Freezing Friday!!

This week’s blog will be short and sweet like our week here at Brummitt. We did get to meet for Math both days. The students were all really excited to be back at school and were ready to work hard to get everything done. We will be back to the regular schedule next week. Any fourth grade Language Arts parents please make sure your student is working on completing their bio projects. I am really happy that so many students worked on it over the break. Great job kids.

Important Dates:

January

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

10 School Council Meeting

12 PTO Fundraiser Night at  El Cantarito 4-9pm

13 End of Grading Period and First Semester

16 No School Teacher Grading & Recording

20 Report Cards Available Online

20 PTO Movie Night 6-8pm

26 School Council Pajama Day

26 Brummitt’s Curl Up & Read in Media Center 6:30-7:30pm

Math

First Grade:

This week we continued our lesson on area. On Wednesday we went over their responses to Zani about her questions on area. They all shared their thoughts and ideas on why her layout to find the area of the shape didn’t work. The students did an excellent job finding out where she went wrong.

 Once we finished with the discussion we were ready to test out the targets they designed to play the Pom Pom Game. I created a border and the students got to lay out their targets and see which were easy to hit and which were difficult to hit. We played boys against girls.   

 They got to play their first match on Wednesday before we were done with class and they had a blast. We found it was so much more difficult than we thought it would be. The girls squeaked ahead at the end to win, but the boys were ready on Thursday to try to get back in the game.

  We had a rematch and the boys were slow to start so the girls won the second match, but the boys were ready to put in all their effort to win the last match and they did. They worked really hard and use strategy to figure out what ways worked best to hit the targets.

 The students all got to take their targets home on Thursday so they might want to play with you at home. I told them to think of other items they could use to throw instead of the pom poms.

 Here are some they came up with: cotton balls, small rubber balls, erasers, pasta, dice, and game pieces. I hope they liked the game because I had a blast playing with them this week. Next week we will start our next lesson and receive a new fax from Zani and Imi asking for our help.

Second Grade:

This week the students got a chance to continue to work with their partner to complete their seat belt for their egg. They all worked really hard on their design and concept.

 Some students got theirs done, therefore I decided to have them complete the safety check and I checked all their materials to make sure they were in compliance. Once they were approved we completed a test run with the plastic egg first to see if they needed to make any adjustments before we used the real hollow eggs.

I took pictures and have included them. I think the hardest part was to make sure the truck didn’t flip. We also used more rubber bands on one test and less on the next to see if they changed the outcome. They were all so excited and happy with their results so far.

Next week we will film all the tests with the real eggs this way we can share our crashes with everyone.

Third and Fourth Grade: Math Vocabulary Comic Relief

So far this year the students are really enjoying figuring out the question on 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 Denominator.  Denominator is the number below the line in a common fraction; a divisor.

This week the students were awesome. They rocked it: correct answers right away. Every student got it right the first time. They all took a minute to read the definition and answered the question quickly. They were all excited because they all got to take their first shot and the basket for 2017. I held the recycling bin as they shot and moved it to help them make it, for the pros I moved it to make it more difficult. They all did great this week. I am really proud of them.

Third Grade:

This week we started a new lesson called You Break Me Up!. I think we were all excited to see what we needed to complete next on our search for the Yeti. We first got more information on Jane who will teach a class at the Yeti Institute of Discovery. She had some problems we needed to solve, but first we needed to learn more about arrays and the distributive property of multiplication. We had a class discussion about both subjects to see what we already know about them and then we watched a video to help us review. On Thursday we finished up the first video on distributive property and I thought we needed to learn more before we would be prepared to complete our next assignment. We watched a new video and discussed in more detail about the distributive property of multiplication. This took the remainder of the class on Thursday, but I now know we have all the tools and skills to complete the activity next week. We will write equations and complete arrays to match them to help us better understand perimeter and area.   

Fourth Grade:

On Wednesday, The students got to work in pairs to answer a Think Deeply question, but first we read the question and reviewed the shapes and what a cross section involves.

 The students did a great job talking about the different shapes that would have a rectangular cross section and how they came to that conclusion. This way when they met with their partner they decide if they could make a general rule about these shapes and why or why not.

On Thursday they got to meet with their partner again to answer the next question which asked about the shapes that have a circular cross section and if you could make a general rule about those shapes.

They students worked with their partner to write out their ideas and thoughts about it. At the end of class we met to review the shape’s faces, edges, and vertices worksheet and they had a chance to grade their own work. We talked about why we might have different answers and how we came up with them.

 I also told them that next week we will complete a Think Beyond Question and review for the chapter check-up. I will let them take their workbooks home on Wednesday to review before the check-up Thursday. I gave them the challenge to get good score. If they do I will let them have a free day or two to play math games and computer math games. I hope this will motivate them to do their best.   

Have a great weekend and stay warm!

Mrs. Lutterman