Happenings

• Friday, January 7th: 2nd quarter report cards are available in Skyward at 3:00
• Monday, January 17th: MLK Jr. Day NO SCHOOL
• February 18th - 21st: Winter Break/NO SCHOOL

 

1^st Grade: On Tuesday, the kids were introduced to another cipher.  I asked them to look at the new cipher and see if they could make any connections on how to solve it.  Honestly, I was amazed when within minutes many of the kids had broke the code.  The ones that did not realize the code right away only needed a small hint before the light went on then they were also off and running. These kids are really figuring out how ciphers work!  Once completed, I passed out word ladders meant for 2^nd and 3^rd graders.  Word ladders help boost reading, vocabulary, spelling and phonic skills.  The kids dug right into the word ladders.  I did help when a child got stuck but for the most part it only took a small clue for them to figure out the answer. 

  

2^nd Grade: As a reward for completing a chapter book, for the next few classes the girls are watching The Tale of Despereax. They have all let me know that they needed a break from reading every night, which made me laugh!  I asked each girl to use sticky notes to write down similarities and differences between the book and movie.  By five minutes into the movie one of the girls had eight sticky notes with differences.  At that rate we may have had over a hundred sticky notes with only the differences.  That is awesome but a little excessive!  I decided to change the rules to write down only three differences and three similarities per movie watching day.  That way I won’t run out of sticky notes!    

 

3^rd  Grade:  On Tuesday the class shared the pictures they drew before break regarding the mood and tone of the song, The Wreck of the Edmond Fitzgerald.  Each child presented their drawing and explained how they interpreted the story through art. It was great to see the different ways the story spoke to each kid.  One drew spooky trees, and another drew a boat with a wave carrying a witch.  Each child was very creative, and they all did a good job presenting.  Once everyone shared, the kids watched a little more of the documentary regarding the wreck.  They were intrigued and asked a lot of questions about this modern legend.  The students beg pretty much every class to do a Mad Lib.  As they watched the story, I gave each child a sticky note with a part of speech that was needed to complete the mad lib.  I collected the notes and at the end of class we had just enough time to complete a Mad Scientist Mad Lib.     

 

4^th  Grade:  The kids continued to work on the biography studies.  On Tuesday, both groups completed the timelines which we will use next week to create a visual timeline on butcher paper.

 

 

1^st Grade: Continuing with our attributes lesson from before break, the kids were given a baggie of shapes and were asked to put them into three groups depending on a similar attribute.  To start I briefly reminded them of the different attributes of shapes.  I then modeled the One Loop Game.  The One Loop Game asks the kids to decide on shapes with a similar attribute and put those shapes inside a loop.  The shapes that did not have the attribute were left outside of the loop.  We chose button buddies  and the kids tried to figure out ways to stump their partner.  While the button buddies played, I pulled individual kids to the front and asked them to pick an attribute card.  The cards gave them one attribute.  They needed to pull all the shapes with that attribute and place it inside the loop.  This gave me an idea of which kids understood the concept and which kids needed a little more help.  On Thursday before we continued playing the game, we did a quick refresher on the three types of angles.  A couple of the cards asked to pull shapes with a specific angle.  I noticed that the kids found this one difficult.  I put pictures of the types of angles on the board and we modeled them again with our arms.        

 

2^nd Grade: I took this week to introduce the concept of long addition.  I modeled the steps on the board prior to passing out a few worksheets.  We did a few problems together before the kids worked on their own.  The regrouping took a little while to get the hang of.  It was hard for them to remember to always place the tens digit into the next column.  By the end of Thursday, I really felt like they had grasped the concept.  We will continue to do quick refreshers in class.   

 

3^rd Grade: The boys delved into long division.  Third grade is a big year for multiplication and it also touches on division.  In the proceeding months we had touched on concepts where knowing long division would have helped.  We lightly talked about division but never really got into it, but this week we dove in headfirst.  I started by showing them how to divide 2 by 1 with no remainders.  We worked on this concept most of the class.  The next day we continued with 2 by one with no remainders and then introduced 2 by one with remainders.  It is helpful for the kids to know their multiplication facts when learning division.  This slowed us down some so push the boys to memorize their facts.  By the end of class, the kids started to figure division out.  I plan to throw them a division fact periodically throughout the rest of the year.

       

4^th Grade:  Due to the concept showing up in one of our Zaccaro worksheets, I touched on the multiplication of negative and positive numbers.  I did not delve too deep but let them know the main thing to remember is that a negative multiplied by a negative or a positive multiplied by a positive, equals a positive number.  On the flip side a negative multiplied by a positive in any order, equals a negative number.  We then delved back into Zaccaro algebra.  The kids are all on different levels.  Those on the same level worked together and I answered questions as needed. I worked directly with one group that was having difficulty with the algebra. As the other groups finished a problem, they came up so I could check the answer.  Sometimes it was right and sometimes they were so close.  It has been fun to see these kids soak up algebra.  Even when they get stumped most are determined to find the correct answer.