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Thursday, January 10, 2018
2:30 PM - 3:00 PM PTO MeetsFriday, January 11, 2018
3:00 PM Report Cards Posted in SkywardJanuary 21, 2019
Welcome Back and Happy New Year!
I had the chance to meet some of you--the parents--during the Holiday parties and recent 3rd grade field trip. I LOVE that. Please feel free to pop in any time and introduce yourself. Never hesitate to reach out to me.
I welcome it.
I had the chance to meet some of you--the parents--during the Holiday parties and recent 3rd grade field trip. I LOVE that. Please feel free to pop in any time and introduce yourself. Never hesitate to reach out to me.
I welcome it.
New Year, New Attitude
Our High Ability Motto is:
We've made a pledge to treat each other kindly in class, in the hallways and all around the school. We signed a banner that says, Kindness Matters, and hung it in our classroom. We know we can be kind:
- by listening to other's ideas
- using our words to say how we feel and
- having positive actions that make our classroom and the world a better place.
Fourth Grade Language Arts:
It's still a Mystery to Me........
We are going to start our unit on Mysteries. One of my favorite topics to explore. I love a good
mystery binge on Netflix and if it's British--well, I'm hooked. Our overall theme is: Change
In particular, we will explore the theme of change through the mystery genre. The children will analyze the plot of a mystery and how it is not linear. Authors who write mysteries use deceptive red herrings which challenge the reader to go back, reanalyze and establish the true plot. We will explore how characters change throughout text to reach a goal or solve a problem. And so we begin: The Westing Game, by Ellen Raskin! Please note: the children will be required to read outside of the classroom and bring their book to HA class.
We only had Tuesday this week for Language Arts, but that's ok! We finished our How To Papers strong. I did want to share that I am having the kids self-evaluate their writing. High ability kids really want to "get things right" and usually the first time. These are good traits to have. At the same time, developing the ability to look at their own work and analyze it critically will help them as they grow academically and personally. Being able to look at your own work with an open mind is a life long skill.
The process for self evaluative work is as follows:
I handed out a rubric which gave numeric scores based on their work. I gave this rubric to them initially before they began writing so they had a benchmark to assess themselves and know what I was looking for. When they had written their final drafts, I had THEM go back and assess themselves. This was difficult for some of them. They were reluctant to give themselves the highest score because they felt like it was wrong. For these children, I encouraged them to take pride in their hard work. Other children were still trying to figure out where they fit on the rubric. All in all, they were very honest with themselves and me as we discussed what each part of the rubric meant and how their work measured up. We will continue to do this type of self-evaluation. Below is an example. The child's marks are in pencil and mine are in blue pen:
Fourth Grade Math:
Compare Fractions, you say? Why of course!
This week is all about developing many strategies for comparing fractions. The children are adept at using common denominators to compare, but we need to develop and strengthen other strategies such as: common numerators, benchmarks and missing parts. This deeper knowledge will spill into many aspects of mathematical thinking. Spending time digging deeper into fractions provides a basis for mathematical thinking as the children get into middle school and beyond. Being adept in fractional work helps with ratios, area and length problems.
Here the children are putting fractions on a number line using the strategies they learned earlier in the week. I gave them fractions on cards and they had to decide where on the number line the fractions belonged using the benchmarks of 0, 1/2, 1, 1 1/2 and 2. Some of the fractions they had to work with were: 17/10, 13/12, 6/12, 5/9, etc. They were very quick to do the exercise and only needed to be reminded of the strategy using common numerators. That is a tricky strategy because if the numerators are alike, then the smaller denominator is the larger fraction and vice versa.
This week is all about developing many strategies for comparing fractions. The children are adept at using common denominators to compare, but we need to develop and strengthen other strategies such as: common numerators, benchmarks and missing parts. This deeper knowledge will spill into many aspects of mathematical thinking. Spending time digging deeper into fractions provides a basis for mathematical thinking as the children get into middle school and beyond. Being adept in fractional work helps with ratios, area and length problems.
Here the children are putting fractions on a number line using the strategies they learned earlier in the week. I gave them fractions on cards and they had to decide where on the number line the fractions belonged using the benchmarks of 0, 1/2, 1, 1 1/2 and 2. Some of the fractions they had to work with were: 17/10, 13/12, 6/12, 5/9, etc. They were very quick to do the exercise and only needed to be reminded of the strategy using common numerators. That is a tricky strategy because if the numerators are alike, then the smaller denominator is the larger fraction and vice versa.
Second Grade Language Arts:
Our journey with Edward Tulane will be MIRACULOUS. This week we are exploring the term miraculous and delving head first into our chapter book. We are also exploring the four levels of Grammar as introduced by Michael Clay Thompson's Grammar Island. This four-level analysis includes: 1. parts of speech 2. parts of a sentence 3. Phrases 4. Clauses
How amazing is it that at such a young age your children will be learning this level of grammar! Quite wonderful.
Please note the children will be required to read Edward Tulane at home and bring their books to HA class. I am hoping they really want to keep reading to see where Edward ends up throughout time.
