~ HAPPY FRIDAY ~

Where did all the sunshine go???  This week, I introduced the students to our new movie(s) in the spotlight - Star Wars. However, we are mixing things up a bit for the month of March.  As we are approaching the final months of the school year, I wanted to see what they have learned about building character.  So for this week, I asked them to come up with a list of character traits we learn from the movie.  One word - WOW!  

Some Character Traits we the class listed:

Leader Teacher Wise Patience Listener

Brave Kindness Strong Respectful Clever

Peaceful Adventurous Stubborn Skillful

Careful Bossy Protective

Just to list a few...Some classes could have kept going if I would have let them! Next week, we will look at are list and break it down to what will help us build our character and what we should leave on the Dark Side...

IMPORTANT DATES:

February 27th - March 10th:  CogAT Screener opens for 2nd Grade

March 10th:  Practice IREAD for 3rd Grade

March 13th - March 24th:  CogAT Full Test for 2nd Grade

March 13th - March 17th: IREAD for 3rd Grade

March 14th: PTO Meeting 6:30 p.m.

March 17th: End of 3rd Quarter

March 27th - March 31st: Spring Break - No School

 Kindergarten CogAT Testing

We have now completed all the testing in kindergarten.  We are still going over all the data and collecting additional data for a few.  Once we are finished, you will receive a CogAT informational packet.  The cover letter helps explain the requirements and steps needed to qualify for high ability.  Each student will receive a cover letter with the results of their screener score attached.  Those who qualified to take the full CogAT test will have an additional paper with their results.  Permission slips are included for those who's scores qualified them for LA, math or both.  Students will begin HA services starting fourth nine weeks, but will meet only for about six weeks.  CogAT is just one pathway into HA.  The second pathway is through the end of the year NWEA scores.  Students who qualify through NWEA will be identified at the very end of the year, so they will begin high ability in first grade.

2nd Grade CogAT Screening

Friday we will finish up testing our last group of second graders.  It is the same procedure as used with our kindergartners.  All students are tested, those with qualifying scores will take the full test in upcoming weeks.  The difference with second grade is, we do give all of our current high ability students the full test regardless of their screener score.  The current data for all second graders, will be used in making decisions about high ability placement in third grade.  In addition to CogAT results, we will use end of the year NWEA scores.  Think of them as pathways, they do not need to qualify through both . . . just one.

LANGUAGE ARTS

1ST GRADE:  CONNECTING WORDS AND NUMBERS - TEXT TALK:  We revisited our persuasive writing lesson from earlier in the year. We started with a review of what it means to persuade a person - to encourage, to change or convince a person to our side of a discussion or topic.  Then we reviewed our Hamburger Model, which I was happy that they remembered this pretty well from last time.  

Next, we came up with reasons why a first grader would need or want a cell phone.  Then we discussed the reasons why a parent would not want a first grader to have a cell phone. Onto the question...Should parents by a first grader a cell phone?  For the remainder of class the children completed their hamburger models answering our question.

   On Tuesday, it was time to review how to turn our Hamburger Model into a paragraph.  We went over the rubric that a partner will use to evaluate their paragraph.  Then we discussed how our model can quickly change into a writing piece with 5 sentences.  For the remainder of class, they prepared their persuasive writing.  

2ND GRADE:  THE MIRACULOUS JOURNEY OF EDWARD TULANE:  This week was our final days of working with The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane.  On Monday, we continued playing Jeopardy through our story.

   

 On Tuesday, we started class by having each student name a theme or message they learned from our story.  We quickly filled our board with each student's response.  It was great listening to them each share their own connection they made with the story.

    To end the day, we played one final round of Jeopardy.  I told the children we will start a new story next week.  They were excited to try and guess it - so I gave them a hint of it being an author study - we will explore another story from Kate DiCamillo.

~ Some of our winners from the week ~

3RD GRADE:  THE PIED PIPER OF HAMELIN - PROSE OR POETRY?: On Monday, we wrapped up working with verbs. It worked out perfectly, where I met with the students that missed this part of the lesson last week. Our focus was understanding how a verb tense helps a reader establish a sense of time. We also looked back at a fairy tale to check the consistency of the verb tense throughout the story.

