Homecoming Friday

Don't forget Homecoming parade is today!!

The CHS homecoming parade will begin at 4 p.m. on Friday, Sept. 13 from the Chesterton Middle School Pool parking lot, Porter Ave to Calumet, Calumet to Broadway, Broadway to Sixth and back to CMS.

1st grade:

This week we continued with our discussion on connections. We also discussed the homework packet they brought home. I explained to the children that they needed to pick a symbol out from something that they loved. I told the children that I loved the beach, and they chose a beach umbrella, beach, and beach chair. I also told them that I loved to read, and they picked a book as the symbol.  This should be a fun activity for them. Please make sure they write out their connection on the strips of paper. They also need to number the patches and strips of paper, as well as cut them out. We will assemble them to the shield Monday. 

2nd grade:

We continued talking about structures this week.  We made a list of generalizations about structures. They came up with them with a little coaxing. The generalizations are a structure usually supports, a structure can change over time, and a structure can be stable or unstable.  I then showed them a picture of a skeleton belonging to a cow. They agreed it had all the attributes of a structure.  The next picture I showed was of a family. The children all thought that it was impossible for a family to be a  structure. We then took time to talk about families and how one of the generalizations applied. I then asked them, "how have their families changed"? Have they added a new family member such as a sister, brother or even a pet. The children then understood and all chimed in with something that changed in their families.

3rd grade:

The topic of interactions was continued this week. I also introduced the books How to Speak Cat and How to Speak Dog. We discussed human/animal interactions, along with the observable effect of the interaction, i.e. a girl pets a cat, and the cat purrs. We took the time to look at some important features of a nonfiction text such as the table of contents (with main sections separated by a blue dotted line), speech bubble summaries, headings, and index. They will not be reading the whole book. It's more of a narrow-in-on-the topic, than read for understanding.  Once they were familiar with the features and layout, I showed them the preview chart that they would be filling out. Some of the kids were a bit confused on how to navigate the story. We will continue to work on this next week.

4th grade:

This week in fourth grade we continued our discussion on change. We also had time to work on our Interview on Change paragraphs. We worked on how to  add an introduction and conclusion because most did not include them.  We also are working on adding more details.  Next week we will be using technology to complete our interviews.

1st grade:

This week in math we talked about our speaker and listener roles. I then introduced the kids to Imi and Zani, characters in their book who are consultants for the Amazon Birds Consulting Company. They received a letter explaining that they are from a company, and are trying to put together a School Measurement Fair.  We then opened boxes with measurement tools. The children had fun explaining them. I then asked the children how we could measure our box. We took turns trying to decide which measurement tool would be the best to use to measure the box with.

2nd grade:

We started off this week talking about our speaker and listener roles. The children really enjoyed this, especially when they got to take turns with a pretend fuzzy purple microphone. I then introduced Dru and Teller, characters in their book, also known as the "Detective Duo," who wrote the kids a letter asking the class to help them gather ideas for a gallery full of geometric shapes for there new science museum. They were then shown  two groups of shapes and they had to decide which group had only triangles. They decided pretty quickly that it was group B.  We went on to use our speaker and listening roles and brainstormed ideas on what we know about triangles. We had one student at the doc camera jotting down our ideas on a think frame which included a triangle has three sides, three corners or vertices, and a closed shape, which also means it's a polygon. They were great at coming up with all the attributes that make up a triangle. We then completed the Think Deeply letter to Dru and Teller.   

3rd grade:


This week in 3rd grade math we talked about repeating patterns in which the cycle of elements is repeated over and over.  For example abcabcabc... is a repeating pattern.  I  presented the students with the pattern SARAHSARAHSA. I then asked them the following questions,"What are the next five letters that Sarah would write(RAHSA), what would the 18th letter be if Sarah continues the pattern(R)?" That was pretty easy for them.  Finally, I broke them into groups to complete a work sheet pertaining to repeating patterns.  When they were finished, we met back in a large group at the doc camera to discuss our ideas while filling in a think frame chart.




4th grade:

We started the lesson, The Shape of Things this week. I gave the kids all a parallelogram and asked  them to write down everything they knew about it on their white boards.  When they were ready, I called on different kids to come up and write the characteristics of the shape on the board.  They did a great job coming up with all the attributes of the parallelogram.  Finally, they broke up into pairs and started working on a You either Have it......Or You Don't packet from their workbooks.  They worked on identifying the defining characteristics of shapes, like polygons, quadrilaterals, and parallelograms. We will continue with this packet next week.

Happy Friday!!!