~ Spring is Finally in the Air ~

Can it be...it looks like we have a week of warm weather ahead!

AROUND THE SCHOOL

May 2nd:  Early Dismissal at 1:45
May 23rd:  Field Day
May 25th:  9am Awards Program
May 25th:  Last Day of School


LANGUAGE ARTS



1ST GRADE:  REBUS PUZZLES:  This week we explored rebus puzzles as they were incorporated in a story from the author in The Fantastic 5 & 10 Cent Store:  A Rebus Adventure by J. Patrick Lewis & Valorie Fisher.  In this story pictures are used with the words to help tell the story.  


The students took turns reading different pages to the class to practice reading these puzzles.  Then we took some time to draw out some more rebus puzzles themed to things we see at the grocery store.  The students enjoyed taking turns coming to the board to illustrate rebus puzzles for their classmates to guess.  

We ended the week by looking at our final secret message - they were stumped with this one!  The students were looking at a word in hieroglyphics which is why it was impossible to figure out - until we gained some more knowledge!  We read through a few sections in the book called Hieroglyphs by Joyce Milton.  



After spotting a page with the Hieroglyph alphabet chart - we were able to go back and decode our secret message - Water.  We will continue to explore Hieroglyphs next week.

2ND GRADE:  THE TALE OF DESPEREAUX:  They were excited to come in and begin book the 4th this week.  Before we began the students took a mini quiz that had 11 questions over the first 3 books.  


They did a great job remembering all the details and only getting stuck on one question.  Afterwards, it was finally time to see our characters all meet up at the same time in our story.  





They are doing amazing working through the book with me - we plan to wrap up Book the 4th next week to enjoy our last week in high ability comparing the book to the movie.






3RD GRADE:  BLACK BEAUTY:  This week we started with silent reading time in the classroom.  After completing our next set of chapters we looked at our questions and discussed them.  This week we focused on how Beauty's character and the words his mom spoke to him have defined his temperament.  


We also see that in a moment of panic it is how someone speaks to you and approaches you that defines how you react to a situation.  Our classic tale is becoming a real page turner and hard to put down the further we get into the book.  




We have seen Beauty have to leave his master due to health reasons and are eager to see what becomes of him in our next section.  We will continue on with Black Beauty next week.



MATH

1ST GRADE:  SYMMETRY:  We completed our final rotation on symmetry.  This time students were given shapes out of tangrams and 3 different lines within the shape.  Their job was to mark all the lines that were correctly displayed as a line of symmetry.  They are definitely mastering this unit, as they were figuring the answers out without the need of the tangrams!  We had enough time left this week to start our Think Deeply.  We discussed the different strategies they have learned to determine if a shape is symmetrical:  folding the shape, using a mirror, or drawing a line of symmetry-where both sides match exactly.  They had to answer if a given line of symmetry was correct on a shape and then draw their own line for that same shape.  For their writing, they were asked to explain how they knew that their line was a line of symmetry.  They were also asked to explain two ways they know a shape is symmetrical.  Next week we will have our Unit Review.


2nd Grade:  Unit Review:  We have completed all our lessons and it is just about time for us to retake our Unit Assessment from the beginning of the year.  We took some time this week to look back at all of our vocabulary we have discussed over the year.  

A Silly Pose Request :)

They were given this glossary to take home and study as a review before they retake the assessment next week.  They are eager to see how much they have grown.








3rd Grade:  Unit Review:  They have just wrapped up all of the lessons for the year.  We took some time this week to review our 3 Big Concepts:  Patterns in Sequences, Patterns with the 100's Chart, and Mental Math.  





We took an entire day to review the patterns in sequences, as that was the biggest struggle on the year for this group and was also from the beginning of the year.  




Next week they will retake their Unit Assessment from the beginning of the year - looking forward to seeing huge growth with this group!




4th Grade:  Multiplying & Dividing Fractions:  We continued exploring our new concepts while applying them to baking.  They are either double or tripling a recipe or reducing it.  

We clarified that if we are multiplying our ingredients the answer will be larger and if we are reducing the amount will become smaller.  They have been multiplying fractions in class, so we have focused more on the division.  We walked through a few problems together to model to the group - remembering our phrase of switch it and flip it.  We will wrap up this lesson next week.

Enjoy the Sunshine,

Ms Losinski

FLYING-BY FRIDAY

I cannot believe that we are already in the final stretch of the year!  I am sad to say we only have a few more weeks of High Ability left.  My Language Arts groups are finishing up final projects and all my math classes are quickly reaching their final Unit Assessment.  Our last week of High Ability will be May 7th - May 11th.  

It looks like it might be true and warmer weather is on the way!  Hopefully, it will allow for some outdoor fun on
 Earth Day - Sunday, April 22nd, 2018.

