Brummitt's High Ability Blog Spot: Please Let Spring Arrive

Well this week was full of weird weather and lots of fun. The students had a great week trying new things and working hard on their activities. Here at Brummitt we enjoyed the 4^th grade book bowl on Thursday. All of the teams worked very hard reading all the books so they were experts on each one. The big winners were:

They will move on to the district book bowl next week. There is so much going on this month at Brummitt. Next week on Wednesday we have author Troy Cummings coming for a visit. All the students will have the opportunity to see him and find out more about him. He is the author of The Notebook of Doom series.

Next Thursday the 4^th grade will have the All School Young Hoosier Book Bowl and the Spelling Bee. School will be in session on April 15^th to make up for the snow day. April 16^th is the 25^th Annual Youth Talent Showcase at CHS at 6:00pm. April 25^th thru May 6^th will be the ISTEP Testing at Brummitt for 3^rd and 4^th graders. Parents please make sure your children get a good night’s sleep and eat an awesome breakfast to help them be prepared for testing. April 27^th is Secretaries’ Day. Also, Fridays are the Student Council Spirit Days so be sure to wear those school colors.

Book Bowl 2016

High Ability Summer School

Are you searching for educational enrichment this summer? Consider Duneland's High Ability Summer School! With the theme of "Time Travelers in Ancient Egypt," the 13-day program in June will focus on reading strategies and literature comprehension. It is open to current 1st, 2nd, and 3rd grade HA students. The orange sign-up flyer will go home with your child(ren)'s report card today. Take advantage of this wonderful opportunity!

This week we continued learning about our Life Skills with Resourceful. I think most students work hard to be as resourceful as they can by the time they are in 4^th grade. They come up with great ideas and solutions to try when working on activities. I know that my younger students are still trying to figure it all out. We talked about ways they can be resourceful in the class and at home. They all try that and it’s the most important part to being successful. They will become more resourceful the more they learn. I know they are all great students.

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 gave me the cold shoulder. We all enjoyed this one. The students really like the stare the girl was giving the other student. They called it the evil eye. I asked them if they had ever had someone say this one but only a few could even think of a time. Which is good I think because that means they haven’t had to deal with the negativity of this one. I am so happy I had one student complete an excellent drawing. Ava drew an illustration and got to pick a prize out of the treasure box. I hope we keep the momentum going and have some next week too. Here is the hint: it involves a face and some egg. Good luck and I hope someone decides to draw this one or find a cool illustration online.

Language Arts

Kindergarten:

This week we continued working on connections. We created a list of connections and divided them into categories: intellectual, physical, social, and emotional. We had so much fun coming up with all kinds of connections all around us. We also discussed connections we find at home in each room. We also read our first book Knuffle Bunny A Cautionary Tale by Mo Williams. We talked about communication and connections we found in the book. We also discussed how the book might be different if Trixie could talk. Next week we will continue to discuss connections and we will dig deeper into attachments and connections. We will also learn why connections are important and how they can change.

First Grade:

This week we continued our journey through ancient Egypt and learning about their life and Hieroglyphs. We continued to read the book Hieroglyphs by Joyce Milton. We read two more sections on Egyptian Gods and Mummies.

This worked great because we also continued our journey through the website and learned about the timeline of the dynasties and when they fell.

Then we covered the Ancient Egypt Gods and started to learn more about mummies. Next week we will continue with the book and the website. We will also learn about papyrus paper and how it was made and used in ancient Egypt. Here is the link created by a professor from the University of Manchester: Eygpt

Second Grade:

This week the students continued with the intense game of Jeopardy covering The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane by Kate DiCamillo. I really thought we would get it completed, but we will have the final Jeopardy question next week.

We had a great comeback this week by Katherine and Lena. With the final question it could be anyone’s game and I am excited to see what each student will bet. Next week we will also start a new book The Tale of Despereaux also by Kate DiCamillo. We will use this book to make connections between the characters from both books and the Velveteen Rabbit. I think the students will love this book and all it has to offer. We will be making connections each week and using them to write.

Third Grade:

This week we continued to work on The Emperor and His New Suit. We took the moral of the story about cheating and used it to complete a creative problem solving activity.

