~ HIP-HOP-HOORAY FOR FRIDAY ~
WELCOME! As the end of the year is fast approaching, we have many activities going on around the school. This week our 4th Graders went to CMS to compete against the other 4th grade classes in the Book Bowl and the Spelling Bee. We had many of our friends in HA qualifying to compete in these two events. CONGRATULATIONS to our students on a job well done! It was a super-close competition for our Book Bowl Team. In the Spelling Bee, we have a student from HA moving onto the next round...Join me in wishing Kaden GOOD LUCK as he continues on to the next round.
This week we continued to build our character from the movie Mulan - and learning to accept who we are and realizing we are all special inside. Each one of us are UNIQUE and that is what makes us special. It has come up more than once this year - that I don’t want a classroom full of the same students all day because what fun would that be??? Every day I have the joy to learn and grow from the different things that each of my students share with us - I would not have this opportunity, if we were all the same...
This week we continued to build our character from the movie Mulan - and learning to accept who we are and realizing we are all special inside. Each one of us are UNIQUE and that is what makes us special. It has come up more than once this year - that I don’t want a classroom full of the same students all day because what fun would that be??? Every day I have the joy to learn and grow from the different things that each of my students share with us - I would not have this opportunity, if we were all the same...
ENJOY THE WEEKEND!
HIGH ABILITY SUMMER SCHOOL
Searching for educational enrichment this summer? Consider Duneland's High Ability Summer School! With the theme of "Do What the Romans Do," the 13-day program in June will focus on reading strategies and literature comprehension. It is open to current 1st, 2nd, and 3rd grade HA students. The gold sign-up flyer went home last Friday. Take advantage of this wonderful opportunity!
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
LANGUAGE ARTS
KINDERGARTEN: CONNECTIONS: On Monday we worked on defining a Connection. To introduce a connection, we began by putting together a puzzle. However, the puzzle was missing a puzzle piece! So I gave them a different piece that fit into the spot from another puzzle, but it didn’t connect by the pictures. This let us introduce that sometimes things fit, but we can find a stronger connection. 
Then we tried a few more pieces and thankfully we found the right piece to fill the empty space!
On Tuesday we recited our Connection Poem, which we will recite at the beginning of every class. Then we took our definition and began to brainstorm a connection for each of the following: objects, places, ideas and people.
Then we built on that and identified some connections that were intellectual, physical, emotional and social. To end with this project we looked back at the connections we made and decided if they would stay the same or change over time. We have a much better idea of the definition of a connection!
1ST GRADE: REBUS PUZZLE: On Monday we started by translating our secret message. Before they worked on the message, we looked at the array and connected it with the letter combinations they were given to decode.
After discussing how we get use the array with our letters, some of them figured it out and spread out around the room to decode the message. After they filled out their array, I gave each of them a hint to look at it from top to bottom in each column. They were excited as the first word - picture - was easily identified. When they were all ready to share their discovery we discovered the secret message was - Pictures can stand for sounds in words. I introduced a Rebus Puzzle to the class to help us understand what our message meant.
2ND GRADE: THE TALE OF DESPEREAUX: On Monday we had a class discussion reviewing the key points from Book the 1st. Next, we worked through a series of questions to tie together Despereaux to our new character Chiaroscuro, better known as Roscuro. The comparison of these two characters led us into a discussion of a recurring theme we have identified - Light vs. Dark. They did a great job brainstorming a list of comparisons from the book so far to go with this theme - Despereaux vs Chiaroscuro, Mice vs Rats and Good vs Evil just to name a few. They did a great job sharing ideas with this theme. It was great hearing them make text-to-self connections and text-to-text connections from The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane.
Before beginning Book the 2nd, we previewed a set of vocabulary for this next section. As we read through the chapters, we would identify some of these key terms. Along the way of reading we would stop to make predictions and share some of our thoughts - as new information was revealed to us. They were surprised to find out at one point Roscuro was very similar to our friend Despereaux. They were also quick to predict how the Queen died. This connected us back to why all of the soup materials were banned to the dungeon. 
Next week we will discuss in detail Book the 2nd.
3rd Grade: Subject- Verb Agreement: On Monday we quickly reviewed what we learned about subject verb agreement. Then we continued with our list of 10 nouns - this time changing the subject to plural and identifying how this changed the verb. To end this part of the activity, they chose one subject and verb to work with and wrote a sentence in singular and plural form. I encouraged them to use adjectives to make them a good, detailed 3rd grade sentence. I was very impressed! For added practice we worked through a set of sentences to identify the correct verb. To keep working with subject-verb agreement we traded papers with a partner and they became the teacher. It was their job to grade the the paper.
