Brummitt's High Ability Blog Spot: Free of Winter Weather Friday!!!

Things were all a buzz here at Brummitt this week as all the students were really excited to start their spring break. I think that also made the week fly by. The students were ready for the first day of spring and want the weather to warm up. I agree with the weather. I think we all are ready for spring and warmer weather. Today should give us a taste of better weather.

Kindergarten HA

After we return from Spring Break, kindergarten joins the HA line-up! Students identified through CogAT will participate in Language Arts (Mon.-Tues.), Math (Wed.-Thurs.), or both. I can't wait to learn and have fun with these young students! I really look forward to learning about them and to have some fun with math and language arts.

We are finished CogAT testing all second grade, so the informational packets will be ready to go home after spring break. You will be able to see how your child did on the CogAT using the resource cogat.com. We need to wait until end of the year NWEA scores before making all final decisions. Using the results from CogAT plus end of year NWEA will determine your child's eligibility into HA for next year. Remember, it's not necessary to do well on both assessments. They may qualify through one pathway or the other. Current students will remain in high ability for the rest of the school year, so no worries. Results from not only CogAT, but end of the year NWEA will be used for placement in third grade for the 2017-2018 school year.

Important Dates:

March

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

24 Jump Rope for Heart Kick-Off

24 Student Council “Twins Day”

27-31 No School Spring Break

April

3 School Resumes

This week we continued learning about our Life Skills with Flexibility. Flexibility is the willingness to change or compromise. I knew this one was perfect for this week. We can all learn to be more flexible everyday. I want the students to know that being able to go with the flow and learning that things might change at the last minute is a big part of life. I had to make some quick changes this week with the 4th grade language arts class to start the novel. I had to be flexible to make sure we got started so we finish before the end of the school year to get in all the activities. The students showed great flexibility and were ready to move to the new lesson.

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 ….Stay on your toes. I really like this one because it fits with learning and being in a classroom. The students really need to stay on their toes to catch all the lessons and discussions that we have in high ability. They all really liked the picture and could share times when this idiom applied to their lives. Another week with no takers on drawing anything or designing anything. I have my fingers crossed. Here is a hint to help you out: it involves heart. 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 continued our journey with hieroglyphs and ancient Egypt. On Monday we finished the book Hieroglyphs from A to Z by Peter Der Manuelian. The students were so excited to read parts of the book to the class and share all they thought about what life might be like back in ancient Egypt.

We kept track of all the animals that were mentioned in the book to help us answer all our questions on our chart. The students are doing an excellent job keeping track of the chart and what information we learn to help us answer all our questions. On Tuesday we read another section of the book Hieroglyphs by Joyce Milton.

The students really like this book because it answers so many of our questions about what we wanted to learn but also makes them want to learn more about each subject.

We went to the Children’s University of Manchester to help us find some of those answers. We will use this website to help us as we learn more about ancient Egypt and all it had to offer. Here is the link: Link

The students really like this website because it offers inactive lessons that teach and let them have some fun. After spring break we will continue our adventures in Ancient Egypt and Hieroglyphs.

Second Grade:

This week we continued reading Because of Winn-Dixie. The students were really excited to find out what happened at their party and we weren’t disappointed. As they listened the audio-book link went down and they all wanted to see what happened to Winn-Dixie. I kept reading to them so we all could find out. Winn- Dixie ran away when he heard the thunder as the storm rolled in during the party.

On Tuesday we continued to discuss the characters and share our thoughts on what might happen at the party next. Then we read on to see if our predictions were correct. The students are really excited to see how the book will end. We were all very happy with how the book ended. After spring break we will play a cool game to see how much we remember about the story and we will also talk about how all the characters are connected and how they might be connected to other characters from our other books. We will also have the chance to watch the movie and compare the two versions.

Third Grade:

This week the students continued to work on their Tic Tac Toe projects. They did a great job sharing their thoughts and ideas with each other as they worked to create their stuff. On Tuesday the students that were done got the chance to present their projects to the class and share all their cool ideas. They all did a great job thinking outside of the box to create unique posters, letters, and characters. Here are a few of the letters that they wrote:

Dear Dad,

Camp is so much fun now that I gave it a chance. It’s actually not that bad when you get to know it. I made a lot of new friends to. I met a really nice girl named Aurora. Turns out a villain named Maleficent poisoned her with a spinning wheel needle once she touched it. Then, here's the crazy part, she fell asleep for 100 years! So in a way, she’s really old. I’m hanging out with a old lady! But it seems like we’re the same age. I also made friends with a girl named Snow White. She told me she had a evil stepmother like I do (don’t tell mom I said that).I think I even saw Fairy Godmother’s daughter. And the cool thing about this camp is everybody has something in common with each other. And I met a prince named Prince Charming, but he’s just a fake. He gave me a pair of high heel shoes, out of WOOD! But I tried them on in front of him just to show that I appreciated the favor, but that was the worst mistake I had ever made in my life! Then he somehow thought that I like wood shoes. So, guess what? You’re correct, he made me ANOTHER pair of wood shoes this time, he wanted me to see me all day in them! I didn’t want him to be hurt so I did. I wore them the whole day at camp. Everybody was looking at me like I was crazy. And they were right, I looked like I was just desperate for a new pair of shoes! And if that’s not bad enough, I got like a thousand splinters! And at the end of the week he ended up duping me for Snow White! Literally he threw me in the pond! But eventually, I made new friends to keep me company and I know they will always be there for me.

