Friday 101!

 This week was great. There was so much fun going on here at Brummitt. I keep posting winter pictures to help keep the snow away. I hope it's working. We had our 100th day and the students celebrated all they had achieved so far. The teachers planned some great events and activities for them. Kindergarten went all out with a spectacular event. The students got to be detectives in search of lots of clues to find Zero the Hero. They also had students bring in 100 items to celebrate. I took lots of pictures of all the entries. Be sure to take a look at it all at the end of this week’s blog.

On Thursday night Mrs. Dortmund and the library hosted the curl-up and read event. Also on Thursday students got to vote for their favorite snowman entry for this year’s annual snowman creation contest. There were so many great entries that it was very hard to chose which one was the best. I also included them in the pictures at the end of the blog.

Next Monday, January 30th I will start the CogAT testing for all the Kindergarten classes. I am hoping I will not miss any of my regular classes, but it might change the regular schedule a few times. The testing will take most of February. I hope that technology will be on my side this year and everything will go smoothly. Then in March I will be CogAT testing second grade as well.

Important Dates:

January

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

February

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

This week we continued learning about our Life Skills with trustworthy. The students are really wanting to take their time to understand ways they can become more trustworthy and I hope that I have given them good ideas. I told them they need to make sure they are always being responsible and working hard to do their best. I know that some of them are already doing that. I let them know that being respectful and honest with others helps build relationships.  It’s also about doing what you say you are going to do and finishing what you start so that others will know they can rely on you.

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 ….They’re going bananas! The students couldn’t stop laughing at the picture. They can all think of a time when they were the ones going bananas  I had no takers on drawing anything or designing anything, but I am hopeful for next week. Here is a hint to help you out: it involves a dump. I posted the picture for the next one on Thursday so students can stop by and see it. I also have the picture posted on the side panel of the blog to view.

Language Arts

First Grade:

 This week the students continued to work on their paragraphs. We started them last week and had a discussion on what a persuasive paragraph needs. The students were excited to review the hamburger model again. They were so excited they agreed to let me film them sing the song. I have included this week for you to view. They were so cute and happy to get the chance to sing.

 Once we reviewed everything they needed they proceeded to finish their hamburger models on Monday and were ready to put it all in a paragraph. Some students were ready to write on Monday while others waited until Tuesday. They all took their time and really thought about the question and what their opinion on it was. The question was: Should parents buy first-graders a cell phone?

 I am sure you are wondered what they all thought. Well please make sure you ask them this weekend. I am proud at how they all had their own thoughts and feelings on the subject and were eager to share with the group. The students that finished early got the opportunity to complete their homework for next week which was to create their own emoticons. I posted some on the board for them to use as reference. After they competed that some students even had enough time to play a round of story cubes. Next week the students will share the emoticons and have us guess what they mean and they will share their paragraphs. We will also start our next lesson with another message we need to decipher and a new poem.

Next week the students will share the emoticons and have us guess what they mean and they will share their paragraphs. We will also start our next lesson with another message we need to decipher and a new poem.

Second Grade:

This week we continued to play Jeopardy and test their knowledge of the book, The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane. On Monday it was a pretty close game. There were a few students that were falling behind, but on Tuesday we had an awesome upset by Nathanael who came out of nowhere to catch up from last week and get second place for the week. Ava however kept her lead and pulled forward at the last minute to win another week. All the students did a great job this week and I am very proud of their hard work. Next week we will finish up with Jeopardy. We will also talk about our next book we will read and discuss what the students liked about reading the first novel.

 

Third Grade:

This week the students got a chance to retell the fairy tales they read. They all did a great job explaining what happened and describing their characters. I am so proud of how well they do speaking in front of all of us. They are all really comfortable sharing their stories. On Tuesday we had a class discussion about the characteristics of fairy tales and what every good fairy tale needs. The students got the opportunity to start an outline and put down all their thoughts and ideas for their next project which will be to write their own fairy tale. I told them they could write, draw, or outline what they want to use for their tale. Next week they will continue working on their stories using the chromebooks to write them. I can’t wait to see what they write and how they incorporate all elements to make a great fairy tale.

