REMINDER: No School on Friday.

 This group had an extra minute to help model our new class rug.  It caused quite a bit of excitement for the kiddos when the entered the room this week.

Mark it on the Calendar!

Friday, October 25th:  No School - Fall Recess
Thursday, October 31st:  Happy Halloween
Sunday, November 3rd:  Daylight Savings Time
Fall Back
Tuesday, November 5th:  E-Learning Day
Wednesday, November 6th: Early Dismissal Day
at 1:45pm
Parent Teacher Conferences from 2-8pm
Thursday, November 7th:  Early Dismissal Day
at 1:45pm
Parent Teacher Conferences from 2-8pm
Monday, November 11th:  Veteran's Day
Veteran's Day Program in Gym at 1pm
Thursday, November 14th:  Picture Retake Day
Wednesday, November 20th:  4th Grade Musical
at 6:30pm Chesterton Middle School
Wednesday, November 27th: Thanksgiving Break 
No School
Thursday, November 28th: Thanksgiving Break
No School
Friday, November 29th: Thanksgiving Break
No School  

NEWS AROUND YOST:
RED RIBBON WEEK
October 28th - 31st

Spirit Days:

 Monday:
wear red and sign the drug free pledge
Tuesday:
wear mix-matched socks
   Wednesday:
wear a hat
 Thursday:
 wear your Halloween costume during the Halloween Dance

NEWS AROUND DUNELAND:

Chesterton High School Student Government Presents:

HALLoween Trick or Treat

When: October 30th, 5-6:30 pm

Where:  Chesterton High School

Enter through Door 1

Who:  All kids through 4th Grade

Admission is $5.00 per family.

A portion of the proceeds will go to Riley's Children's Hospital.

Snacks and refreshments will be available for an additional $1.00 per item. 

1st:  Grade:  SILLY SPEAK:

WOW!  This group accomplished a lot this week.  To start the week, they translated the lyrics of a song to Pig Latin.  Then, we listened to the song which is sung in Pig Latin.  We moved onto translating one of our secret connections from our last lesson into Pig Latin.  Then, the students presented them to the class for the other students to guess their connection.

  To end the week, the students were introduced to the hamburger model.  As a class, we had to decide if all first graders should learn Pig Latin - to my surprise they said no.  I explained to them that this was an opinion they formed about this question.  Then, we used their opinion to write a persuasion paragraph using our hamburger model.

We had some extra time and played a quick version of Simon Says in Pig Latin.

Next week, we will begin a new lesson.

2nd Grade:  OPINION WRITING:

This week I introduced to the students to a class organizer of the writing process.  We utilized this to help track the different steps the authors are at while they are completing this assignment.  This week the students were introduced to revising and editing their paper.  This also helped them understand why I referred to their draft as their sloppy copy.  We looked at ARMS and CUPS to help us have a better understanding of the revising and editing steps:

We took some time out before the students edited their paper for a mini-grammar lesson.  We briefly reviewed when we should have capital letters in a sentence.  The main focus of the lesson was with our proper nouns verse common nouns.  Then, the students continued to work at their own pace with their persuasive writing.

Next week we will wrap up our opinion writing.

3rd Grade:  CHARACTER TRAITS IN WRITING:

This week the students were ready to revise and edit their sloppy copies.  We took some time to go over the differences with these two steps.  They started with revisions to make their paper grow.  To complete this step, I introduced the students to ARMS:

Then, we switched gears to editing their paper.  We reviewed this step by looking over the model of CUPS:

We discussed why it is important to revise before editing - this allows us to save time and edit once verse editing, revising and then editing your revision.  We also introduced peer editing with a neighbor.  This allowed a second set of eyes to catch something they may have missed.  They were finally ready to write their final copy.

  To end the week, we completed some grammar activities. 

4th Grade:  INVENTION STATIONS:

This week the students completed the stations from around the room.  On Tuesday, they shared some of the creations from this project.  

Then, we switched gears and started a grammar lesson.  This was the first time my 4th graders completed the 4-level sentence analysis this year, so this was used to introduce this worksheet.  

We will continue with our grammar lesson next week.

1st Grade:WEIGHT:

*My first grade class did not meet this week.

2nd Grade:  THINK DEEPLY:

It was time for the students to respond to our friends Dru and Teller with what they discovered about symmetry.  Together as a class, we looked at the question the students were asked:  They needed to create a rectangle from their triangle combinations.  Then, they were asked to draw all of the lines of symmetry in that shape and tell how they knew those were lines of symmetry.  We started by filling out our Think Frame together.