Yours Truly,

Cinderella

Dear Cinderella,

I was so happy when I got this letter from you! It’s been great to hear from you. Getting letters from you everyday, and i’m so glad your making new friends at your camp. When I found out about camp royalty, I knew it would be perfect for you! I am so glad that you are enjoying camp. When I was your age most of my friends I met at camp. I hope you have fun at camp!

Always Yours,

Dad

Hi mom,

I am having a great time at Camp. Fun Site.it turned out I’m not an ugly duckling.I’m actually a swan. I’m so glad I’m actually not ugly. Camp is going really well. It’s so much fun because people don’t tease me anymore. I’m so relieved. I sometimes have to tell people that I’m a swan but, otherwise people are friends with me. I can’t wait to come home though. Today we swam in the pool, then we went on a hike and came back it was very hard though but, i still had fun, and finally we played pin the wing on the bird. Yesterday we played musical chairs, ring around the rosey, and finally we danced to music. All the stuff we do is awsome. I’m having so much fun. It’s so warm and tomorrow I hope we will go to the pool or else I will stay inside the whole day. We’re going to bed now. Good night. It’s the morning. When I come home I can’t wait to see you. Maybe when I get home we can play more games like the ones at camp. We also beaded necklaces, oh and I forgot we’ve been going to the pool every day since Friday. It has been 1 week and 2 days for going to the pool. We’ve also played pin the tail on the donkey, throw the ring on the bottle, and also we played the game of where you throw the balls into the buckets. We also found a haunted house and went into it someone was so scared she went home.

Sincerely,

The ugly duckling

AKA The Beautiful Swan

Once we get back from break we will finish the last presentation which is a puppet show and then we will start our next lesson on The Pied Piper of Hamelin.

Fourth Grade:

This week I decided that it was time to start The Westing Game because I wanted to make sure we got to everything before the end of the year. The students were really excited to start the mystery. I am so happy to see the students so intrigued to read and figure out what is happening and what mystery they will need to solve. I gave them a few things to help them as they read.

There are two ways to collect the information on each character, but they only need to pick the one the works best for them to keep track. They also have questions that they can read over before they start a chapter to help them know what to look for as they read. They don’t need to write the answers out because we will use it for class discussions. This is a tool to help them with clues to what they need to be looking for as they read. They can jot things down if they want to take notes but it isn’t required.

They also have vocabulary words to look for in the pages as they read them. They don’t need to write out any definitions. Just look for them and see if you can find them as you read a chapter. After the break we will continue our sleuthing to see if we can solve the mysteries of The Westing Game.

Math

First Grade:

This week we continued working on measurement. The students were ready for a new challenge and I gave them one. Since they all took home their targets from earlier this year, they needed to create new ones for our next activity. They had so much fun using all that they had learned so far this year to create new targets for the Pom Pom toss game.

They all took a few minutes at the end of class on Wednesday to practice their skills at tossing before we start measuring and keeping score. On Thursday the students got to play the game and measure how close they were to each target using their measuring math skills. Make sure to ask them how they did and who won each round. After spring break we will play the game again and then review all we have learned in this chapter before they take their chapter check-up.

Second Grade:

This week we got back to work on area. The students needed to create tent areas for students based on a grid they were given to see how many adults and children might be able to fit in each tent.

Then we had a class discussion to see what ideas each student found and we shared what worked and what didn’t. They all had a great time sharing their ideas and findings on what worked to fit in their tents and why.

After break we will write back to the detective duo and let them know what we think about the tents and what will work best for them to use when they have 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 Quotient. Quotient is a result obtained by dividing one quantity by another. The students did an excellent job solving this one quite fast and right on the money. They all went over read the information and solved it right away. None of them needed my assistance which was great. There were some students that made their shot and others that were way off making it because they tried trick shots. The picture was pretty funny, but the teacher looked super serious.

Third Grade:

This week we continued to work on the lesson Yummy Yeti Lemonade. We decided that we wanted to challenge ourselves with a new problem to see which lemonade would be the best buy if we changed all the prices on the lemonades. This we a great way to practice our math skills and practice to see if we knew how much of each product we would need. It was a huge success.

We had so much fun trying to figure out the new amounts out that we tried it one more time on Thursday. We also took some time to play summdog.com. After spring break we will finish up our lesson on the Yeti and his lemonade.

Fourth Grade:

This week we got back to work on quadrants and plotting out coordinates. The students all got to create a shape and then figure out the coordinates and share them with the class so we could try to figure out the shape.

They had so much fun creating their shape and then sharing it with the class. This also gave each student a chance to practice figuring out coordinates and the class a chance practicing plotting points and connecting them. On Thursday we started the next activity plotting in different quadrants. They really worked hard to make sure that each point was in the correct quadrant. It was a lot of fun watching them work together to figure it all out. After spring break we will continue to work on this lesson on grids.