~ FLYING by FRIDAY ~
WELCOME! This year is flying by - I cannot believe I am posting our last quote for April. Our quote this week had a lot of friends excited because they knew the answer! We also talked about what was important from the quote - There is no one I would rather be than me. My groups were quick to point out it meant to BE YOURSELF! In my last class, I had one student look at the whole quote in a different way and I loved their thinking - they stated that some friends may be better at some things than us, but that doesn’t mean we should change to be like them because we might have a talent that our friends don’t. Leading us into a great conversations that we can compliment our friends with our different talents. I love hearing their different interpretations to our quotes...This last Big Idea was shared from one of my 1st grade friends - what great thoughts!
IMPORTANT DATES
April 17th - April 28th: ISTEP Testing Window
May 1st - May 5th: Teacher Appreciation Week
May 3rd: Early Dismissal Day - 1:45pm
May 12: Yost Fest
May 19th: No School - Reserved Snow Day
May 29th: No School - Memorial Day
May 31st: Last Day of School & End of 4th Grading Period
Do What The Romans Do 2017:
Current high ability students in grades first through third have been invited to participate in the High Ability Summer School program! The brochure went home giving you the specifics. The program will create learning experiences based on reading. These experiences will help students think more deeply, learn to take educational risks, and expand their knowledge base as well as give them an opportunity to develop their reading strategies while learning about Ancient Rome. It will take place at Bailly Elementary School. The 13-day session will begin on Monday, June 5th and end on Thursday, June 22, 2017. Each school day will begin at 7:45 a.m. and end at 12:20 p.m. Please turn your permission slip and money into the main office. They are due next Friday, April 28th! Any turned in after the deadline will be put on a waiting list.
LANGUAGE ARTS
KINDERGARTEN: KNUFFLE BUNNY: We started our week out by naming some connections. This time we had a few Easter Connections. After coming up with a list of connections, we again identified their relationships further. Next, we talked about how questions don’t always have just one answer. We discussed this idea further by looking at our 4-Levels of Questions...a Level One question will most likely have 1 answer, a Level 2 might have different answers based on our connections we are making, but should be in the same direction, Level 3 & 4 is where we will see the most variation in our responses. Then we began to read Knuffle Bunny by Mo Willems. Before reading our story, we defined the author and illustrator. While reading our story today, we looked closely at the illustrations for clues to our story. The illustrations led us to a discussion on the Caldecott Award, as this book has won this award.
On Tuesday, we started class by listing some connections from Knuffle Bunny to add to our growing list. Then we worked through a series of our 4 Level Questions to our story. We completed a worksheet where they drew their response to some of the questions asked. Then they chose 1 character from the story to complete the I Am worksheet.
1ST GRADE: REBUS PUZZLES: We finished our Rebus Story. Next, we discussed the importance of having Rebus Puzzles - to see the power of words and images when they come together to create meaning - most of the time for entertainment! Then, it was time for them to create their own Rebus Puzzle from a list of terms we associate with the grocery store. 
After they created 3 - they chose their favorite to complete in their workbooks.
They finished completing their final Rebus to share with the class on Tuesday. When they were done creating them in their workbooks - we took turns drawing them on the board for our classmates to guess them. We will move onto our next lesson next week.
2ND GRADE:
THE TALE OF DESPEREAUX:
This week started out with a class discussion on Book the Second. We listened to two poems comparing mice to rats. These two poems depict their topics quite different - the mouse is portrayed as nice and the rats as evil. This led us into a few of our questions for the day. We then split into 2 groups - 1 group defined Despereaux and the other defined Roscuro.
Looking at our lists we pulled out some similarities between the two characters. We have also concluded that the dungeon destroys the light in a person and our curious to see if our friend Despereaux can remain brave enough to survive the dark. As we looked at our list, we made a prediction and are ready to explore further if our two characters are connected by Princess Pea 1 of our characters is in love with her and the other is out for revenge. We cannot wait to read on to find out the answers to our questions.
On Tuesday we began to read Book the Third in our Story. We are now being introduced to Miggory Sow. This our third character we are hearing a story about and cannot wait to hear how our 3 main characters will connect together.
They were assigned to read chapters 28- 30 for Monday.
3RD GRADE: NO GROUPS:
Due to adjustments in their schedule for ISTEP, we did not meet this week. We will start our new lesson next week.
4TH GRADE: IT’S A MYSTERY: We are wrapping up listening to our story that shares different short-story mysteries. I feel the students are getting a good grasp on what makes a good mystery - as some stories they have liked more than others. This will give them a good foundation for next week when we write our own mysteries.
Due to ISTEP Testing, we did not meet on Tuesday.
MATH
On Thursday, we reviewed the parts to a bar graph. Then we began to total our data using Tally Marks. After that, we designed and recorded our Bar Graph. I tried to let each White Sox Vote count as 1,000 votes giving White Sox the grand total of 3,000. However, my Kindergarten friends would not allow this to happen. Check out our graph below to discover the staff members favorite baseball team.
We will finish designing our Dessert Chart next week.
Our chart shows 19 staff members are Cub Fans, 3 are White Sox Fans and 4 had other team favorites.
1st GRADE: END OF YEAR ASSESSMENT: On Wednesday we used our glossary to review for our end of the year assessment. We wrote down our 3 Big Math Concepts we worked on this year: Weight, Area, and Length. Under each section, we reviewed our knowledge. I was happy to see them remember most of the information we gathered this year.
We did have a quick review on Transitivity. Then they went through their glossary matching the correct term to the picture.
On Thursday, we re-visited their preview packet from the beginning of the year. This time when taking the test - I hope to see huge growth - as we have went over all the information they will see. I will look over the results and see if any areas need a little review before we move onto some fun activities for the end of the year.
2nd GRADE: Area-The Meerkat Mob: It was time for a scavenger hunt! They worked in small groups and went around the room trying to find items that matched a given area. I gave each group a square foot, square inch tile, and square centimeter tile. My goal was for them to use the idea of Transitivity when searching for these items. However, many groups struggled with this and wanted to measure out each item they found.
To start the day on Thursday, we met as a class and went over some ways we could find items close to the measurements they needed to find. I explained that they were looking for areas that were about and not exact. We then talked about some items we could use to visualize the size they needed to find. After we found the measurement of the gift card, they used that item to find something double it in size and half the size. We also talked about items we knew in the past from previous measurement projects. This allowed them to know have items to relate to the areas they were searching for around the room. We came back together as a group to share items and find some they were struggling with together. We will wrap up this lesson next week.
3rd GRADE: LIQUID VOLUME-FILLED TO CAPACITY: On Wednesday it was time to investigate capacity. Their job was to work as a group and find the capacity to 5 different bottles varying in size. So our papers were aligned together we made all of our guesses and actual capacities to each bottle in cups. We quickly reviewed our conversions and also what each was equivalent to in cups. We decided as a group, to measure the bottles from smallest to largest - thinking this would help our estimates become more accurate as we worked through the assignment. Each student took a turn being in charge of measuring one bottle.
On Thursday, we completed our worksheet answering two questions: what strategies helped them with their estimates and what evidence showed their estimates improved. We used those questions to lead our discussion for the day. We also calculated our total numbers from the previous day. This allowed them to see how their estimates hopefully improved and helped them in answering their questions.
We ended the day summarizing our lesson. This led us into our Think Deeply question. We will start next week by completing our Think Deeply question.
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