~ FRIENDSHIP FRIDAY ~

Welcome!  This week flew by with us missing Monday.  Our quote this week talked about spreading sunshine throughout the world.  When talking to the different classes they all immediately went to helping others.  The list became endless in ways we can help others.  We are going to work with this quote a little more next week.  I have asked each student to think of a way they can spread sunshine and we will take a few moments next week to write it down as a class project.

Around the School:  We need your Pop Tabs!!!  We are asking for your help from now until February 3rd in collecting Pop Tabs.  We are competing against all the schools within Duneland School Corporation to see who can collect the most Pop Tabs.  A district goal is to collect 3 million Pop Tabs to donate to Hannah’s Hope. Thanks for all your support in this effort!

Classroom Leaderboard:

A 3-way Tie!

1st Grade Language Arts  14

3rd Grade Language Arts 14

4th Grade Language Arts 14

IMPORTANT DATES:

January 20th: Report Cards Available Online
February 1st: Early Dismissal
February 3rd:  NFL Day - wear NFL sports gear for the Super Bowl
February 14th:  Valentine Parties
February 17th -20th: Winter Recess

LANGUAGE ARTS

1st Grade: Alphabet Acrobats - Magical Connections:  This week we finished our last page on Magical Anagrams.  We worked through the challenge page together.  They had 5 minutes to work on it independently.  Then we shared our answers together as a class - helping any friends that had trouble with the 5 or more letter anagrams.  Next, we began to decode our new message leading us into our new unit.  We will begin discussing what the message might mean next week.

2nd Grade:  Metaphor - Connections Between Words and Meaning:  We came in and defined a metaphor.  To help them better understand a metaphor we briefly discussed similes too.  As a class, we went through a list of metaphors discussing what was being compared and the meaning of the comparison.  It was great hearing their different personal connections help them define the metaphor.

Then it was back to our novel.  Last week the children read chapters 18 through 20 and we had some big events take place in our story.  We used the remainder of class time to discuss them.  We will continue with our class discussion next week.  

REMINDER:  This week they were assigned to read 20-23.  I asked them to look for and write down some metaphors as they read through these chapters.

3rd Grade:  Fairy Tales:  This week we continued with our discovery into Fairy Tales.  They picked a story to read together - Thumbelina - again they chose a story that neither of them had read.  It is great seeing them like this unit and look for the different stories to share!  They took turns partner reading.  It was exciting to listen to their expression with their fluency as they shared the story.  When they were done with the story they added the elements to our chart.  Next week we are going to compare and contrast our Fairy Tales we have explored.

4th Grade:  Change Makers:  They are continuing to work through their checklist.  I was happy to see most of my students were either finished with or adding finishing touches onto their list of 10 events.  They are getting excited with their projects as they are beginning to prepare materials for their report.

 I had many visitors working on their timelines at lunch this week to get ahead of the game!  I am also starting to hear them put thought into their final presentation.  I cannot wait to see their final projects!

REMINDER ~ UPCOMING DATES

January 24th: a completed timeline

January 31st: a completed monologue  

MATH

1st Grade: That Covers it - The Target Design Team:  We are continuing further with our concept of Area.  Imi and Zani wrote back to us and have asked for our help once again.  Zani loved seeing some of the drawings our friends included in their letters!  This week we started with a discussion on a unit of measurement.  We will be working with our square tiles.  We focused again with making a prediction and then measuring to see if we were correct.  We took a minute to discuss that it is okay if our predictions are not always correct - that is where we learn!  We went through a series of 6 different shapes  

Noticed a PATTERN - with Packers Colors!

We started discussing different strategies for making our prediction.  I found one student taking his small pink eraser and using that to represent two tiles - he made a benchmark!  We shared his discovery with the class as we defined a benchmark.  Other strategies students were using their fingers to help visualize square tiles in the picture.  Both were great strategies to help make a prediction!

EXCITED after finding the pattern -Packers Shirt!

On Thursday it was time to take our predictions further.  We were now predicting which shape was larger in sets of two.  Today we learned to label our unit of measurement - if not I told them Ms. Losinski might think they measured with pickles!  An added element with our worksheets today is they had to write an explanation sharing how they knew their prediction was correct.

  Again, it was great hearing the different strategies using our blocks, benchmarks, making tiles and some students remembered the shape from Wednesday.  Our last sheet tried to trick them with two shapes being equal, but I could not fool my friends today!  They had a perfect explanation - we discussed these two shapes the day before.  Super Proud of these guys this week - they did a lot of work and stayed on task!

2nd Grade:  Length - Car Seats for Egg Passengers:  We made our final adjustments to our car seat.  Each groups participated in Quality Control - they had to inspect another car seat and give it the go ahead to participate in the crash test for meeting all the requirements.  1 group had a problem in Quality Control and are making adjustments before the crash test.  Our next step is presenting our drawings to the class.  From looking at the drawing we must predict will it stay in or fall out of the car seat.  They will predict if the egg will stay in the car seat or not.  

To make things interesting we have added 3 rounds to our testing...1-staying in the car while traveling down the ramp (no impact) 2-Adding an impact to the end of the ramp causing a crash 3-2 minutes to modify and improve their car and run the crash test again.  Today - we made it through round 1, with the exception of our one group still needing to pass Quality Control.   They were all excited to see their eggs safely stay in the car going down a slope.  Next week will be round 2, when the car will CRASH!  They are very excited for the Big Test!

3rd Grade: Linear Measurement - A Pen for the Yeti’s Pet:  They came in and finished their Think Deeply question.  Then they took turns reading a partners and giving feedback.  Based on that feedback some students went back and added to their answers.  Then we discussed our Think Deeply question most students chose the 14x14 foot pen as the best choice for the Yeti’s pet - choosing it because it had the biggest area.   One student chose the 18x10 ft pen - it is slightly smaller than the other selection made.  However this led us into the discussion of what is good for the pet’s needs.  This pen gave the longest  distance for it to run.  They had some great ideas to share.  We ended class looking at our vocabulary from chapter 1.  They were allowed 10 minutes to study and the chance to take it home to prepare for their Chapter Check-up.

Due to a field Trip, I only met with half of my group on Thursday.  This group took our Chapter 1 Check-up.  This will let me look at the assessment and see if there are any concepts we need to look back at before moving onto Chapter 2.  Next week, the rest of the class will take this review page.

4th Grade: The Shape of Things - 3-D Shapes Inside and Out:   We came in and finished our Think Deeply question from last week.  Then they switched their writings with another student to receive some feedback on their ideas.  We briefly shared our rules we made for our response to the question.  Then we took the remainder of class to mark our terms we have learned so far in the glossary.  They had the remainder of class to look over their definitions - this was to prepare them for their Chapter Check-up for the following day.  They were allowed to take the math journals home to look over the definitions.

On Thursday, they came in and took our Chapter Check-Up.  This is a tool that I will assess to see if they learned our material from Chapter 1 or if we need to revisit something before moving onto chapter 2.  I made a deal with them on trying their best and taking their time - after scoring we will see if they earned a day of Kahoot...I was super proud to see the effort they gave me for their assessment.  I could already see concepts they were frustrated with in our pre-test at the beginning of the year be something they quickly worked through on this Chapter Review.