*Chapters 2-4 will be required reading due Monday, January 14, 2019*
Our journey with Edward Tulane will be MIRACULOUS. This week we are exploring the term miraculous and delving head first into our chapter book. We are also exploring the four levels of Grammar as introduced by Michael Clay Thompson's Grammar Island. This four-level analysis includes: 1. parts of speech 2. parts of a sentence 3. Phrases 4. Clauses
How amazing is it that at such a young age your children will be learning this level of grammar! Quite wonderful.
Please note the children will be required to read Edward Tulane at home and bring their books to HA class. I am hoping they really want to keep reading to see where Edward ends up throughout time.
*Chapters 2-4 will be required reading due Monday, January 14, 2019*
 |
| Showing us that Kindness Matters! |
Second Grade Math:
What is the best tool?
This week we are all about measuring the circumference of plastic eggs in preparation for our egg crashes. In order to be experts in car seat safety for our eggs, the children have to be engineers. This type of engineering relies on best practice and using proper measurements to build and design a safe car seat for our eggs.
Using tools such as yarn, pipe cleaners, tape measures and centimeter cubes the children explored the best tool for measuring the circumference of the egg. The discussion was vibrant. They talked about using the pipe cleaners and the yarn as good choices. When I probed deeper, they realized that while the cubes and rulers were good tools they couldn't bend around the circumference. And while the yarn and the pipe cleaners could bend they didn't have numbers as benchmarks for measuring. Ultimately, they agreed while all of the tools were fun to use, the tape measure, indeed, did hold all of the elements of a perfect tool for measuring circumference.
The kids are super excited to design their seat belts. I have encouraged them to draw sketches at home. Don't be surprised if some tinkering takes place over the weekend!
If anyone has egg cartons to donate--I would much appreciate it.
Thank you to Adam's family for donating already!
This week we are all about measuring the circumference of plastic eggs in preparation for our egg crashes. In order to be experts in car seat safety for our eggs, the children have to be engineers. This type of engineering relies on best practice and using proper measurements to build and design a safe car seat for our eggs.
Using tools such as yarn, pipe cleaners, tape measures and centimeter cubes the children explored the best tool for measuring the circumference of the egg. The discussion was vibrant. They talked about using the pipe cleaners and the yarn as good choices. When I probed deeper, they realized that while the cubes and rulers were good tools they couldn't bend around the circumference. And while the yarn and the pipe cleaners could bend they didn't have numbers as benchmarks for measuring. Ultimately, they agreed while all of the tools were fun to use, the tape measure, indeed, did hold all of the elements of a perfect tool for measuring circumference.
The kids are super excited to design their seat belts. I have encouraged them to draw sketches at home. Don't be surprised if some tinkering takes place over the weekend!
If anyone has egg cartons to donate--I would much appreciate it.
Thank you to Adam's family for donating already!
Third Grade Language Arts:
Due to starting on Tuesday this week and a field trip on Wednesday, we only got one day together this week for Language Arts. The girls wrote a character paragraph describing a character from a story using the traits we have been talking about. It wasn't enough to just label the character and the traits, the students had to give examples of how that character showed the trait.
Below is a sample of work that the students are exhibiting. As you can see they are using the Hamburger method of paragraph writing AND providing details from the story as evidence of their thinking. Super proud of their diligent work:
I also introduced the girls to the next book/author that we will begin on Monday, the 14th. How many of you remember Peter Rabbit by Beatrix Potter?!
Continuing our Interactions theme, we are exploring how characters interact with nature. Using a reading analyzer, I will model for the students how to use the analyzer and how to complete it in the future. I will read the mentor text, The Tale of Peter Rabbit. Then using other books written by Beatrix Potter the girls will complete their own reading analyzers. I can't wait to see the joy on their faces as they explore these little books and their gorgeous illustrations. More to come......
Third Grade Math:
We are slowly building our YETI! We planned out how to measure our Yeti and broke up into groups to measure, draw and build him! Using the foot prints found at the site as our benchmark. The length of the Yeti footprint was two unsharpened pencils long. They children quickly realized that we had to double the length of our measurements. Using the tallest student in the class--Ahad--as our prototype, we measured each of his body parts. We all soon realized that a person--or Yeti--isn't flat and we had to measure length and width of each body part. They kids worked in teams to measure and cut out the body part their group was assigned. Much of the session was used to plan how to go about measuring, marking and cutting out the part. As you can see, I, too, was way involved in the lesson and didn't get pictures of the kids working! I did get their planning page.....
More to come next week!
We are slowly building our YETI! We planned out how to measure our Yeti and broke up into groups to measure, draw and build him! Using the foot prints found at the site as our benchmark. The length of the Yeti footprint was two unsharpened pencils long. They children quickly realized that we had to double the length of our measurements. Using the tallest student in the class--Ahad--as our prototype, we measured each of his body parts. We all soon realized that a person--or Yeti--isn't flat and we had to measure length and width of each body part. They kids worked in teams to measure and cut out the body part their group was assigned. Much of the session was used to plan how to go about measuring, marking and cutting out the part. As you can see, I, too, was way involved in the lesson and didn't get pictures of the kids working! I did get their planning page.....
More to come next week!
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