Frizzy Friday!!!

Wow! This week flew by. It was like spring all week with rain one day, fog, and sunny days. The students were so excited to get to enjoy the weather during recess and have lots of outdoor adventures. Thursday it was cool, but today it seems warmer. I only got to meet with all the language arts students one day because of the break, but  I hope things will get back to normal soon. Next week I will start my next round of CogAT tests with second grade. In Duneland, at our elementary level, CogAT is administered to our kindergarten and second graders to gather data on high ability eligibility.  The window to test all second graders will be from February 27th-March 10th.  At times, the results from the recent second grade data may have changed since kindergarten.  In the past, my class lists tend to change a bit going from second to third grade.  Some may move out of HA and new ones may move in.

Important Dates:

February

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

24 PTO Talent Show at CMS @ 6pm

27th to March 3rd “Jar Wars”- Bring in your spare change! Boys vs Girls

27 IStep Testing starts

March

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

2 Happy Birthday Dr. Seuss

9 Festival of Learning

This week we continued learning about our Life Skills with teamwork. This week I made sure to have the students work on activities that required them to use teamwork to accomplish  the goal and to help each other. They all did a great job working as a team to get the work done.  Also on the morning announcements Mr. Cammarata reminded students how they work as a team each day to help their teacher in class and in activities and class work. He gave them the insight they need to be successful team members and to do their best each week.

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 ….Don’t let the cat out of the bag. This one is one of my favorites because I think all the students can relate to what it says. They all loved this one too. They could all recall a time where they were asked to keep a secret for a surprise or something and they were told not to let the cat out of the bag. I told them as kids it's hard to not share a cool surprise before it happens because they are so excited about it. They all agreed it is hard to not share it. Another week with no takers on drawing anything or designing anything. I think next week might be the one they will want to illustrate.  I got new prizes for the box to encourage them. Here is a hint to help you out: it involves ears. 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 we only got to meet on Tuesday, but we had so much fun with our class discussion that day. The students finally got to present their findings from the interviews they did on dime stores. Each student really wanted to get up in front of the class to share everything they learned. I was so happy they wanted to talk in front of the class and give little presentations.

 They all did an excellent job telling us who they interviewed and what they learned. All the students wished they had been able to go to a dime store to buy candy. We all shared information about kinds of things sold and of course all the different types of candy they had. I also shared with them about how it was when I was little. We had a dime store and they sold all the best candy and my grandpa took me there. They all did such a fabulous job telling their stories.

Next week we will finally get to read the rebus story The Fantastic 5 & 10 Cent Store A Rebus Adventure.
I let the students look at the inside cover to see all the ads from way back and they were so excited to learn more and to buy all the cool toys. Make sure to ask them which was their favorite.

Second Grade:

On Tuesday we had a few students out sick, but we continued to read our new book Because of Winn-Dixie by Kate DiCamillo. The students listened to the next two chapters which were full of new things to learn about Winn-Dixie and friends. Winn-Dixie is deathly afraid of thunderstorms. He freaks out and can’t sit still or understand anything anyone says to him. This might be true for many pets. We had a class discussion about fear. The students talked about things they were afraid of and how they overcame them. They also got to write about them in their journals. I told them about being afraid of the dark when I was little and they all said that they could relate to that. We also learned more about the pet store and how Otis played music for all the animals and would let them out of their kennels. We all agreed that was pretty cool. The students will keep reading the next two chapters for next week. I can’t wait to see what happens next to Opal and Winn-Dixie.

Third Grade:

On Tuesday the students finished up reading each other's fairy tales and then we met to go over what they thought. The students all gave excellent feedback to each other. They all agreed that almost all of them needed more details and needed to be longer. We had one student that wrote enough, but the rest needed to give us more as readers we needed and wanted to know about the stories and characters. All the students asked great questions about each fairy tale which gave the author a chance to think what they would change to help the readers better understand the storyline. We also had time to review some of the grammar used and how it could be changed. Next week we will start a new lesson with The Pied Piper of Hamelin.

Fourth Grade:

 On Tuesday the students continued to work on their mystery story with their partner. They had time to finish reading and have a discussion on what they thought of the characters and how they changed through the stories. They also needed to complete a character analyzer on two characters from their stories. Most had enough time to complete it in class, but those that didn’t will have until Monday to get them done. Next week we will start the book The Westing Game.  

Math

First Grade:

This week we continued on learning about measurement with a great activity using the pipe cleaner rulers they created last week. They got to measure objects two ways with their rulers. One way was Zani’s way and the other was Ooboo’s. Zani starts at the end of the pipe cleaner ruler, but Ooboo starts in the middle. The students had to try both ways to measure various items to see what happens. Then we discussed as a class their findings.

 Most think Zani’s way is best because it is easiest, but a few though Ooboo’s way works great too. They had so much fun then grading their own papers as we went through them. We also had a fire drill during our class and the students did a great job following directions and using teamwork to get outside quickly and quietly. Next week we will continue with measurement with another cool activity and the students will have a chance to write about their findings.

Second Grade:

This week we got to meet and work on area. The students got to work on estimating the area of sleeping bags. Then they figured out the actual area in square feet. The more they worked on the estimating the better they got. On Thursday the students got to also estimate the area of the tables, desks, and sink. They had to then figure out how close there were on each.

Then we met as a class to discuss how close they got and what they could do different next time. They all had fun working together on small teams. This activity gave them a chance to use teamwork to complete a goal. Next week we will move on to the area of tents to determine what size that the Detective Duo might need for their visitors.   

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 Numerator. In mathematics, the numerator is the number above the line in a common fraction showing how many of the parts indicated by the denominator are taken, for example, 2 in 2/3. This week went great. The students all knew what they were doing and answered the question quickly and quietly. I am proud of how they get in the classroom and get it done.

Third Grade:

 This week we started our next chapter on volume and capacity. I wanted to start with a refresher on what we might already know from last year with two of our favorite videos:

Video 1

Video 2

We remembered all the words of the song from last year, and then we were ready to start on the new lesson. First we rounded up all the items we brought in for lesson and started the activity called The Yeti Hunt for Capacity. We estimated the capacity of five different bottles then we checked the actual capacity to figure out the difference. Next week we will continue to make predictions on different bottle and container sizes to see how many we need of one to fill another.

Fourth Grade:

This week the students worked with a partner to see how good their teamwork skills were by writing out directions using our math vocabulary for transformation. Then they had to direct their partner to move the shape dog to get from point A to point B drawing the dog in each square.

 This was very interesting because they couldn’t tell them if they were right or wrong and could tell them to change anything. This took so much teamwork to complete the tasks and they all took their time writing out the directions and made sure that they were clear before starting which helped them all out. Next week they will complete the last Think Deeply writing activity where they will compare rotation and reflection.  Then we will have some fun with the Think Beyond cards and activities.

Have a great weekend!

Mrs. Lutterman