Smile, It's Friday

Upcoming Events

• Tuesday, January 29,2019

  2:30 PM - 3:00 PM Student Council Meets

• February 7, 2019

  2:30 PM - 3:00 PM PTO Meets

January 29-February 8th

CogAT Screener for Kindergarten

Fourth Grade Language Arts:

Mysterious Mayhem:

Things are happening in a mysterious manner here in the fourth grade. We solved the Miss Moneybag's crime--how could her nephew do that to her??!
We quickly got through the last of the clues before our early dismissal. Next week is our launch into the unknown. Each child with get their own detective journals and their novel (The Westing Game). We are so excited to start!

Vocabulary for our Mystery Unit

More Vocabulary

Our case files for The Westing Game

Please note the children will be required to read chapters at home and bring their books each class.

Fourth Grade Math:

Our brief time together this week started with reviewing our vocabulary for this part of the fraction lesson(congruent, area model for a fraction, denominator, equivalent fraction,linear model of a fraction, numerator and relatively prime numbers) For some reason, congruent is escaping them. We revisited the tangram pieces. Using visual models helps the brain make the connection. This knowledge is necessary as we begin to look at fractions and how pieces do not have to be congruent to make the whole piece. On Thursday, we folded paper  to get this concept. We started by folding the paper into thirds and then fourths to get twelve pieces. The children had to then make partitions and label the areas as part of the whole. Getting good folds and then looking at equivalent fractions helped them with the concepts.

Folding paper to understand congruent shapes and equivalent fractions

Second Grade Language Arts:

Due to the short week, a field trip, and an early dismissal--LA was limited this week. I read aloud Chapter 5 and we talked about how good readers ask questions while reading. We will be using Richard Paul's reasoning wheel. This model helps children think about questions that relate to the purpose of a story. This is the main focus of the model, but other important parts of reading are emphasized such as: point of view, evidence or data, concepts and ideas, the issue or problem in the story, assumptions, inferences and implications or consequences. As you can see, these are all high level concepts and require the children to be critical thinkers while reading. We also reviewed our sentence analysis papers from last week. Diagramming sentences in this way will need continued practice.

Paul's Reasoning Model

Second Grade Math:

The one day we had together was spent getting our materials ready for building our car seat, playing with the truck on the ramp to help us make design decisions and drawing our proto-types for our car seats. The children are given a set amount of materials and can only use those to make the car seat. They had to use precise measurements and Quality Control will check their designs before the actual test. Below are a few of the designs developed:

Third Grade Language Arts:

Unfortunately, we were unable to meet this week due to the inclement weather and early dismissal on Tuesday. We will pick up next week with our interactions in nature. Please make sure your child brings their journal back completed on Monday, January 29th. Thanks!

Third Grade Math

We voted. Our Yeti now has a name! Drum Roll please:

Robert Paul!

I have to admit. Our Yeti is pretty creative--not only is his name unique but he  looks like no other Yeti I've seen.  The ingenuity that was expressed during this whole process was off the charts. I have enjoyed this activity with the children so much!

After the excitement of building our Yeti, we had to think deeply about our process and express our thinking through writing.

 The big questions asked are:

1. How did we find the measurement for the body part that we needed to make for the Yeti and

2. Do you think this was the best method to use? Why or why not?

Good responses should include:

*Doubling the length of our measurements based on the pencil length of the Yeti's foot (The Yeti's foot is one pencil length long)
*Describing the process we used in groups to measure and make the body parts
*Looking at ratios between body parts and how measurements are not the same in all students. We used one student--Ahad as our baseline measurement.

We are still spreading kindness around the best we can!

On several occasions this week, kids were thoughtful and helping each other. Adam in second grade let Elsie go first to test the truck down the ramp. Delaney and Ruby worked together so well to get their work done and Michael in fourth grade helped Tyler remember how to put the tangram pieces together. I love this so much!