Let the Brummitt Bash Begin!!

This week Brummitt was filled with excitement because of so many great things happening. The weather again displayed almost every season, but at least winter is still holding out. I hope we can wait on winter until at least the end of December.

October is National Bullying Prevention Month. The school counselor here at Brummitt, Mrs. Moskalick, has been facilitating great activities each week for the students. She is making sure they learn the STOP-Walk-Talk model and ways to be a Helpful Bystander. She is giving the students the tools they need to be great students and people. This week the fourth graders created posters that the whole school got to vote for their favorite to be in a special display in the front of the school while the rest will also be displayed throughout the school.

Tonight will be the annual Brummitt Bash from 5:00pm to 7:30pm. I got a chance to go around this week and take pictures of all the awesome pumpkin designs. I think that all the students did an excellent job recreating a president in pumpkin form. I have included some pictures in the blog and they will also be at the end for you to enjoy. I hope to see lots of students and families tonight at the Bash. I am really excited to be helping out this year. Please come by and say hello. They have so many great things planned for this event. The PTO worked really hard to make it a great night for all the students and families to enjoy. Thanks so much for all you do for the event and school. I can’t wait to see all the inventive and cool costumes. I hear there will be some ghostbusters out there looking for the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man. I know they will find him. I know there will be so many cute and creative costumes out there.

Important Dates:

October

Fridays Student Council “Spirit Day”- wear spirit wear or Brummitt colors (maroon & gold)

Tonight 14th Brummitt Bash 5-7:30pm

20 End of 1st Grading Period

21st No School Fall Break

24-28 Red Ribbon Week

This week we continued with the Life Skill of Respect. Mr. Cammarata spoke about respect all this week again on the morning announcements. He gave the students so much to think about and how they could be great students and how important respect is a part of being successful. He also shared a great story about growing up and meeting a girl in school that other thought was different, but she gave him some important advice about respect and honoring others. She gave him the tools he needed to better understand why we should respect all people not just our friends and how it makes us better people when we show others the respect they deserve. I also think that the little things we do for others to show them we care and respect them can make all the difference. I know that being quiet while others speak and letting them know we are listening to what they are saying is an important way to show them respect. I also know that saying please and thank you shows others respect. I think our students here at Brummitt have all the tools they need to be respectful and great students that just need to show each other what they are capable of each day.

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 afraid of her own shadow. This one was great this week because I also brought in my Halloween decorations and had a spider hanging next to it on the wall. The students all laughed because it looked like she was running from the spider too. They said they could all relate to this one because they all know someone in their lives that is easily afraid of things. I know that some little siblings were what most students were talking about. I added that all children are afraid of the unknown when they are small. They all took a minute to think and agreed. Some students even remember being like that when they were little. This week I had no takers on the design or drawing, but I am hoping for someone to complete it for next week.

I will keep my fingers crossed that someone else takes on this challenge. Here is a hint to help you out: it involves an arm and a leg. I posted the picture for the next week on Thursday afternoon so students can stop by and see it before the weekend.

Language Arts

First Grade:

This week we continued out work on secret message and codes with our Caesar Cipher.  We finally completed the enciphering and the last decipher worksheet. They students also got to take one of the words from the activity and create a connection with it.

They took the word and wrote about something that is connected to that word and why they are connected. The students also got to draw a picture with it. They all did a great job. Making the connection and drawing a beautiful picture to describe it.  

On Tuesday we got to start the next lesson after we talked about connection and where we can find them. The students got to decipher their next message with a telephone keypad cipher. The students rocked this one out really quickly once they figure out what the arrows meant.

The message read: We can speak a secret language. They were all really excited and intrigued to find out more about what we will be learning in this lesson. We had a great class discussion about letters and how to make words. They all knew that we need consonants and vowels. They all had lots to add about letters and what a word needs. We finished the class with a fun worksheet and activity that we worked on finding the vowel sound and figuring out how many syllables a word has in it. The students were so excited and they all did a great job clapping and figuring out syllables and vowels sound for each one. I am so proud of how hard they all worked this week. Next week we will continue with this lesson with a great new language for them: Pig Latin. They will have an opportunity to learn a song and how to speak it. I am really excited because it is a secret language they will be able to speak to each other. We will also make connections using our homework from last week. If a student didn’t get it completed I will let them help a friend to complete the activity.

