~ FANTASTIC FRIDAY ~
AROUND THE SCHOOL
February 2nd: Wear your Favorite NFL Jersey
February 7th: Early Dismissal at 1:45
February 19th: President's Day - No School
*We will be in school on February 16th, as a make-up snow day*
WANTED: Pop Tabs!
There is still time to bring in your Pop Tabs.
This year all proceeds will go towards families of the Ronald McDonald House in Indianapolis. Our school is competing against the other schools in the district. Final day to bring in the pop tabs is February 1st. Thanks for your support in this effort!
LANGUAGE ARTS
1ST GRADE: LIPOGRAMS: This week the students were introduced to our new activity with words - Lipograms! We defined the meaning of lipograms by looking at the word parts: lipo = lacking gramma = letters. A lipogram is challenging you to create a piece of writing without using a certain letter. We brought back the paper that they had to replace words with synonyms that did not have an "E" in them - which is the most popular letter we use in our writing.
We used their new words to rewrite the nursery rhyme Jack and Jill. This is where we brought up the idea of when using lipograms you must make sure the new word does not change the meaning of the original thoughts. Next we had just enough time to watch a movie trailer on the next book we were going to be reading.
On day two, we read our new story E-Mergency by Tom Lichtenheld & Ezra Fields-Meyer. This story is told to them in two parts: first the narrator and then the letters. This is an important concept they must understand to grasp the ending of the story. We looked back at the pages and identified when the narrator was telling the story and when the letters were and then it all made sense! At the end of the story, there is a chart that shows us the most popular letters we use from greatest to least. This let us discuss what letters would be a challenge to create lipograms and which might be a little easier. Next week, they will create their own lipograms!
2ND GRADE: EDWARD TULANE: To conclude our novel study on Edward Tulane the students completed a crossword puzzle reviewing the story. Jeopardy was a perfect review for them leading up to this project!
Next we discussed what message or theme they learned from our story. This was a struggle for some as they wanted to tell a recap or refer to specific details from the story. It was a perfect time to review a theme. A theme is the main message of the text the author is trying to teach to the reader by telling a story. We filled up different examples on the board with what the students will remember from our story:
Love, Hope, The journey is part of the reward, Keep going forward, even if it is painful...
We ended our unit with this thought is a connection with someone you love lost if they are no longer in your life? They are to reflect on this thought over the week and will write a paragraph with their final thoughts next Monday.
3RD GRADE: COMPARE & CONTRAST: This week they began by persuading me on one of my favorite debates this time of your - Winter or Summer - which is the better season? Each student wrote and presented their ideas to persuade me to their side. My winter friends brought up some strong points - Winter brings along my favorite holiday and being snowed in is a perfect excuse to have a movie marathon with my kiddos!
Summer allows me to not shovel snow and to have the ability to be outdoors way more. They did a great job and I was pleased that my winter friends were able to make me say without winter I wouldn't get to enjoy those moments.
Then it was time to compare and contrast our two stories on Jane Goodall: Me...Jane by Patrick McDonnell and The Watcher: Jane Goodall's Life with Chimps by Jeanette Winter. Without opening the book we discussed the details on the cover and the titles to each. This has already divided the class - making me look forward to when it is their turn to persuade me on the better book. We went through and read each story and already noticed a big difference from story to the other with the details, content, and length. We will complete our T-Chart next week.
MATH
1ST GRADE: ATTRIBUTES OF SHAPES: This week it was time to prepare for our Think Deeply question for Imi and Zani. We took some time to review by looking at the labels within our game and understanding how to identify them better - the angles being the tricky ones. This let us have time for a few practice rounds after this discussion.
We looked at our Think Beyond cards to prepare us for our Think Deeply question. Our first card let us take a good look at the labels to help us identify those characteristics better while answering a question on adding a new shape to the game. The second one was our BIG challenge it introduced the 3-Loop Game. The students were very intimidated by this at first. However, they quickly worked together to solve two of the loops. After visualizing the third loop as one, they were able to narrow it to two and use the other two loops to decipher the correct label. They are even excited to try another one next week. We will work on our Think Deeply responses next week.
2ND GRADE: BUBBLE FUN WITH SHAPES: This week it was time to prepare and set up our bubble experiment. First we took a day to build our 3D shapes. The children did an excellent job with this task. This helped us discuss and see the differences between a prism and a pyramid. Then it was finally time for some BUBBLE FUN! The kids were excited to observe and see what would form inside their shapes when submerged in the bubble solution. We will finish our bubble fun with 3D shapes next week. Enjoy some pictures from our experiment this week.