AROUND THE SCHOOL

April 16th - May 4th: ISTEP 3rd & 4th only
April 16th - April 20th:  School Safety Week
April 27th:  Book Fair & Ice Cream Floats
April 27th:  Deadline for Summer School Registration
May 2nd:  Early Dismissal at 1:45

FREE High Ability Summer School

This is a wonderful opportunity for your child to be immersed in the study of Medieval Times.  There will be projects, reading, presentations, guest speakers and a chance for students to present what they've learned in the packed full three weeks!  Students who have attended have raved about the experience!  This is the unit that usually has the most students attend.  It sparks the most interest from our students.  I know there's often an overlap between other summer programs; DON'T LET THIS STOP YOU!  Mrs. Pethes welcomes any and all even if you need to miss a week or so.  It's worth it plus it's FREE this year!  Your child will still get so much out of this!  Please ask if you have questions.  Friday, April 27th is the deadline for registration!!!!  I have more copies of the brochure if you need one.  Dates are as follows: May 31, June 1, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 11, 12, 13, 14, 18, 19, 20, 21.

LANGUAGE ARTS







1ST GRADE:  REBUS PUZZLES:  This week we started our new lesson by solving our new secret message:  Pictures can stand for sounds in words.  This led us into looking at a set of Rebus Puzzles to help them understand the meaning of the message.  They were told to think of these puzzles as a math equation as we see addition and subtraction signs in the puzzles.  We have to combine pictures as the sound with letters to create the new word or phrase.

  They had lots of fun with solving these puzzles!  I allowed them to take some time to create their own puzzles to share with their classmates to solve. 







 Next week we will continue with this lesson.





2ND GRADE:  THE TALE OF DESPEREAUX:  We are very close to wrapping up Book the 3rd!  We reached a point in the story where 3 of our characters are all linked together by the dungeon - Despereaux, Roscuro, and Mig.  The students were asked to write their thoughts on how the three are going to possibly be linked together now that we know they are so close to one another.  One student remembered a key point that Mig is destined to be a part of Roscuro's revenge.  For Homework this week the students were assigned the last few chapters of Book the 3rd.  They are eager to begin Book the 4th and see our stories all meet back up at the same point!

HOMEWORK:  This week the students were asked to reach Chapters 31-33.



3RD GRADE:  BLACK BEAUTY:  This week we worked through a set of questions on chapters 1-10.  They also started to fill in their tracking sheets of interactions throughout the story.  Our story started with hearing Black Beauty's younger years and how he was trained properly to give him the proper upbringing for a positive future.  However, we met a horse named Ginger who had a different demeanor.  We were heard about her upbringing and how it was quite opposite of Beauty.  

Silly pose - Request :)

The interactions she had throughout her life have shaped her for the behavior she displayed now.  However, we have seen a change in her as the new owners are showing her she can trust them.  This is an important idea for the students to focus on - how our upbringing as a child is molding us for our future.  We will continue to study the interactions as we continue our journey with the novel.


HOMEWORK:  This weeks assigned reading was chapters 13-16.


MATH

1ST GRADE:  SYMMETRY:  This week we worked through more of our symmetry stations.  First, they cut-out shapes out of a folded paper.  The focus was on the fold being our line of symmetry.  We looked at some pictures and had to find the missing piece in the mirror.

  This was to help them focus on what they are looking for in the mirror to determine if a shape is symmetrical - the other half of the photo - not a new shape, which can be tricky!  They completed a sheet where they needed to find all the symmetrical shapes and to all the lines of symmetry.  Our last activity was with some tangram fun.  They had a worksheet to complete where they built a shape and then had to determine if three lines on the shape were symmetrical.  They enjoyed working with the tangrams!  They will be excited to find out next week we have one more tangram center to complete.  We will wrap up our symmetry unit next week.





2ND GRADE:  CHAPTER CHECK-UP:  This week we reviewed identifying the 2D shapes in 3D shapes based on our view.  We focused on identifying the perspective to which you are looking at it.  How right and left are reversed to the object when we are looking at something.  I shared a funny story with them from my night before  involving on your right or mine when a friend gave me directions and I saw the students get the ah-ha moment!  It clicked!  Then it was time for our Chapter Check-up.  Again, this is a tool to allow me to see if the students understand the material before we move-on to our next topic.  They are doing amazing this year and at a quick glanced rocked out the chapter check-ups.  Onto new things next week!

3RD GRADE:  CHAPTER CHECK-UP:  It was time to wrap-up our mental math unit.  This week the students were given their chapter check-up.  Again, this is a tool we utilize to see if the students grasped the material before we move onto our next topic.  This topic was a struggle for us as so many of them were focused on the easiness of adding the numbers rather than the different strategies.  As we continued on many of them started to focus on the strategy verse the answer and I saw a big change with some of them.  However, when looking over the chapter check-ups we did take some time out this week to review the importance of the strategy and not just the answers.  It is not always about the solution, but being able to explain the process.  They seemed to have a better handle on it after we discussed the chapter check-up.  We will move onto our next unit next week.  

4TH GRADE:  MEASURING-UP:  This week we wrapped up our Magic Squares and Triangles.  The students love solving these puzzles!  We looked at our Think Deeply questions were they were asked to solve for X - which was one of the missing squares.

  We discussed the strategies and identified what given numbers would help us find the solution and then the students went to work.  Our next lesson is going to teach multiplying and dividing fractions through the idea of cooking.  Together we completed an introductory worksheet to introduce the idea of fractions and cooking.  We will continue to work with this lesson next week.    


Have a Great Weekend,

Ms Losinski