On Tuesday they finished grading the papers. As a class, we reviewed the papers together. This allowed us to work out-loud through each sentence. A few of the questions tried to trick them and they needed to pay close attention when identifying the subject
get tricked by an adjective. Next I had each of them write write 3 sentences each to trade with partner with them selecting between two verbs. They had fun with this, as they tried to brainstorm some tricky sentences. To end the day, we began to read The Emperor's New Suit. We will begin our new lesson working with The Emperor's New Suit next week..
On Tuesday we continued listening to our mystery. We quickly reviewed what they should be tracking while listening to the story - clues, red herring clues, and a suspect. This is what we are tracking for points when we listen to the solution to the mystery. We will continue to work with a mystery next week.
MATH
KINDERGARTEN: GRAPHING: This week we were introduced to our first topic - Graphing. We discussed that a graph is a way to display our data from a question that we surveyed. We also talked about a way to gather our data - if we were to survey the school without carrying around our large graph - we could use Tally Marks and go back and record our data.After, discussing the information we learned from a graph we watched a short video to conclude our introduction. 
On Thursday we discussed a question we could survey the Yost Staff Members with - Cubs vs Sox - what is your favorite baseball team? We decided that it would be fun to gather information for two charts, as maybe everyone doesn’t love baseball. So our second question will be - what is your favorite dessert? We came up with a list of desserts, but after naming cookies they wanted to also list the different types of cookies. This was a perfect moment to explain being to specific with this type of graph. I explained that those would be good items if we would just to ask what is your favorite cookie.
Then we moved onto practicing using our Tally Marks for data. We ended the day by turning our data into a bar graph.
Next week will continue our investigation into collecting data and graphing.
Next week will continue our investigation into collecting data and graphing.
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| 3rd Round Winner!!! |
1ST GRADE: LENGTH-THE POM-POM TOSS GAME: On Wednesday we wrapped up the last part of our investigation. Each student worked at their own station with their target. Just like our class game of 3 rounds, they took 3 tosses and measured the distance the pom-pom landed to the target. Then they added up the inches from the 3 rounds and our lowest total was our winner - earning a trip to the prize box.
It worked perfect - 3 rounds of games and each time a different student made it to the prize box!
To end the day it was time to write our last letter to Imi and Zani. Zani needed us to explain to him how we figured out the distance from the target to the pom-pom in our pom-pom toss game. It was great seeing all the students talk about using a ruler and counting the spaces not the marks! This was some confusion in the beginning of this lesson.
On Thursday, it was time for our Chapter 3 Check-Up. Again, we will use this material to make sure all students have mastered our math concept. If I see any area was a struggle for the students we will go back and visit this area before moving forward.
2ND GRADE: AREA-THE MEERKAT MOB: On Wednesday, we continued with our investigation phase of the lesson. The students wrapped up measuring with a square inch tile only to now be introduced to a square centimeter. Some students thought it would be simple and you would just double the inches because their understanding was 2cms = 1 inch. 
I allowed them to keep one square inch tile as I passed around 1 square cm. They quickly discovered this might not be the best strategy. They went back and modified any predictions and began to check their measurements using the cubes only to find this much more difficult than the inch tiles.
On Thursday, we re-visited pg 59 in our math journals to work with another way to measure - with a transparent grid. After using it to solve our last question with inches - I asked them what might make it easier to measure our area in centimeters - a centimeter transparent grid! Lucky for them we had just the tool to use. As a class, we found the actual areas of our shapes together.
3RD GRADE: LIQUID VOLUME-FILLED TO CAPACITY: We started out in whole group working through a practice model of what they will work on today. I had 6 different measurements on the board in different units ranging from cups to gallons. It was our job to find the total capacity using the smallest amount of containers.
After working through the example as a class, it was time for us to figure out who had the largest capacity with the smallest containers used. After sharing their totals we had our winner. For added practice, as a class, we checked the winners work to make sure it was accurate - he was and won a trip to the prize box.
On Thursday, they came in and created their own posters to help them remember our conversions with our units of measurement. Next it was time to investigate capacity. We had an introduction to our investigation phase. We looked at two bottles of water and predicted how many of the smaller would fit into the larger bottle. Most thought it was a quart and the answer was 4, however after we emptied the first bottle in - they were allowed to change their answer. Most chose to do so - some to 6 and others to 8. Our total capacity was 5 and a half. Next I showed them a small bottle and they predicted correctly that it was a cup. We examined how many cups would fit into a medium bottle and went through the same steps together again. Next week they will conduct this experiment as a group,
4TH GRADE: A MIXED-UP WEEK: Due to many different activities occurring for 4th grade, we did not have the whole group on Wednesday. We took this time to explore our Think Beyond Cards - to explore drawing 3D shapes further.
On Thursday, we did not meet because of the 4th Grade class traveling to CMS for Book Bowl & Spelling Bee. I know many of our 4th graders were involved in one of the two events - so first a BIG CONGRATS to those participating and second GOOD LUCK to Kaden from HA who is moving on to the next round!
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