Second Grade:

 On Monday the students got to find out what novel we will be reading this year and I think they were all really excited to get to read something as a class and have the opportunity to read parts on their own. The book is The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane by Kate DiCamillo.

 The students were very interested to learn more about the book, but first I wanted them to take the time to make some predictions about what they think will happen and who Edward is. I wanted them 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 on Monday.

Tuesday they continued to finish up their last questions, before we started 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.

We had time to read chapter one and discuss the prediction that we all made that might be completely different than what we thought. Edward is a china rabbit and all of the students thought he might be real. We all laughed because none of them thought that he might be a china toy. Since we started the book and couldn’t continue once our time ran out, 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 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 also let the students know if they finish early they can always bring the book back to my room and that way it will be here for them next week. I think this unit will be so thrilling for the students. They are really looking forward to getting into understanding and deliberating on each chapter.

Next week we continue on our journey with Edward Tulane to see what will happen to him next. We will also talk about who he is connected to and why connections are so important for characters in novels.

Third Grade:

 This week we continued to work on different genres of literature. We had a interesting class discussion on myths, legends, and tall tales. We discussed the differences and what you can expect from each.

The students then got to listen to me read a story about Johnny Appleseed. This is a great example of an american tall tale. Johnny was a real person who lived long ago and how his life changed and grew in exaggeration through the years of the settlers talking about him and sharing his story.

The students all talked about his story and where the tall part of the tale was and how so much of his life and adventures were stretched into these unbelievable stories.

 We all talked about other tall tales. On Tuesday the students got to look for some american tall tales online and they found a few reliable websites for information. We then discussed what websites would be a good source and which would be a bad source.

They all agreed that there are many tall tales out there and now there are modern ones too. I gave each student a tale to read and complete a retelling story map about. Next week they will share their tales and talk about what happens in their tale. I will also have them tell us about all the parts of their story that are unbelievable.

Fourth Grade:

 This week I decided that we needed to have another discussion about biographies to help the students to better understand what to look for when searching for a book to read about someone.

We discussed what to look for in their life to make sure that they had a big change and that they would be interesting enough to read about. Then it was back to grammar.

We went over the parts of speech. This was something none of the students was expecting. It took us a little longer than I thought it would, but I am glad we took the time to review that parts in detail. I have a few posters around the room to help them too. I gave them some sentences to breakdown and label with the parts of speech.

They worked on that for the remaining part of Monday. On Tuesday they worked with a partner to complete a vocabulary word map for a Bio word of my choice. This was a lot harder than they thought it would be. I made sure they brought their Chromebooks with to assist them if they couldn’t find the word and information in the dictionary. They also had to break the word down using the skills they learned from the lesson on prefixes, suffixes, and root words.

Once they figured that part out they were all good to go.They took their time and figured it all out.

Next week the ones that didn’t get their sheet completed will take a few minutes to finish up and we will start the next lesson. We will also take time to discuss what person each student is choosing to complete their biography on.  

I will also be sharing a google document with the parents that will have a breakdown of when things are due and what they will need to work on.

  I already shared it with the students but also want to make sure that you can help them if they need it.

I reminded the students to think about who they want to research and read a biography about.

Math

First Grade:

This week we continued to work on heavier and lighter with a few activities. The students got to complete their own weight experiments to see which is heavier and lighter and they got to see what is the lightest and heaviest.  I let them fill bags with items that we have in the classroom and for Halloween. Then they got to compare their bags with the hanger weight scale. I took time to show them how to hang the items and how they need to count how much of each item they are putting in their bags.

 They had so much fun creating their own bags to compare. On Thursday they continued to compare items with each other and then they found their heaviest and lightest items. Finally I gave them an example to write and draw about. I put ghost stickers in one bag and Halloween erasers in the other. They each made their prediction on what they thought would happen when I lifted the scale.

 I held up the hanger scale and they all got to work on their drawing of what happened. After they completed the drawings they got to write two sentences about what happened. They used the word bank on the page to help them. They all did a great job using their writing skills.

  I helped them spell the two new words, stickers and erasers, but other than that they did the rest on their own. Great job kids. I think these activities will help us with ideas for Imi and Zani to use for the measurement fair.  

The students also completed another activity with a worksheet where they read what the seesaw scale should have on it and then they created it. They drew the seesaw and glued the right gifts on the right sides for which is heavier and lighter. They completed this one lickity split.

