Brummitt's High Ability Blog Spot: Honor Veterans Friday!!

This was a big week here at Brummitt we had lots going on with the election and Veterans Day. The book fair wrapped up and it looked like lots of students got the books they wanted and got to attend the VIP night. The students gave a great presentation this morning to honor those who served. Here is some history behind this great day celebrated here in America to honor those who have served to keep our country free.

History of Veterans Day

World War I – known at the time as “The Great War” - officially ended when the Treaty of Versailles was signed on June 28, 1919, in the Palace of Versailles outside the town of Versailles, France. However, fighting ceased seven months earlier when an armistice, or temporary cessation of hostilities, between the Allied nations and Germany went into effect on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month. For that reason, November 11, 1918, is generally regarded as the end of “the war to end all wars.”

Soldiers of the 353rd Infantry near a church at Stenay, Meuse in France, wait for the end of hostilities. A photo was taken at 10:58 a.m., on November 11, 1918, two minutes before the armistice ending World War I went into effect

In November 1919, President Wilson proclaimed November 11 as the first commemoration of Armistice Day with the following words: "To us in America, the reflections of Armistice Day will be filled with solemn pride in the heroism of those who died in the country’s service and with gratitude for the victory, both because of the thing from which it has freed us and because of the opportunity it has given America to show her sympathy with peace and justice in the councils of the nations…"

The original concept for the celebration was for a day observed with parades and public meetings and a brief suspension of business beginning at 11:00 a.m.

The United States Congress officially recognized the end of World War I when it passed a concurrent resolution on June 4, 1926

Link

This month Mrs. Moskalick is working with students on The Gratitude is your Attitude Tree. I took a picture because I wanted show how great our students here at Brummitt are. They shared some many things that they are thankful for this year. They did a great job. So next time you stop by the school look for it by the front entrance and appreciate this beautiful tree.

Christmas for Kids

Next week starts the Whiffer Sniffer Sale for student council to help them raise money for the Christmas for Kids. I have been giving the students stickers this week to help them know what some of the characters smell like. I know they are all finding their favorites to buy next week.

There is also a christmas tree out in the entrance of the school with lots of great gifts you can donate for the Christmas for Kids this year. This is a great way to help kids in the community get the things they need to have a special christmas and keep warm through the winter.

Important Dates:

November

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

11 Veterans Day

14-18 Whiffer Sniffer Sale: Student will purchase in morning

23-25 Thanksgiving Break- No School

December

1 Early Dismissal

21 thru Jan 3 No School Winter Break

This week we continued the Life Skill of Gratitude for the month of November. This week I wanted the students to think of times when they saw an act of kindness. I asked them if they have ever just done something because they wanted to be kind to another person. They all had great insistences to share where they saw kindness first hand. I am so proud that they all care about each other and those people in their lives. I am also so proud of how they want to help others in their community that need it. Mr. Cammarata discussed gratitude and kindness on the morning announcements and gave the students more great advice on why we need to show gratitude to those in our lives. He also shared another story. Gratitude should be our attitude this month and I know the students will love that.

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 …. He’s a big cheese. This illustration was so funny and I think it made most of use want to eat cheese. The students shared a few times that they heard this saying and they were all very cute. I even had a student let me know that their mom was the Big Cheese at their house. This really made me laugh. I had no takers this week on the picture, but I’m keeping my fingers crossed that next week someone will step up and complete one. Here is a hint to help you out: its milk and tears. I posted the picture for the next week on Thursday so students can stop by and see it before the weekend.

Language Arts

First Grade:

This week we continued with the poem by Richard Wilbur called The Disappearing Alphabet. I picked up where we left off and read the remaining poem. The students discussed each letter as we went and how sad they would be if that letter was gone and how the world wouldn’t be the same. It was so cute to hear them discuss it all. After we finished I gave them a reading analyzer and we went through each part and they got to fill it out for the poem. Here is what we covered:

Key Words:

-What interesting or exciting words did you hear?

-What words were important to the poem/story?

-What words were new to you?

Feelings:

-What feelings did you have when you read/heard this poem/story?

-What part of the poem/story made you feel the way you did?

-What feelings did the characters in the poem/story have? Why?

Ideas:

-What was the poem/story mostly about?

-What other ideas did the author want you to think about?

- What did the author say about those ideas?

Description/Images:

What pictures did you see in your mind as you read/heard the story/poem?

They all did a great job filling out their first one for such a great poem. They all took their time and really thought about it. I really want them to be comfortable with filling these out since we will complete analyzers throughout the year. We then had a discussion about letters and words and their importance and how authors love the written word. I also told them the story about Lewis Carrol. Lewis Carroll, author of Alice in Wonderland, is said to have invented this game on Christmas Day in 1877 for two little girls who ‘found nothing to do’. Like Wilbur, Lewis Carroll also loved words.