3RD GRADE: PUZZLING PUZZLES: This week we started by discussing a part of their Think Deeply responses from last week. We looked at a set of numbers and discussed together what they had in common: all being even numbers, repeating the same numbers in the 1's column and all the numbers being divisible by both 2 & 3.
This helped them have a better understanding of ways to look for things in common with a set of numbers. Then we went into a quick review of defining an array. They had a strong understanding of this concept, as they have worked with them in class this year. We did emphasize that an array is organized in equal columns and rows.
Then we looked back at our 100's chart to look for patterns. This time our focus was on patterns with numbers. Some things we discovered were seeing the same number in the 1's place in a column. This rule was similar for the rows of the repeating number to the row, but in the 10's place - with the exception of column ten where it introduced the next number for the next row (as column 10 counts by 10's - 10, 20, 30...).
We observed the ones place and tens place increase and decrease in the diagonal rows. Lastly, we looked at one number and the surrounding numbers by it. This let us look for solving it by doing some simple math. Going up or down our number would be plus or minus 10, moving in one direction of the diagonal would be plus or minus 11 and going the opposite direction would be plus or minus 9. Moving to the right or left would be a plus or minus 1.
We tested this theory by filling in a puzzle while solving for a certain number in an area - when they were only given one number to solve it. This introduced them to our investigation phase. They would use the same concept, but this time they had to solve puzzles with missing numbers all around using the 700's charts. They enjoyed this project and were up for the challenge. We will continue working with puzzling patterns next week.
4TH GRADE: FRACTIONS: This week we began by looking at a tangram. We decided last week that the pieces could not represent 1/7 of a fraction because each part was not equal.
Our challenge was to figure out what each portion represented to the whole tangram. They worked together to figure out each piece and did a great job. After figuring out that the smallest triangle was 1/16, we worked on converting each section into sixteenths. This would help us see the representation of the pieces in the same unit. Then it was time to investigate this further. The students had to plan the layout of the Weekly Gazette. On different grids, they planned a layout for 3 different articles each being an equal amount of space. The catch was each layout had to be a different design. It was great seeing their creativity with this project!
February 7th: Early Dismissal at 1:45
February 19th: President's Day - No School
*We will be in school on February 16th, as a make-up snow day*
WANTED: Pop Tabs!
There is still time to bring in your Pop Tabs.
This year all proceeds will go towards families of the Ronald McDonald House in Indianapolis. Our school is competing against the other schools in the district. Final day to bring in the pop tabs is February 1st. Thanks for your support in this effort!
LANGUAGE ARTS
1ST GRADE: LIPOGRAMS: This week the students were introduced to our new activity with words - Lipograms! We defined the meaning of lipograms by looking at the word parts: lipo = lacking gramma = letters. A lipogram is challenging you to create a piece of writing without using a certain letter. We brought back the paper that they had to replace words with synonyms that did not have an "E" in them - which is the most popular letter we use in our writing. 
We used their new words to rewrite the nursery rhyme Jack and Jill. This is where we brought up the idea of when using lipograms you must make sure the new word does not change the meaning of the original thoughts. Next we had just enough time to watch a movie trailer on the next book we were going to be reading. 
On day two, we read our new story E-Mergency by Tom Lichtenheld & Ezra Fields-Meyer. This story is told to them in two parts: first the narrator and then the letters. This is an important concept they must understand to grasp the ending of the story. We looked back at the pages and identified when the narrator was telling the story and when the letters were and then it all made sense! At the end of the story, there is a chart that shows us the most popular letters we use from greatest to least. This let us discuss what letters would be a challenge to create lipograms and which might be a little easier. Next week, they will create their own lipograms! 
2ND GRADE: EDWARD TULANE: To conclude our novel study on Edward Tulane the students completed a crossword puzzle reviewing the story. Jeopardy was a perfect review for them leading up to this project!
Next we discussed what message or theme they learned from our story. This was a struggle for some as they wanted to tell a recap or refer to specific details from the story. It was a perfect time to review a theme. A theme is the main message of the text the author is trying to teach to the reader by telling a story. We filled up different examples on the board with what the students will remember from our story:Love, Hope, The journey is part of the reward, Keep going forward, even if it is painful...
We ended our unit with this thought is a connection with someone you love lost if they are no longer in your life? They are to reflect on this thought over the week and will write a paragraph with their final thoughts next Monday.
