Well March is here and there are so many great things that are happening and will happen this month here at Brummitt. Sunday was the Arts-A-Budding Exhibit and presentation at Valparaiso University Chapel. I was able to go and see so many great pieces of artwork from Porter County students and some great pieces from some of our students here at Brummitt. I got a quick picture of the honored students and their art was just fabulous. All the art looked great.

Next week the Third grade will have IREAD-3 testing from March 14^th thru 18^th. The testing will take place in the morning. Please make sure your third grader gets plenty of sleep and a great breakfast.  

CogAT continued this week. I finished the screening for second grade students. I also started the full tests. This will continue through March. I had to miss two classes this week for part of my Math first and second graders, but things should be back to normal next week. 

 We have 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!   

Important Dates for March:

March 18^th make sure you wear Sports team jersey, shirt or clothing for the Student Council’s Sports Day! Also on March 18^th is the end of the 3^rd grading period. March 18^th thru April 1^st is the Jump Rope for Heart Fundraiser. The big kick off will be March 18^th. Money will be due April 1^st.

Spring Break will be March 21^st – 25^th I know everyone is looking forward to a week off from school and I hope the weather is as nice as it has been this week.

Fridays are the Student Council Spirit Days so be sure to wear those school colors.

This week we continued learning about our Life Skills with Problem Solving. I feel this is a very important life skill for students to have. They have to be able to problem solve when they are working in high ability and in their classrooms. This is a skill they will need to use throughout their lives. 

 I want them to remember to figure out what steps they need to take in order to effectively solve any given problem and find the best solution. I think they are doing pretty good but everyone can always improve their skills in this area. They gave some great examples of when they needed their problem solving skills and even teamwork every day when they work together to find solutions to problems and activities they are given.

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 …. She’s been hitting the books. This one really made us all have a good laugh because we can all imagine a student in the library with the boxing gloves on looking for the right book to hit. Some students said that they have been told this before by their teachers and parents. I told them they will hear a lot more once they get older because they will be doing a lot more independent studying. I also found out second grade is learning idioms and they all were talking about how they knew so many from my class which makes me happy that they can use what they learn back in their own classes. No takers for a picture this week, though I wished someone would have tried, but maybe next week. Here is the hint: it involves worms. Good luck and I hope someone decides to draw this one or find a cool illustration online.  

Language Arts

First Grade:

  This week we started our next lesson on Hieroglyphs and Ancient Egypt. The students got their first puzzle to decipher and they had no way of knowing what it meant because they didn’t have the cipher to help. Once we discussed how this must have been how the archaeologists felt before the discovery of the Rosetta Stone, that helped them decipher the hieroglyphs.

  We read a book on hieroglyphs and letters of our alphabet. The books showed different pictures that were used during that time period. We also took time to watch a short discovery kids educational video on life in Ancient Egypt. Next week we will continue our adventures in Ancient Egypt and Hieroglyphs. 

Second Grade:

 This week the students finished their word clouds about The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane by Kate DiCamillo.  The students created word clouds about the book. After we finished we started our Jeopardy game on the novel. 

This week the students cover chapters one through five and they had a great time playing. We had a blast. Our winner for this week was Jackson. Next week who knows who could pull ahead to become the champion of Jeopardy.

Third Grade:

This week the students continued their work on the The Pied Piper of Hamelin by Robert Browning. We had a discussion on the story and how it made us feel and what the meaning of the story might be. Then we discussed the history behind the story and when it could have happened in history. There were several accounts throughout history that had similar incidents happen where a stranger helped rid the city of vermin and children might have disappeared after. The students were so interested in the history behind it. They just loved having a discussion on it. On Tuesday we also started the grammar behind the story covering verbs and changing tense. 

Fourth Grade:

This week we continued our discussion on Tecumseh’s life and American History. We also discussed how history would be different if people the students completed their bios on would have made different choices throughout their lives.

 On Tuesday we went over grammar and parts of speech in the story. We discussed pronouns and when to use them. 

Math

First Grade:

 This week I did get to meet with some of my groups, but didn’t get to meet with all of them because I had my CogAT testing during that time. I will get to meet with all my groups next week and we will be able to get back to normal. 

 In the groups that did get to meet we continued to work on time and clocks. We also took some time on Wednesday to complete a Math Maven Mystery about time. The students really like those mysteries and we had to figure out which criminal would make it to the scene first. They really like writing down all the information on white boards to solve the crime. I had to help some this problem because it involved some rate, time, and distance values. I walked them through each step. It was the criminal on the bike who got there first. Next week we will continue to work with time. 

Second Grade:

This week we continued working on different Sudoku puzzles. We missed Wednesday because of CogAT testing, but we did get to meet on Thursday. We had a great time going through the puzzles finding out what each section was missing and solving the puzzle using logic skills. Next week we will continue with Sudoku and try a few new ones.

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. They were Edge. Edge is a particular type of line segment joining two vertices in a polygon, polyhedron, or higher-dimensional polytope. In a polygon, an edge is a line segment on the boundary, and is often called a side. Some students did an excel job on this one and some were thrown for a loop the first time they tried it. Once I explained it to them; they all did a great job solving the problem. I am glad they all took the time to go back and re-evaluate their answer to come up with the correct answer.

Third Grade:

This week we continued on our chapter about Exponents. The students are still working through the genius level and we finally got through it all working together as a team. We started the next chapter on percent. We reviewed the information and discussed percent and ways to solve problems. Next week we will continue this chapter and see how far we go.

Fourth Grade:

This week we started the chapter called Balance It.  The chapter is all about making things balance out using your math skills and conversion skills. The students were rocking through this chapter until they hit the genius level then they had to really stop and think before they answered it. They made sure to take their time and they got through most of it and next week they will finish it up. Next week they will also start Oh, No I have to Change the Recipe! I look forward to seeing their math skills with fractions in action. I have one student who already finished and will be starting the next chapter The Magic of Multiplying.

Have a Great Weekend!

Mrs. Lutterman