

Fourth Grade:

This week we didn’t have class on Monday because of the I-Step testing. On Tuesday I was unable to meet because I was CogAT testing second grade students. Next week we will be back on track and will pick up where we left off. The students will compare Tecumseh’s life to what was happening in America during that time period. The students will research both.

Math

First Grade:

This week things were still crazy but we did get to meet both days, just in different rooms for some. We continued to learn more about time and clocks. The students got to share what time they do certain activities at school and at home. Each student would show the time on their clocks.

We also discussed if we start an activity what time will it end. They loved figuring out when things would end. On Thursday we used the I-Pads to practice math facts. They had so much fun challenging each other on Sumdog.

Second Grade:

This week we finished up learning about different types of Latin square. We completed one puzzle that uses different shapes from playing cards. Then we started to learn about Sudoku puzzles and different ways they are played. The first few puzzles were pretty easy, and then it got more and more challenging as we went. Next week we will continue with Sudoku and see where it takes us next.

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 we did two since we missed last week which were Circumference and Distance.

Circumference is the enclosing boundary of a curved geometric figure, especially a circle. All the students did an excel job on this one. I am very proud of how they read the board and completed it quickly. Distance is the space between two objects or points. This one on Thursday was much trickier for all the students. They really had to read carefully and think before they came to the correct solution. It took some students a few tries but they all figured it out.

Third Grade:

This week we continued on our chapter about Exponents. The students got tripped up on the genius level which is expected because it is pretty complicated. They worked really hard in small groups to figure out each problem.

On Thursday I let them take a break and work on the I-Pads after they racked their brains so hard on Wednesday. They had a good time practicing math facts. Next week we will continue with exponents and start on the next chapter.

Fourth Grade:

This week we continued the chapter called, How Much Change Will I Get? The students were all on the genius and this section took them a little while because some were overthinking some of the questions. The student that completed it last time also made it through all of Balance It. They did great and only had a few they needed to rework on the genius level. On Thursday student students finished up the genius level and got to use the I-Pads the rest of the class once their work was checked. They had a great day. Next week we will move on to Balance It.