3RD GRADE: COMPARE & CONTRAST: This week they began by persuading me on one of my favorite debates this time of your - Winter or Summer - which is the better season? Each student wrote and presented their ideas to persuade me to their side. My winter friends brought up some strong points - Winter brings along my favorite holiday and being snowed in is a perfect excuse to have a movie marathon with my kiddos! 
Summer allows me to not shovel snow and to have the ability to be outdoors way more. They did a great job and I was pleased that my winter friends were able to make me say without winter I wouldn't get to enjoy those moments. 
Then it was time to compare and contrast our two stories on Jane Goodall: Me...Jane by Patrick McDonnell and The Watcher: Jane Goodall's Life with Chimps by Jeanette Winter. Without opening the book we discussed the details on the cover and the titles to each. This has already divided the class - making me look forward to when it is their turn to persuade me on the better book. We went through and read each story and already noticed a big difference from story to the other with the details, content, and length. We will complete our T-Chart next week. 
MATH
1ST GRADE: ATTRIBUTES OF SHAPES: This week it was time to prepare for our Think Deeply question for Imi and Zani. We took some time to review by looking at the labels within our game and understanding how to identify them better - the angles being the tricky ones. This let us have time for a few practice rounds after this discussion.
We looked at our Think Beyond cards to prepare us for our Think Deeply question. Our first card let us take a good look at the labels to help us identify those characteristics better while answering a question on adding a new shape to the game. The second one was our BIG challenge it introduced the 3-Loop Game. The students were very intimidated by this at first. However, they quickly worked together to solve two of the loops. After visualizing the third loop as one, they were able to narrow it to two and use the other two loops to decipher the correct label. They are even excited to try another one next week. We will work on our Think Deeply responses next week.
2ND GRADE: BUBBLE FUN WITH SHAPES: This week it was time to prepare and set up our bubble experiment. First we took a day to build our 3D shapes. The children did an excellent job with this task. This helped us discuss and see the differences between a prism and a pyramid. Then it was finally time for some BUBBLE FUN! The kids were excited to observe and see what would form inside their shapes when submerged in the bubble solution. We will finish our bubble fun with 3D shapes next week. Enjoy some pictures from our experiment this week. 
3RD GRADE: PUZZLING PUZZLES: This week we started by discussing a part of their Think Deeply responses from last week. We looked at a set of numbers and discussed together what they had in common: all being even numbers, repeating the same numbers in the 1's column and all the numbers being divisible by both 2 & 3. 
This helped them have a better understanding of ways to look for things in common with a set of numbers. Then we went into a quick review of defining an array. They had a strong understanding of this concept, as they have worked with them in class this year. We did emphasize that an array is organized in equal columns and rows.
Then we looked back at our 100's chart to look for patterns. This time our focus was on patterns with numbers. Some things we discovered were seeing the same number in the 1's place in a column. This rule was similar for the rows of the repeating number to the row, but in the 10's place - with the exception of column ten where it introduced the next number for the next row (as column 10 counts by 10's - 10, 20, 30...).
We observed the ones place and tens place increase and decrease in the diagonal rows. Lastly, we looked at one number and the surrounding numbers by it. This let us look for solving it by doing some simple math. Going up or down our number would be plus or minus 10, moving in one direction of the diagonal would be plus or minus 11 and going the opposite direction would be plus or minus 9. Moving to the right or left would be a plus or minus 1.
We tested this theory by filling in a puzzle while solving for a certain number in an area - when they were only given one number to solve it. This introduced them to our investigation phase. They would use the same concept, but this time they had to solve puzzles with missing numbers all around using the 700's charts. They enjoyed this project and were up for the challenge. We will continue working with puzzling patterns next week.
4TH GRADE: FRACTIONS: This week we began by looking at a tangram. We decided last week that the pieces could not represent 1/7 of a fraction because each part was not equal.
Our challenge was to figure out what each portion represented to the whole tangram. They worked together to figure out each piece and did a great job. After figuring out that the smallest triangle was 1/16, we worked on converting each section into sixteenths. This would help us see the representation of the pieces in the same unit. Then it was time to investigate this further. The students had to plan the layout of the Weekly Gazette. On different grids, they planned a layout for 3 different articles each being an equal amount of space. The catch was each layout had to be a different design. It was great seeing their creativity with this project!
Have a Great Weekend,
Ms. Losinski
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