FREAKY FRIDAY!

Happy Friday the 13th!

                                     

We have been up to some ghoulish good times this week!

 

First graders were continuing to learn  about making a secret language using the cipher wheel. They finished the lesson by  writing a secret message to their parents! The kids were all very excited to see what their parents thought the message could be and even more excited to help their parents decode the message with their cipher wheels! Did you crack the secret code? You needed to use the "cipher" letter on the blue paper to see what "real" letter it represented in red.  The code said "Hello, my name is ________ with their secret code name  Next week we will begin learning silly speak!

  

 

Second graders were using their special powers to make predictions about the novel we are going to be reading. We looked at the cover of the book and answered questions in class as well as in our journals about what we  think the story will be about. The word Miraculous was definitely a new word for them. One student thought it meant mysterious, while others thought it might mean dangerous. They are all excited to get to start reading next week! One of our students already has some idea what the book is about. It is driving him crazy to not be able to tell the rest of the group!
HOMEWORK ALERT:
The students will be having assigned reading in their novels...chapter 2-4 and are also assigned to do a reading analyzer on chapter 3. A reminder will be sent out Tuesday as well,

Third graders continued with the book The Girl Who Loved Wild Horses.  We looked through the book and students picked out the interactions they noticed in the story; as well as they listed the character traits of the character on a chart. This group  really got into figuring our the girls character traits, We got so absorbed into this activity that we were late going back to class by a couple of minutes.                       

 

 We then learned about the Hamburger Model for persuasive writing.  We learned the different parts and how they sandwich the ideas together to make a paragraph. The model is broken into sections. The first section is the claim, followed by three sections for examples, and then the conclusion.  We used the model to write in our journals a paragraph about the traits of the main character.  The kids discussed which traits they wanted to write about. They chose kind, brave, and adventurous.  We will continue to learn and become better writers as the year progresses. They did an awesome job learning the model, which was the point of the lesson!
HOMEWORK ALERT: Students will have a journal homework assignment coming home on Tuesday.
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Fourth graders got started on their agent of change biography project. We also reviewed parts of speech with some fun, silly songs of Schoolhouse Rock. While listening, and singing along, one student requested that we listen to the Lolly, Lolly. Lolly, get your adverbs here... and I think we all had it running through our heads for the rest of the day.

HOMEWORK ALERT: students will have an assignment to look up and print out a bio of their person and bring to class. Reminder will be sent as well next week!

WORD NERD SAYS....

"Be a bibliophile" what is the definition of a bibliophile? Remember when you know the answer let me know and you get to pick from the prize box!

 

Math News

 

First grade math minds continued working in centers to create shapes. We made rectangles into squares, and squares into triangles. We learned that a vertex is the point where two sides of a shape meet. The students then used the shapes we cut earlier in the week to make new polygons. We looked at the shapes and pointed to the sides and vertices and said "side. vertex, side, vertex. " They are picking this up quickly, and next week we will make more shapes and classify them .

 

 

 

 

Second grade mathematicians continued looking at symmetry by using light and dark colored squares to make patterns. They struggled with this activity for the first day. Some had difficulty cutting out their triangles and were frustrated when they might not fit exactly.  It took them a while to figure out how to do it. They were in partners and I was circulating; but it was definitely a "ALL HANDS ON DECK" type of activity! They were all excited when they saw the finished product! . 

 

 

                                

 

 

 

 

 

Third grade had fun figuring out how many goldfish can be seated at a table and used sticky notes and goldfish crackers to help them figure it out. This group was very fidgety and even though they had tools to help them, most of them struggled. (I think it was the alluring smell of the goldfish crackers.) Eventually after working through several examples, they all got the concept. We worked more with the actual equation on Thursday, and we found that using a chart helped us keep track better. Some of the the students in the group have a difficult time settling down since I get them right after lunch recess. We will continue to work with coming in and getting settled for learning time.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fourth grade finished the lesson on fraction strips this week with some mathematical think beyond activities. It is nice to hear them explain their answers and defend their point of view. We will start our new lesson with fractions next week. It is based on a frog jumping competition. We watched the frog jumping contest at the Calaveras County in California that is based on the Mark Twain novel of the same name. They learned that a frog  in the contest gets three consecutive jumps. The math we will be starting on Wednesday is that they will be measuring the jumps of frogs from a contest. Then at the end we will make our own origami frogs and having our own jumping contest.

 

 

Upcoming Events:

 

Camp Goodfellow - 10/16-110/17 and 10/23-10/24

Red Ribbon week 10/23-10/26

 

 

 

 

Congratulations to Tyler  and Riley who knew I was being  a trickster because peacocks don't lay eggs!  I will have to try harder to trick you in the future!

 

This weeks brainsqueeze challenge is....

 

 

What is the next number in this sequence: 2, 5, 9, 14,... 

 

Good Luck!

 

Happiest of birthday wishes to Ruby! Her birthday is on Friday! Also Happy birthday wishes to Ava!

 

 

This week's words of wisdom:

 

" Life isn't about finding yourself it is about CREATING yourself".

 

 

Mrs. P