Spring is here at last!

Happy Friday! The sun is shining and the air is warmish...perhaps Spring may have sprung after all!




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.

  

      Don't forget these important dates:

- Friday April 27th  is the last day to sign up for HA summer school!! Don't miss out!
- End of novel projects are due April 30th.
- Last day of HA classes is May 10th.
-Last day of school is May 25th


First grade- Punctuation and Editing
 

Students continued learning about punctuation. We read the book Twenty Odd Ducks and learned that punctuation marks along with word placement, can make two totally different sentences. We then took our knowledge of punctuation and edited a paragraph looking for capital letters, commas, periods, question marks and exclamation marks.  To further our knowledge of editing, we looked at more sentences on the whiteboard and practiced our skills.  We will be moving on to what could be our last lesson for the year, We are going to be learning about rebus stories. This will be a fun lesson in which we will decipher the meanings of pictures.

Second grade-Indian in the Cupboard

We finished our novel this week, and the kids were sad that it has ended, They really wanted to read the sequel and I had to tell them that we would not have time to complete it in class, but I encouraged them to check out a copy at the local library.  We are working on a sequencing activity for all of the events in the book. When we are done with that, we are going to make an IMovie book trailer to persuade people to read the book.  This will be an in class activity, and should be a fun way to end the unit. We will be sharing our end of  novel projects the week of April 30th. I have received another project early, and it is AMAZING!!! I love the creativity and thought processes going into this project! The projects are on display in our room until the end of High Ability classes on May 10th. 

Third grade- Black Beauty
We are continuing our novel study of Black Beauty. This week we squeezed in a cause and effect activity with our reading.  I am hope ful that we will complete the novel with a  couple of days to spare.  Thanks for reminding your child to complete their assigned chapters each week...I appreciate it!


Fourth grade-The Westing Game

Students continue to unlock red herrings (fake clues)as we delve further into the novel. We have made a definite connection between Mr. Westing and several other characters.  Our discussions have been great. Students are using clues and making predictions as to who the bomber and the burglar are in the story.


First grade- Shapes of all sorts

 We continued working with Carroll diagrams this week. The students had a great grasp of the concept, and were only thrown off for a few minutes when I introduced the most difficult diagram. They enjoyed putting what they knew along with what they thought when I introduced the negation pieces. These pieces were marked the same as the attribute pieces, but had an X through the name of the attribute. We then made several diagrams of our own using the negation pieces as well as the attribute pieces. Then the students used their shape cards to fill in the boxes. They did a great job!!

Second grade- Playground equipment
We are beginning to use our tangram blocks to create objects for our "playground project:"  We learned the new vocabulary word "polyhedron" and its definition. Then we worked in two groups of four to make shapes.  We made triangular and rectangular prisms, noticing the faces for each shape.

 

 

 

 

 

Third grade- Think Deeply
We came to the writing portion of our lesson this week. We had to analyze the array and find patterns. Students had to make sure the pattern descriptions were accurate so that the pattern could be recreated without the array being present. They also had to be able to undo the operations, with arrows facing opposite directions. We will be moving on to our last lesson of "Mental Math" in a week.

Fourth grade- Fractions Equivalent to one
We continue to work on our lesson with making fractions that are equivalent to one. They are doing well with the concept and will be doing the Think Deeply portion of the lesson next week.

Celebrate Earth day on Sunday by taking a walk, soaking up some vitamin D and enjoying the warm weather!



                                               Mrs. P