He first called the game “Word Links” and then referred to it as “Doublets”. “Doublets” became a big hit in London and it has been a fun word play game ever since. These puzzles are now often called “Word Ladders”.This story helped me explain word ladders. I gave them the directions and we worked on them. Some students were slow to start but once they understood that the words in between had to be real words it helped them out a lot. They got through some of them but have a few more to complete for next week. I gave them all little homework to complete and am happy to say they all got it back to me asap. I think the offer of the prize box if they get it done in the same week really works. I am happy they all want to complete the little activities to earn a prize. Next week we will continue to solve the word ladders and we will start our next lesson where we will read a cool new story.

Second Grade:

This week we continued our cool adventure with our novel The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane . The first thing all the students wanted to do was discuss the chapters they read over the weekend. We talked about everything that happened.

They were all shocked about Lolly taking him to the dump and were very sad he didn’t get to stay there. Then the students completed a worksheet with a partner about point of view. They took a certain part of the novel and had to think of what each character’s point of view was during that part.

We also completed a four level analysis of a sentence from the book. This was great practice on parts of speech. The students are getting really good at dissecting sentences and figuring out what part of speech each word is.

On Tuesday we got to start a great activity where we will compare another story to our novel as to what has happened so far. The students started a reading analyzer on the Velveteen Rabbit. We listened to an audible of the book as they followed along with their copies. They also started to fill out their reading analyzer for the story. We didn’t get finished and we will pick up where we left off next week. After we complete it and finish the reading analyzer, the students will compare the two stories and find the difference and have a class discussion about it.

Third Grade:

This week the students finished watching the video on the Edmund Fitzgerald. We also took time to complete an assignment where we need to solve a problem using a problem statement organizer to help us learn what we know and what we need to know. The students worked together to read the problem to decide whether the word Legend should be used in the name of a museum that is being built talking about the Edmund Fitzgerald. The students were up for the task. They wrote down all they knew and what they needed to know to decide. They worked really well together to find the best solution. They were all asking the right questions to each other and trying to think what makes a legend, a legend. They did all agree that there is much mystery surrounding the wreck and what might have happened. They felt since they never really found out how the ship crashed for sure that makes it a legend to them. They feel that the crew were all so important and that their deaths then become a mystery too. They all felt it is a legend of the modern times and should be called that. Thursday was the anniversary of that fateful day where we lost 29 great men and one huge ship. I heard that some of the students even got the chance to share with their classes what might have happened that day forty one years ago on Lake Superior.

video

Fourth Grade:

This week the students used their Chromebooks to work on their projects. I went over the deadlines and let them know where they should be with research. I also helped students create their documents that they needed. I gave them ideas of sites that will work for research and ones to stay away from for information.

They all seem to be really excited and are doing their best to research and find the pictures and information they need. I only had a few students show me all their sources. The remaining students will need to work on that and have them ready to show me next week.

They can use the work cited page to type them up or they can always bring in books and articles to show me. I know that they will do great if they take their time and really work on the items in class. I am here each class to help them with anything they need. Starting next week I will also let them come into my class during their break time if they want to work on their projects and ask any additional questions they might have. I want them to do their best on this project and I will be here to guide them to succeed. Here is the review of the information for the project and deadlines:

They are required to read a full length biography and have other sources to complete this project. I went over all the requirements and let them tell me about who they decided to research. The Change Maker project will take us several weeks to complete and some students will need to complete parts of the project on their own if they can’t get it done during class. The full length biography can also be used in their class for AR points which is a bonus since they are required to complete points for each quarter. This project will teach the students about how to research someone, work with deadlines, and use time management wisely. I also want them to learn about their person and how they are Change-Makers. Next week the students will continue to use their Chromebooks to research their person and link it back to change.

• StepOne: Everyone has their changemaker picked.

• Step Two One: For this project, you are required to research one person using:

-A full-length biography: Students all showed me their books

-One or more primary sources: : Due Nov. 8th only a few students showed me their sources the rest will need to complete next week.

-Two or more secondary sources: Due Nov. 15th

• Step Three: Read the biography and:

-Collect information about the person On going

-Complete the Biography Summary and submit: Due Nov. 15th

-Create a works cited page to acknowledge sources you are using; use a consistent format: Due Nov. 22nd

• Step Four: Synthesize information to list at least ten major events in the person’s life: Due Nov. 29th

• Step Five: Create a timeline of the famous person’s life: Due Dec. 13th

Timeline Criteria

Timeline includes entire life of person with dates measured at appropriate intervals.

Timeline includes ten or more important events of the person’s life.

Timeline includes two or more pictures of the person.

Timeline is neat and legible.

At least four sources are properly cited.

• Step Six: Consider change in the person’s life and how he/she made a difference. Write a monologue that includes events, changes, and differences made in regard to his/her life: Due Dec. 20th

• Step Seven: Create a Prezi that includes the person’s name, a photo, years lived, and major contribution(s): Due Jan. 10th

• Step Eight: Memorize your monologue. You may dress as your character. You are now ready for the People Who Made a Difference presentation: Due Jan. 17th

Monologue Criteria

Monologue describes beliefs and values in the person’s life with detail and clarity.