On Tuesday class got cut a little short because of early dismissal but we did have a chance to start our next lesson on Cinderella. The students will read different versions of the story and compare them.

The students started their first one and next week we will continue to read them. I asked the students to look at home and see if they had any different versions of the story. So they might be looking through their book collections to see. They will read a few versions and we will compare to see which is our favorite and which is the most unique.

Fourth Grade:

This week we continued our discussion on Tecumseh’s life and American History. We took a turn and introduced history through art. There is a piece of art that shows the death of Tecumseh. Link The frieze in the Rotunda of the United States Capitol contains a painted panorama depicting significant events in American history.

The Death of Tecumseh is part of the 19 scenes shown. We had a discussion on how art can be a great way to show one second in history. It may not show it exactly like it was, but will give you the feeling of how it might have been. We then reviewed all the 19 scenes and discussed how they were important to history each in their own way. On Tuesday we only could meet for a little bit because of spring pictures, but next week we will continue to work on how art and history are intertwined.

Math

Kindergarten:

This week we had so much fun with counting and adding. We opened up two bags of Jelly beans and counted each bag in two small groups to see which bag had more jelly beans. Both bags were supposed to be the same 10oz. each, but we found that one bag had 125 jelly beans while the other only had 108.

We had a very in-depth discussion on how that could have happened. Some thought maybe the factory forgot some while others thought maybe someone took some out of one to put in other bags. I then reminded them that I cut open both bags at the same time.

Finally we looked at them and discovered that some are bigger than the others. The conclusion was that the weight might differ from jelly bean to jelly bean cause there to need to be more in some bags then others. Then we did some great addition.

I created two piles and the students had to write their own addition problems for each set of piles. They had a blast talking about the colors and counting and figuring out which way they wanted to write the problems out. We also had a little time to practice addition using the whiteboard and gynzy.com.

The students loved being up in front of the class using the interactive board and answering questions. Next week we will continue to work on addition problems but we will try large double digit addition. They are doing such a great job sharing and helping each other.

First Grade:

This week we continued the unit on weight and measurement. I reviewed the ruler and we discussed the measurement between zero and one inch. The students got to learn about fractions. We talked about how important it is to be very precise when measuring. We talked about when and why we would need to make sure to be very accurate when measuring. They said that when building something you would need to make sure you measure twice and cut once to not make any mistakes.

On Thursday we got to use the interactive whiteboard to build with blocks then we used a ruler to measure them. It was cool to see the students build what was asked then use their math skills to measure and write the height and length. Next week we will continue our unit on measurement with some activities and experiments and we will try to use the interactive whiteboard again. They really like it.

Second Grade:

This week we continued our work on the Rhind Papyrus riddles to see which ones we could solve. We got through a few more and here is one of our favorites: Six children were given six sacks that each contained six oranges that each had six seeds. How many children, sacks, oranges, and seeds are there altogether?

On Wednesday we got to start our next adventure learning about the math super heroes that will be helping us solve the problems. Next week we will finish up the puzzles and start on the super hero comic adventures.

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 isosceles triangle. In math an isosceles triangle is a triangle with (at least) two equal sides. In the figure above, the two equal sides have length and the remaining side has length. This property is equivalent to two angles of the triangle being equal. An isosceles triangle therefore has both two equal sides and two equal angles. This week the students rocked it. They did a great job answering the problem. I think that almost everyone got it right the first time. I am really proud because they read through the problem before answering and it paid off. They all were very eager and ready to get it right.

Third Grade:

On Wednesday we continued on the chapter about Percent called Percent Machines. The students this week took their time and worked in small groups to finish up level 3. Next week we will work on the genius level. We might need to work as a group when we work on some of the problems if they are too challenging. I want to wait to see what the students think they can do on their own first.

We didn’t get to meet on Thursday because we got to attend the book bowl to see the 4^th graders use their knowledge on books to answer challenging questions. This was great for the third graders to see because they will have the opportunity to compete next year if they read all the Young Hoosier Books.

Fourth Grade:

On Wednesday this week we started the next chapter together called “How many legs are there?” because I wanted to review exponents with the students before they began the levels. I gave back all other chapters to the students that need corrections and they got the opportunity to finish that up on Thursday. Next week we will continue with “How many legs are there?” and exponents.