Thought Out Thursday!

Begin with the End in Mind:

• Monday, December 10th - Our regular weekly schedule resumes!!!
• Mondays and Tuesdays - English/LA
• Wednesdays and Thursdays - English/LA
• Friday, December 21st - End of 2nd grading period (where is the time going?!?!?)
• Monday, December 24th - Friday, January 4th - Winter Break

Welcome Board:

Thursday students were excited to meet their new high ability instructor.  The message read, "Give Mrs. Wermuth a handshake, high five or hug to welcome her to our class."  They were ever so polite and even introduced themselves.  Great to see!  On Thursday, my last day, I had them do the same for me.  It's been such an awesome experience working with your children and corresponding with you through email.  Please stop me if you see me out and about and introduce yourself.  I love putting a face to a name.

Fourth Grade Math:

When we met last time, we had a discussion about what equivalent fractions were.  We used a Think Frame to map out our ideas.  We made sure to answer all parts of the questions.  For example, they wanted us to use words, pictures and numbers in our explanation.  It also required us not to use 1/2 in our example.  Thursday, we pulled from our Think Frame to answer in more complete sentences.  The Think Frame is a wonderful thing because it takes the overwhelming task of writing and breaks it down.  When they go to answer the question, all the hard work is already done.  They did a fantastic job of putting their thoughts into a paragraph form.  We moved right into another scenario about Tori and Jordan.  It talked about their great-great-grandfather's amazing frog who won several frog jumping contests at their local county fair.  This launched us into the worksheet where they were asked which frog jumped further, but the HA catch was . . . they only had a add machine tape (what's that?!?!?) that was three feet long.  They needed to mark on the tape the different jumps, but not using the help of any measuring tools.  We talked about it.  Thought about it.  Decided that we would fall back on folding the paper into parts.  First we did a tri-fold in order to mark the feet.  From there we folded according to the fraction.  (5/9, 2/6, etc) I saw them struggle through each strip which is actually a good thing.  They were a little frustrated, but we helped them through and for this, they understand a bit more than if it came easily to them.  We will continue next week!

Second Grade Math:

First, we discussed the relationship between inches and half inches.  They are understanding how the two go together which is great!  I gave them a couple, turn and talk, examples to figure in their head.  They saw that there are double the number of half inches when given a certain number of inches.  The reverse was true for half inches.  They figured took the number of half inches and divided by two . . . without realizing they were dividing.  Not all were quick with their math, so I played a couple of my favorite doubles songs.  Miss Jenny led us through Double it Up and Double Time.  Ask them if they can sing it to you!  They did a quick check with a worksheet before we moved into the marble crash test.  Since we have an odd number of students, I used card companions to break them into two groups.  (7's together . . . 6's together)  I showed them a quick demo of how to do the different marble trials in our room, but it has WAY too much friction with the carpeting.  For the actual test, we had to move out into the hallway where there's smooth surfaces for days!!!!  Check out their videos.  Each trial increases the pitch by one dictionary.  They measure twice.  Once with the inch ruler and once with the half inch ruler.  It's important to not just double it here because the marble sometimes falls in-between.  Measuring is important on this activity.  We problem solved before starting day two because one group had one person doing all the measuring.  They talked it through quite maturely and decided to have jobs they would rotate through.  It was awesome to see! 

Third Grade Math:

It was important to switch gears this week.  Last week they were all around room, measuring and collaborating which was awesome, fun, learning!  A crucial part of high ability math is writing to understand.  It takes it to a whole higher level.  Those new to the program are baffled by the fact that we are writing in math, but surprisingly the others are getting quite good at it.  The important thing is, we always start off together!  To make the task less threatening, we use a Think Frame.  The Think Frame allows us to get our thoughts out and build off of other's ideas.  We first started by reading and dissecting the question.  It was full of different parts that we needed to make sure we answered.  They were to choose one body part that would make a good benchmark to help them estimate, explain why and give an example of using it to measure a real object.  We started the discussion and they talked through which one was a measurement they would know.  We got away from centimeters because it's not something we use often.  They chose their radius because it was mobile and was about one foot.  Day two, we continued to fill in the talk ideas.  They decided to use their radius as their benchmark to measure the width of their desk.  I had them do just that.  Afterwards, they wrote their benchmark on their desk using the dry erase markers.  We noticed they were different, but close.  Why?  After filling in our Think Frame, we just had time to start moving it over to the Think Deeply.  We got as far as filling in one box.  We will continue next week!

Farewell:

Two of my fourth grade girls asked if they could use my markers to write something on the whiteboard.  It grew . . .and grew . . . I am very humbled, thankful and blessed.  I will be back to visit them =)  Thanks, Brummitt!