Monologue includes insight to changes in the person’s life.

Monologue explores how the person made a difference.

Speaker confidently presents monologue using good eye contact, posture, and voice.

Speaker engages audience with appropriate words, facial expressions, and gestures.

The presentation is supported with appropriate costume and props

Math

First Grade:

This week we continued to work on weight and comparing items with a few cool activities. The students received another fax from Zani asking for help with comparing weight with no scale and they were up to the task. They learned about a benchmark weight which was the 50 pennies in a bag and compared other things to that to find the lightest and heaviest.

Then they wrote their findings in their journal using the new math vocabulary they learned: lightest and heaviest. This helped them expand on things we have already learned.

They did a great job this week to use those math skills to learn a term that is very new to them: Transitivity- a transitive relationship is one where, if A is related to B and B is related to C, then A is related to C. The ability to order three objects according to some attribute uses transitivity. This is a very new concept for them and they did a great job putting it all together to figure it all out.

I am really proud of how well they all work together to work on each activity. They also have great class discussions talking about their findings and sharing information with each other.

They did so well this week they all got a spider bouncy ball and a whiffer sniffer sticker to celebrate all their hard work. They will finish up their last comparison next week then we will respond to a think deeply and answer back to Zani’s questions with our findings.

Second Grade:

This week we continued to work on centimeters and length with a great activity, but first we needed to review our vocabulary and find out what to do. The students discussed centimeters and talked about what circumference is.

Then I talked about safety belts and booster seats and how they are designed for a specific size person or child. We talked about how a student would need to be a certain size to be able to just use a safety belt. The national standards are 4 feet 9 inches and 80 pounds.

The suggested age is between 8-12, but height and weight are most important for safety. Then we got to work on our egg. Each pair of students was given a plastic egg to use to figure out the circumference of the egg. The students were confused why we were using an egg because they weigh nothing really and a Meerkat would weigh a lot.

I looked up online for them and let them know that an adult Meerkat only weighs around 1.6 pounds. They were all shocked at how light they are. They all then understood why we were using such a small object to start with. They all followed the directions and got to work.

They had to measure both distance around the length and distance around the width. They were given different tools to use to measure and they were asked to make predictions of what they thought the length would be in centimeters. They worked on this both days and finished up on Thursday.

They all did such a great job working with their partners I gave them each a whiffer sniffer sticker of their choice. They now have an idea of what some of them smell like for next week’s sale. Next week we will compare all our findings and discuss what tools worked and what tools fell short.

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 ordered pairs. Ordered pair- a pair of elements a, b having the property that ( a, b) = (u, v ) if and only if a = u, b = v.

This week was great they all looked at the sheet and took their time to figure it out, but they didn’t remember the x and y axis when writing their numbers down. A coordinate grid has two perpendicular lines, or axes, labeled like number lines. The horizontal axis is called the x-axis. The vertical axis is called the y-axis. The point where the x-axis and y-axis intersect is called the origin. Only one person got it right the first time and that was Sami. She came over and had it correct and I gave her a prize out of the box and she got to take the shots for everyone. Everyone else figured out after that they switched them and all they had to do was change that and they were all right. It was great to see them all have a great time watching her make all the shots. It also gave us a chance to talk about the X and Y axis too. They were all great sport cheering her on as she tried to make all 10 shots.

Third Grade:

This week we continued to work on different configurations for the Yeti’s pet’s pen. We knew we had 56 feet of fence and we wanted to see how many different ways we could set up the pen. We used grid paper to draw up each way and this took us a while because there were a few ways. Then we were asked to complete a Think Deeply question to find a pattern. We created a spreadsheet with all the different configurations and then figured out the pattern. This gave us a chance to write about questions we might have throughout the process and find different solutions to the question. We had a great discussion on our finding and what pattern we found. We also were asked which pen we would recommend and why. This gave us a chance to use our writing skills to write what we thought, but first we made sure to discuss possible problems with some of them and we also went over our questions to make sure we found the best one to use. Finally we got to answer a Think Beyond card asking what we could design with 80 feet of fence. We went over the process with our grid paper of all the different configurations we could think of to fit 80 feet of fence. It was so much fun to figure it all out. Next week we will complete a chapter one check up to see what we have learned so far.

Fourth Grade:

This week we continued the triple play game. This week however the students got new partners. They got to play against different teams each day. We had two wild card players that got to play against each other on Wednesday and then on Thursday got to chose someone to replace on their team.

Those two players got to play against each other. This gave students a chance to shake things up and play against different people. They all really liked playing this game.

It gave students a chance to practice what they have learned so far about shapes and what their characteristics are and which can be paired together and which don’t fit. Next week they will get to write about what they learned and answer some Think Deeply questions.