On Tuesday, we began our new lesson. We started out with a list of anticipatory questions from our next reading. We had to look at each sentence and predict True or False. Then we read through The Pied Piper of Hamelin.

We were quickly able to find two of our predictions we need to change. However, we must find connections back in the passage to support the change. Next, week we will work through the selection as we find details to support to our corrections.

The Narrator

4TH GRADE:  CHANGE MAKERS:  We have made it to the end of our Change Maker project!  This week it was time for our students to present their final project. It was such a delight seeing how proud they were to share their information!

Next week, we will travel back in time to meet one more person.

 This week we traveled back in time to meet Harry Truman and Marie Curie.

 We were lucky enough to also meet J.K. Rowling and Bill Gates.

Enjoy the videos below:

Part 1:  Memory Ran Out

Part 2: The Conclusion

MATH

1ST GRADE:  INCHING ALONG - MEASURING WITH INCHES:  

Due to an assembly on Dr. Seuss, we did not meet on Wednesday.

~ Team colors with our Straws ~

   Green Bay                                                   Cubs                                                  The Bears!

     I was so HAPPY to see my first graders!  I haven't seen them in a whole week :)  We jumped right back into measuring with an inch.  We spent most of the day completing our measuring around the room worksheet - to help us become more familiar with measuring with an inch.




     To end the day, we compared our answers.  We noticed a few of our measurements were different from our friends.  What can we do to correct this problem?  We need a Ruler!  We discussed why a ruler would be helpful and started to make our own rulers.  We will finish building our rulers next week.

2ND GRADE: AREA - SLEEPING BAGS:  Each group talked with their partner to come to a conclusion of what they think is a good area of a sleeping bag.  I was happy to see our groups were thinking the same - 2 groups thought 18 and 1 thought 15.  Giving us a new range between 15 to 18 square feet.  I think we are on the right track!

 Now onto checking our thinking.  My children have let us borrow their sleeping bags to continue our investigation.  First we looked at 3 sleeping bags and predicted the total area for each.  It was great seeing them use strategies of measuring with their feet.  One student even asked if I would count it with my steps after asking my shoe size.  

 
Now it was time to check our predictions.  The class was divided into 3 groups to work together and come up with an actual area for each bag.  We quickly discovered that we would need to talk about a ½ foot and ¼ foot for them to find the actual area.  They seemed familiar with this idea so we were quickly back on track. Then we shared our answers with the class.

3RD GRADE:AREA - THAT ABOUT COVERS IT:  On Wednesday, the children came in and finished their Think Deeply question from last week.  We quickly reviewed how a picture can help explain their writing because some students were originally just drawing a person.  It was great to see them go back and add the partitioning to their original drawing or some went back and showed the different partial squares - ¼,½, and ¾.  

To end the day, we answered a Think Beyond card.  How would the the total area of a 3rd grader differ to an adult.  They concluded that depending on height it could be a quarter to half an area more than a 3rd grade student.

    



On Thursday, we began our new lesson.  We looked at arrays and wrote the dimensions and equations to figure out the area.  Then we partitioned an array into sections to work with smaller numbers.  The area remains the same are mathematical equation is all that changed when breaking apart an array.  We will continue to investigate this next week.

4TH GRADE: SPATIAL VISUALIZATION - DO YOU SEE WHAT I SEE?:  We started class this week by testing the second way a student completed “Just Doggin’ It!”  For our second way, we needed to adjust some of the paths taken.  Others needed a quick reminder on some words omitted - specifying the vertical or horizontal line of reflection.

  Next, we completed a Think Beyond card.  We identified a circle and square as two shapes that no matter the transformation the shape would always look the same.  We ended the day discussing capital letters that could reflect vertically or horizontally and stay the same.

   

On Thursday, we began our new lesson. We are moving onto locating numbers on a grid.  As an introduction, we identified the x and y-axis.  We also discussed quadrants and ordered pairs.  As a class we practiced finding a few ordered pairs together.  Then I allowed us to test our fellow classmates. They took turns being the teacher and had to find an ordered pair another student gave them.  We will continue to work with this lesson next week.