~ FREEZING FRIDAY ~

AROUND THE SCHOOL

February 7th:  Early Dismissal at 1:45
February 19th: President's Day - No School
February 20th: Donations Due for          Jump Rope for Heart
February 21st:  Author Visit - Carolyn Crimi
February 22nd: Science Fair 6-7PM
February 26th - March 9th:  ISTEP 3rd & 4th Grade
*We will be in school on February 16th, as a make-up snow day*

Kindergarten Testing:

This first week has been used to screen all kindergarten students at Yost using the Cognitive Abilities Test (CogAT).  It's actually a fun test for the kids taken in the Computer Lab.  Students who score a certain score on the screener will be taking the full CogAT test in the following weeks.  CogAT is one of the pathways to being identified as being high ability or having the potential to being high ability.  CogAT picks up on that "potential" HA student.  It shows how they think . . . that out of the box thinking . . . .ability to make connections that others of their age are unable to do.  These students often go undetected in the classroom.  They don't have to be your high readers and often times are not.  The other test used to identify an HA student is their end of the year NWEA scores (95th percentile or higher).  We will have this data at the end of the school year.  The third piece of potential data used is the teacher component using the Scales for Identifying Gifted Students (SIGS).  It's important to look at all three pieces of data as a whole before identifying students.  For those of you who may have older children in the program, our program is changing . .. for the better.   All you need to know is it's what's best for kids, so we know we are moving in the right direction.  More details to follow . . . 

LANGUAGE ARTS



1ST GRADE:  LIPOGRAMS: 
This week it was time for the students to create their own lipograms.  To begin this process, we wrote a beginning, middle and ending to summarize our story E-Mergency.  
The challenge to creating our lipograms was they had to use one of the 5 most used letters:  E, T, A, O & I.  As a group, we created the lipogram for the beginning - we thought "A" would be a wise letter to choose, as we would have to change only about 5 words.  They did a great job creating this lipogram together!  Now it was time for them to try it on their own.  We will continue to work with lipograms next week.



2ND GRADE:  EDWARD TULANE:  This week we finished our journey with Edward Tulane!  The students did a great job with our first novel study.  This week the students reflected on our question from last week - is a connection lost when it is broken?  Before writing, the students created a web and brainstormed 3 ideas to support their answer.  This was a challenge at first cause most came up with two reasons and were struggling to find their 3rd piece of evidence. 
 As a class, we revisited each of Edward's connections that were broken and discussed what happened with that connection:  meeting again later in life, always having the memories live-on with you, or the lessons a friendship may teach you.  This helped spark some ideas for their 3rd detail.  After they completed their reflections, each student shared their thoughts with the class.  Next week they will be introduced to our new novel study - they are VERY excited!


3RD GRADE:  COMPARE & CONTRAST:  This week the students continued to complete their T-Chart for their author comparison.  When everyone finished we read the ending note of each, so they could complete the last comparison.  We had a few minutes to discuss some of the major differences to our stories.  Although they our both biographies on Jane Goodall, one focuses on her life work and one is teaching us the message to reach for your dream.  We saw a major difference in length and details between the book.  This made most students quickly prefer The Watcher as it had more information to share with us. 

 However, it brought up a different debate on if it was an appropriate picture book for all of our younger audiences or if we would lose their attention.  This was leading into the importance of them being able to convince me to their side.  Next week they will begin to write their persuasion papers.  I am excited because it looks like we will have both books represented.

MATH



1ST GRADE:  SHAPE ATTRIBUTES: 
It was time to write our response to our Think Deeply question.  This was very similar to their independent work from earlier in the lesson.  They were given a 2-loop game to solve.  They had to identify the labels, place shapes in all three sections of the loop and place one shape on the outside of the loops.  This time they had to explain what qualified a shape to fit into the overlap of both circles. 


 Imi and Zani sent us a memo needing us to explore sorting math attributes using a tree diagram.  The one loop game sorted shapes by one attribute.  A benefit to the tree diagram verse the one-loop game was the ability to sort more than one attribute at once. 






 We will continue working with the tree diagram next week.

2ND GRADE:  INTRO TO 3D SHAPES:  This week we wrote our Think Deeply response to Dru and Teller.  They needed our help in explaining the differences between a cube and a square.  

As a class, we wrote all the attributes to a square and cube together before they completed this assignment independently.  These guys were Rockstars in explaining the cube!  They described it using all of the proper terms:  12 edges, 8 vertices and 6 faces. 

 I was very impressed that they were also able to give me the correct numbers for our shape.  We had some time to look at our Think Beyond cards this week, which let us have some more bubble fun!  This week we created a hypercube.  They were looking forward to this experiment.  

We were able to create bubble shapes inside each of our 3D shapes too!  Then they each took a turns with some more bubble fun.  We will begin our new lesson next week. 

3RD GRADE:  PUZZLING PUZZLES:  
This week it was time for our Think Deeply question.  The students were asked to pick one of their puzzling puzzles they solved and explain the steps they used to solve it. Plus, they were to describe any patterns they saw with it.
  As a class, we had time to complete a Think Beyond card. 
 They students had to solve a puzzle using numbers between 700-730 without any numbers in the grid as a hint.  The second part of the question had us look for multiple solutions, which they were able to find them all.  To end the week, they completed the math cards.  We will begin a new lesson next week.



4TH GRADE:  MAKING SENSE OF FRACTIONS:  This week we started our first step to solving our Think Deeply question.  For part one they were allowed to work in groups.  The students had to solve a layout for the Gazette.  They had to solve for the missing fraction piece, which was the largest because it was the main article.  Then they had to find away to arrange the 5 articles on the front page of the newspaper.  This was a challenge because they were given fractions with different denominators.  They had to solve for a common denominator before they could solve for the layout. 



Both Groups successfully completed part one and created their layouts for their newspaper.
 Next week they will write their responses individually as part 2 of their Think Deeply.

Enjoy the Weekend,

Ms. Losinski