April Sunshine

Happy Friday!
There is a lot of information about our FREE summer school program, as well as information about testing results in this weeks blog.


FREE High Ability Summer School:

Looking for a summer program that is low in cost, but high in quality? This is a wonderful opportunity for your child!  There will be projects, reading, presentations, guest speakers and a chance for students to present what they've learned in the jam packed three weeks!  All of the activities are based on Medieval times.  Students who have attended have enjoyed the experience! Several of our students have spoken in class about what a fun experience this was for them.   This unit  sparks the most interest from our students.  I know there's often an overlap between other summer programs; DON'T LET THIS STOP YOU! Mrs. Pethes, a teacher from LES, welcomes any and all even if you need to miss a week or so.  It's worth it plus it's FREE this year!  Your child will still get so much out of this!  Please ask if you have questions.  Friday, April 27th is the deadline for registration!!!!  I have more copies of the brochure if you need one.  Dates are as follows:  May 31, June 1, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 11, 12, 13, 14, 18, 19, 20, 21.

 

 

Second Grade CogAT Results:

Letters are going home today with the results of their CogAT test.  No one has been identified as qualifying for high ability just yet.  End of the year NWEA data is needed before final decisions are made.  Please remember, CogAT is a test with zero reading.  It covers nothing that is being taught at school, nor is it something you can prepare your child for.  It is a test which shows how students think.  CogAT often identifies your out-of-the-box thinkers and those students who can make those connections between different examples.  If your child did not do well on this test, no worries.  Click here for a link to help explain the results.  Remember, this test is only one of two ways into HA.  

The other research based test is NWEA.  It is an achievement test where we use their end of year score.  This is the other pathway into HA.  NWEA is unique, in that it adjusts as the student answers.  If they answer a question correctly, then it gives them another challenging question.  This allows them to go above grade level which is why it's a perfect assessment to use for HA identification.  To clarify, you do not need to do well on both tests.  While waiting for the NWEA scores, a good suggestion would be to look at your child's past NWEA scores for Fall and Winter.  The score you need to look at is the middle one similar to the highlighted snip above.  The middle, bold number needs to be 95 or higher in order to be considered for HA.  The window for NWEA opens April 19th and runs through May 18th.

     As with any test, students need to take their time and do their personal best. 

 We do try and keep those identified around 10% of the second grade population.  Please email me if you have questions.  Thanks!

 

    
Important note:  The last day of HA class at Brummitt will be Thursday, May 10th.


 

First grade:- Punctuation Poetry
This week we have continued analyzing poetry about punctuation. The students really enjoyed explaining the silly pictures that they imagined for the Exclamation mark. We also read a story about the exclamation mark by Amy Rosenthal and Tom Lichtenfeld..  This was a cute story that told how the exclamation mark found himself in a world of question marks and periods.

 

First grade Math- Carroll Diagrams

We are sorting shapes by attributes using Carroll Diagrams. This diagram is a rectangular diagram used to sort and classifying objects according their attributes. We discussed the differences between rows and columns; rows being horizontal and columns being vertical. We worked through several diagrams on the white board before we moved to our student math journals. We started with two attributes and two shapes, then moved up to two attributes and three shapes. We will continue working on these diagrams next week.

Second grade- The Indian in the Cupboard

We are moving right along in our book learning the adventures of Omri, Patrick, Boone and Lil Bear. This week the cowboy and  Indian had several disagreements and they got to have an adventure at school with the boys.  We are talking about  the characters traits and how they change as the book goes on. We have made  connections to Edward in the fact that Omri lives in England where Edward and Abilene went on the Queen Mary to England.  Also, Lil Bear and Boone are both from another time, and have had many adventures; just as Edward had many adventures on his journey.
We also reviewed our parts of speech by analyzing a sentence from the text.

 I have already had one student turn in her end of novel project. She chose to bring a bunny to life.  I look forward to seeing everyone else's projects soon. Remember, they are due April 30th.

Second grade Math- Think Deeply
Students worked independently on the writing portion of our lesson. They were to tell Dru and Teller which block with a square face could be used for a floor design. Then they were to describe the block by color, size, number of faces, number of edges, and number of vertices. We then  completed the chart to organize our ideas about the shape blocks.

 
Third grade- Black Beauty
This group is doing an amazing job reading both in class and for homework. This week we wrote in our journals about life lessons in the book, and how life varies for the horses depending on their masters. The book speaks of ignorance and how it is not okay to make poor choices which could cause harm to others and blame it on lack of knowledge.  Students are doing an amazing job of keeping up with the characters and their traits. We continue to have items brought in to our room for the students to inspect closely, as many do not have prior experience to horses and riding. This is amazing as a hands - on visual learner to be able to learn more by touching and seeing the objects than by just reading about them in the novel.

Third grade Math- arrow math



We picked up where we left off last week with arrow math. This week we worked in partners to solve problems on an array. We discussed how you can use the array and move over and up to find the answer, or how you can subtract one and add ten if moving left one space and down a row. Before our think deeply question,the students made their own arrays and problems for their partners to solve. 

Fourth grade- The Westing Game

We started reading and discussing our novel this week. Everyone has a different opinion about who they think could be guilty of the crime, as well as all of them believe that Mr. Northrup is really Mr. Westing.  We started our case files by writing a physical description of all the characters. We answered some questions in our journals about the chapters we have read. As stated in my email, students are to read and then keep track of any clues that they may encounter in the reading. We will be having class discussion on Monday.

Fourth grade math: Equivalent Fractions

We only met one day due to their field trip to CMS for the Spelling bee. The day we met we were using algorithms to figure out  if the sum of the problem was less than, great than, or equal to 1 yard.  They first needed to make the fractions have common denominators, and then add to find the sum as well decide if the sum is  greater than, less than, or equal to one.

Happiest of Birthdays this week to Leah and Eva C. They share the same birthday on April 9th.

Friday the 13th interesting fact:

Why does the Friday the 13th superstition stick so firmly in our minds? According to Thomas Gilovich, who chairs the department of psychology at Cornell University, our brains are almost too good at making associations.
"If anything bad happens to you on Friday the 13th, the two will be forever associated in your mind, and all those uneventful days in which the 13th fell on a Friday will be ignored,


Whatever you do and wherever you go...have a fabulous  weekend!

Mrs. P