Fourth Grade:

 This week flew by for the students and me. It was an excellent week. There were some great Prezi presentations and we started the monologues. I think all of us enjoyed learning new facts about so many interesting people. Please make sure you look at the presentations. I filmed them and have them posted on the page labeled 2016-2017 Bio Presentations on the right hand side of the blog. Please let the students look them over so they know what they can add or change for the Monologues.

 Next week all remaining students will complete monologues. Please make sure your child is ready with an outfit, props, or puppet whatever they need to make it interesting.  Also make sure to help your child if they have any last minute things to complete before next week. I want to thank all the parents and family that has helped their student to be so successful in this project.

 • 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: We still have some students that need to show me their monologues before they have to perform them in class.

• Step Seven: Create a Prezi that includes the person’s name, a photo, years lived, and major contribution(s): I still have one student that needs to finish this part.

• 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. 23rd

• 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 our lesson on area and we did lots of comparing and writing about our findings. The students did an awesome job this week making sure to share targets with their partners, and writing up as much as they can to explain their findings. I so proud at how hard they work to make sure they get everything done. We had lots of fun too this week. One of our answer was A,B,C in that order and we all started singing.

 I found the Jackson 5 song ABC and played the music while we all kept working. They loved it. Here is the link to listen to the song: Jackson 5
On Thursday the students got to complete the Think Deeply question that Zni and Imi sent them. This one asked them to create the targets based on the information and write about their findings on who had the biggest area. This time they had to compare three: Zani’s, Imi’s, and their friend OoBoo’s.

 They all did a great job on this question. They also wrote out an explanation of how they came to their conclusions. I am very proud of them. We had a few minutes at the end and we decided to celebrate day 100 with some gonoodle.com. Next week we will answer the Think Beyond questions to see how much we have learned in this lesson.

Second Grade:

On Wednesday I decided we would review for the chapter check-up with a fun game. I went to each desk before the students got there and drew lines of various sizes and colors with dry erase marker. Once the students got to class they got to measure them in centimeters or inches and tell me the length.

 I also had them answer questions about measuring and weight. They all did an excellent job and they were pretty confident that they were ready for the check-up. On Thursday they took the check-up and all got great scores. One student was out, but the others did an outstanding job. I will be rewarding all their hard work soon with a surprise.

Next week we will start the next chapter with a new lesson on area. I am really excited to see what our next adventure will teach us. Don’t forget to check out the videos of the crashes.They are located on the right hand side of the blog listed under pages. It is called Egg Crash Test 2016-2017.  

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 Factors. Factors are numbers you can multiply together to get another number:

Example: 2 and 3 are factors of 6, because 2 × 3 = 6.

A number can have MANY factors!

Example: What are the factors of 12?

3 and 4 are factors of 12, because 3 × 4 = 12.

Also 2 × 6 = 12 so 2 and 6 are also factors of 12.

And 1 × 12 = 12 so 1 and 12 are factors of 12 as well.

So 1, 2, 3, 4, 6 and 12 are all factors of 12

And -1, -2, -3, -4, -6 and -12 also, because multiplying negatives makes a positive.

Some students really rocked this one right away while some were a little confused on how to complete the chart. Once they knew they had to complete the whole chart they figured it out. I know they knew the answers they just needed to be reminded.

Third Grade:

 This week we continued on our lesson called You Break Me Up!. This week we kept working on array with some more problems asking about the Yeti’s pen. We had to create arrays for different size pens. We also completed the Think Deeply questions asking to compare two pens to see which had the largest area and how we found this answer.  

Next week we will complete Think Beyond questions about distributive property, area, and arrays.

Fourth Grade:

This week we started our new chapter. I wanted to see what the students already knew about the math vocabulary we were going to be using in this chapter so I had a class discussion to see what everyone already knows. We decided that the vocabulary was new for almost the whole class, but once I described what the words meant they were all looking a little more comfortable in what we will be learning.  I also decided to show a video that would give them some more background on the new concepts. Here it is:

Discovery Education

 The video shows a real life usage of the terms and concepts. Video animators and artists use the concepts of translation, rotation, and reflection to design dragons and dinosaurs for the discovery channel show. This helped the students to really see and understand the concepts much clearer.  On Thursday the students worked on their first concept which is reflection. They drew the reflection of trapezoids and then described how they came to their conclusions of how to draw them. Next week we will continue to work on reflections and we will also have a chance to use our knowledge to play a cool math game with shapes.   

Have a great weekend!

Mrs. Lutterman