  I am so glad they can work hard to make sure they get their things done. They all did so great this week that they each got a Halloween prize out of my witch’s cauldron. They were all really excited. I am glad they were so good this week and worked really hard to learn so much. Next week we will take all the data they collected and make comparisons on what each group found and enter it into our sheet for Zani and Imi.

Then I think we might just see if we can find the heaviest bag from the whole class and the lightest bag that we made. We will also have a class discussion on what happened during our experiments and what everyone found. Finally we will write back to Zani and Imi on what we think and can do to help them with the fair.    

Second Grade:

 This week we continued to work on our mission for the “Detective Duo”. We went back over all the car safety data and we discussed why it is important for all people in the car to be as safe as possible. The students reviewed the chart we had and we had a class discussion on what cars we might choose and why. The students first considered the passengers and then considered the driver. They all decided that both are very important when deciding what car to buy.

 The students had an awesome discussion on reasons why one car was better than the other. I am so proud of how well they did discussing it and they all had very sound reasons. Then it was time to get to work and complete our first real experiment. The students were so excited to try this marble crash test. I gave them all the supplies they needed and let them first try to see if they could figure out what they should do. They made a few attempts but everyone knew they needed to get more information from me. I was glad they figured out so quickly that they need more data from me to try the test.

We discussed what was needed and ran out of time on Wednesday. Thursday I reviewed what they needed to do and we all discussed it and then got to work. I showed them one example and did it with a high pile of books so they wouldn’t know what would happen when they started with the shorter pile. This was so much fun to see them working as teams to get everyone in place and ready to try it out. They all did a great job trying to figure it out and helping each other. I want to make sure that each student gets a chance to try each roll for the crash test and we will have to keep working on it next week. They all agreed it was much harder than it looked in the picture. They will continue to work on this next week and collect all their data on the results of each crash. It was also harder than it looked to get the marbles to roll down the ruler and hit the other marble sometimes. They all had a good laugh at how hard it was even for Mrs. Lutterman.

Third and Fourth Grade: Math Vocabulary Comic Relief

This year we will continue to complete these 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. Once they have their answer they can turn over their paper and raise their hand and I will check it. This week was all about the line graph.  A line chart or line graph is a type of chart which displays information as a series of data points called 'markers' connected by straight line segments. It is a basic type of chart common in many fields.

This one threw everyone off. They all rushed through and didn’t really read the board and then all guessed at their first few answers instead of taking the time to reread the board. Once I explained they missed some important information on the comic they all rushed back to read it. Then they all got the right answer. The comic had a hidden clue to help them solve the problem and if they didn’t look closely they wouldn't have the number of boxes needed to get the pin. I reminded them how important it is to make sure they read it all first. They all agreed and they all got it right after they read it.

Third Grade:

This week we continued our adventure to find out if the Yeti exists. This week we continued where we left off with creating our Yeti. Last week we created one foot and this week we finished the other. We also started on the rest of his body. We took each measurement and doubled it to get what we needed for the Yeti. I think that we will need to name him once he is completed to make him a part of the class. We will have to brainstorm next week to find a name that fits him or her. This week we completed the legs, waist and torso and the Yeti is already way taller than me. I will have to find a place to hang him and get a very tall ladder to get it done. I think that working with the student measurements to find what the yeti measurement could be is a very cool way to practice using our measurement skills and our calculation skills. I can’t wait until next week to finish our measuring and design of the Yeti. We will also take the time to write about our findings. Now for some fun and interesting Yeti facts:

The Yeti is said to inhabit the Himalayan region of Nepal, Bhutan, and Tibet.

The Yeti is also known as the Meh-Teh and the Abominable Snowman.

The Nepalese believe the Yeti is nocturnal, whistles or growls, and can kill with a single punch.

Fourth Grade:

 This week we continued to work on shapes. The students and I had some great class discussions on the shapes that we covered this week. The students also wanted to watch another video to help us with the shapes and comparing them to each other. I decided this one worked to help us: Link

 After working really hard on Wednesday we got the shapes activity complete and we could finally move on to completing our class definitions in our journals.

 The students were really excited to get started on this because they got to use their art skills and math skills together to create drawings of each shape and show shapes that didn’t fit. They had so much fun getting creative and drawing some really cool things. I will have to post some of them next week once they have them all complete.  Next week we will finish up the drawings and writing and move on to complete a think deeply activity where the students will get to write to a student about everything that they learned so far.

Have a great weekend!

Mrs. Lutterman