~ HONOR VETERANS FRIDAY~

I would like to start out the blog this week by Thanking all of our Veterans for serving in the

United States Armed Forces.

Weekly Quote

Keep Moving Forward!  This was our quote for this week and it happens to be one of my favorite quotes.  Our classes talked about how it reminds us to never quit and and to keep on trying.  One of my classes even mentioned that it tells us there is always a solution to a problem, but sometimes we must continue to look for it.  We also said it can remind us that everyday is a new day to try and we have a chance to make it the best day with each new start.  So many different ways we can take this quote which is why it is one of my favorites!

A quick note from around the school: The contest for plastic caps continues on through December 9th. Please continue to support this effort as they are trying to collect enough for two benches. Also, the cookie dough fundraiser is underway and will continue through November 18th.

Here are a few more of our leaders from the Character of the Month Club. Check back next week for the last of our leaders.

These students also made it into the Character of the Month Club too.  These are our friends that can always find a way to make us laugh while we are doing our work.  They add the element of fun into our day!

Language Arts

1st Grade:  Silly Speak - Guess My Connection:  elcome-way ack-bay!  We started the week figuring out a greeting on the board - Welcome Back!  Next we quickly reviewed our Pig Latin rules as a reminder from last week.  Then the students worked on a worksheet and then shared their answers with the class.  We encoded a message together.  For some added practice each student came up to the board and translated their names for the class.  Then we began to encode a song together.  

On Tuesday, we started class by listening to the song we encoded.  Then the children took their connections from the previous lesson and encoded it.  They spread out around the room for this project to keep it a secret.  At the end of class they presented their connections to the group.  We had a fun time guessing our friends codes!

2nd Grade:  Connecting by Asking Questions:  This week the children learned about Paul’s Wheel of Reasoning using chapter 4 to lead our discussion.  I gave the students sticky notes and explained to them that when their inner voice has a question when they are reading they can write it down and stick it in the book. We also talked about this being a great way to take notes when we are borrowing a book and can't mark in it. This is a way for us to develop good reading habits and question our reading.  I re-read chapter 4 so they could practice this technique.  To start our group discussion on the chapter they shared their questions and discussed them.
On Tuesday we looked at three areas on the reasoning wheel to help us focus in on chapter four- the purpose, the connection, and the consequence.  We went through a set of questions for each of these areas helping us begin to get an overall understanding of the chapter.  To finish the day the children completed a reading analyzer for chapter 4.  We take time out to focus on chapter 4 because this is one of the key chapters the children must understand before going forward with the story.  They were asked to read chapters 5-7 for homework.  They have until Monday and the chapters are very short so this shouldn’t take much time.

3rd Grade:  A Modern Legend:  We began by hearing a poem and discussing the mood of the it.  Then I read the poem again this time having the children close their eyes and paint a picture in their mind.  Then they were asked to draw what they visualized.  I read the poem for a third time this time allowing them to add the details to their drawing while I read it.  I allowed them a few more minutes to finish their drawing this time making sure all of the white was filled in their picture. Then we discussed what type of music you would expect to hear with our poem and concluded it would be sad reflecting the fear.  The students listened to the “The Ballad of the Edmund Fitzgerald.”  To end the day we had to decide what the genre of the ballad would be and decided that a legend would be a good fit.
On Tuesday, we started class watching a video that explains the history of the story behind the Edmond Fitzgerald. The video also gave the students many different theories to explain what might have been the cause to the sinking of the ship. After the video, they were given a worksheet to complete. They were an expert and had to provide evidence for a museum opening to honor the Edmond Fitzgerald - answering if it should be referred to as a legend. After some time working on it alone, we took the definition of the legend and looked for evidence from the story to see if it fit into this category. This cleared up the big picture for the students of learning about today's modern legends. Our experts decided it would be safe to name the museum "The Legend of the Edmond Fitzgerald."

4th Grade: Change Makers - Part 1:  On Monday they came in and finished up their biography organizers.  Then we took time for each student to present what they learned about their biography.

On Tuesday, they were introduced to their biography project.  We went over each step and viewed a sample of a presentation from a previous year.  The students were given a copy of what is to be included in their project.  We then looked at google drive and went over some documents shared with them.  One of the most important documents we discussed is their chart tracking their due dates throughout the project.  To break down the project and make it easier for them it is broken down into steps.  We will work on this project in class and they will need to spend some time on it at home.  The final presentation is not due until February 14th.  From now until February they will receive class time to work individually on their projects.
The first deadline is this Monday - the students need to select a person for their biography project. The key in choosing a person is it must be someone who contributed change to society.

MATH

My math groups only met with me on Wednesday because I was out of the building on Thursday.

1st Grade: It's Heavy - Heavier or Lighter:  This week we finished our first lesson on weight!  We finalized our letters to send to Imi and Zani, but before we wrote our final response we summarized what we learned over the weeks.  We started out by looking at our scale we were describing and the kids told me how to describe the scale in two ways.  Then I asked them to tell me how we can describe to Imi and Zani how we know when something is heavier and lighter on our scale.

 When something is lighter we said the side of the scale will go up.  When something is heavier the scale will tilt down.  They said the scale will not move if it is about the same.  After we came up with our description to the scale, the students wrote on sentence strips to describe our two sides of the scale.  To end the day we were ready to write our response to Imi and Zani - I showed them a sample letter from Sebastian and then they began to write their own response.  I have sent our fax over to our friends and we are hoping to hear back from them soon!

2nd Grade: Length - Marble Crash Test:  We had a quick review over what we learned about with our two units of measurement: inch and half inch.  They came up with a great list and had all of our ideas we have focused on over the past weeks.  Then I passed out two sentence strips to each group and asked them to write one statement about the inch and the reverse statement of the half inch.  

An example being 1 inch equals 2 half-inches and the reverse being 2 half-inches equals 1 inch.  Another great example we had was an inch is a larger unit resulting in a smaller measurement and the reverse for the half-inch is a smaller unit will give us a larger measurement.  After that we looked back over our responses from last week for Dru and Teller.  




Then we went over a rubric to show what we are looking for in our responses and I displayed sample response that demonstrated a response for the rubric.  To end the day, I allowed the students to use the rubric I gave them to score their own response.  I wanted the children to get a chance to grade and see if they included all parts of the rubric in their responses.  

3rd Grade: Linear Measurement - In Search of the Yeti:  We began our investigation phase this week for our new lesson.  We are preparing to create our own Yeti!  We are still focusing on the term benchmark and how we can use it to help us enlarge our Yeti. This idea had us add our new concept of doubling to our math wall. As a class we decided that we could use our benchmark and double it to create our Yeti. We then started to work on our plan of creating our class Yeti.

4th Grade: The Shape of Things - Triple Play with Shapes:  Let the game begin!  My 4th graders are into the investigation phase of our lesson and our playing a game called Triple Play.  Today we walked through the directions and then slowly played the game while working through the rules.  They are dealt 18 cards and must find a match of 3 of a kind in 6 categories: square, rhombus, rectangle, polygon, parallelogram, and trapezoid.  They then have 2 minutes to make as many matches as they can.  When the time is up they display all of their non-matches and the person with the least amount will begin the next round.  They will have 10 seconds to look at the mismatched cards and make a match of their own.  The trick to the game is that certain categories are worth higher points so the boys were challenging themselves to find the highest points possible when looking for their matches...First player to 100 points is the winner.  They caught on quickly and are excited to get to play it all the way through next week!

IMPORTANT DATES:

November 1st-18th:  Cookie Dough Fundraiser

November 16th & 17th:  Camp Goodfellow – Sloan

November 23rd-25th:  Thanksgiving Break – No School

December 1st: Early Dismissal Day