  This looked further at the question and the students took notes on all of the information they were taught on symmetry.  After completing the Think Frame, the students were ready to respond the Dru and Teller.  There was some confusion to if the answer would be 2 or 4 lines of symmetry and this depended on if they created a rectangle or square as their original shape.  We had to dig deeper into this and remember that all squares are rectangles, but not all rectangles were squares.  This let them know that both answers would be correct, but they needed to make sure they only had 4 lines of symmetry if it was a square.

Next week, we will begin a new lesson.

3rd Grade:  ENRICHMENT ACTIVITIES: 

This week we had students out on both days for field trips.  We were going to start a new lesson, but it is challenging and I don't want anyone to miss anything important.  To keep everyone at the same spot, we took a break from our lesson this week and completed some extra enrichment activities. 

  We looked at our Zacarro packet that has us solving some algebraic expressions.  To complete this packet, I had to show the students how to isolate the variable to one side of the equation.  This was definitely a challenge for them to understand, but a great opportunity to let them see a different part of algebra with the variable.  

We will begin our new lesson next week.

4th Grade: 3-DIMENSIONAL SHAPES:

They took a few moments to finish up their thoughts from their Think Deeply last week.  Then, we completed an enrichment activity looking at how triangles were classified.  The students were introduced to a new game we can play in the classroom called SET.  This game focuses on matching attributes of cards to find sets of 3 - the catch is you must look at 4 different attributes each time and those attributes must all be the same or different.    They had to look at the shape, number of shapes, pattern of the shapes and the color of the shapes.  It really got them thinking!

We switched gears to our next lesson.  This lesson introduced  the differences of 2-Dimensional and 3-Dimensional shapes.  For day one, they were asked to list all the shapes they knew and sort them into the two categories.  It also explained to them that 2-dimensional shapes have two measurements:  length and width; while our 3-dimensional shapes have three measurements: length, width and height.  This gave the students a better understanding to the reason behind the names 2-D and 3-D.  To the end the week, they were introduced to one more term - a polyhedron.  For a 3-D shape to classify as a polyhedron all it's faces had to be a polygon.  To look at this idea further, we utilized our 3-D shapes we had in the room.  We separated them into the two categories and then looked at the faces of the shapes.  This definitely helped them understand the definition of a polyhedron.

Next week we will continue exploring 3-D shapes.  

Happy Fall Break!

Ms. Losinski

~ FANTASTIC FRIDAY ~

Mark it on the Calendar!

Tuesday, October 15th:  End of 1st Quarter
Thursday, October 24th:  Yost Blood Drive
1:30 - 7pm
Thursday, October 24th:  Report Card Posted
 at 3pm
Friday, October 25th:  No School - Fall Recess
Thursday, October 31st:  Happy Halloween

NEWS AROUND DUNELAND:

Chesterton High School Student Government Presents:

HALLoween Trick or Treat

When: October 30th, 5-6:30 pm

Where:  Chesterton High School

Enter through Door 1

Who:  All kids through 4th Grade

Admission is $5.00 per family.

A portion of the proceeds will go to Riley's Children's Hospital.

Snacks and refreshments will be available for an additional $1.00 per item. 

1st Grade:  SECRET LANGUAGE:

This week the students were introduced to a secret language.  Before, they could learn the secret language we had to review what they knew about vowels and consonants.  This introduced to them that each word has at least one vowel sound.  We also discussed that the number of vowel sounds we hear should match the number of syllables in a word.  Next, it was onto our secret language.  The students were introduced to the rules of speaking Pig Latin.  In past years, this has always been a favorite with my first graders.  We completed a few practice activities to become familiar with the rules to our secret language.

We will continue with this lesson next week.

2nd Grade:  PERSUASIVE WRITING:

This week we came in and discussed the idea of writing an opinion about a given topic.  As a class we brainstormed topic ideas and came up with 5 ideas:  

Should we have homework?

Should second graders have cell phones?

Should we have brain breaks?

Should we have a second recess?

Should parents limit your screen time?

The children quickly saw how fast you could debate these topics!  They students selected the topic they felt they had the strongest opinion.  Then, they completed a web to see if they had 3 ideas to write about.  Some students had to switch topics when they saw they only had two ideas come to mind.  

Next, they switched to their hamburger model structure.  This is where the students took their web of ideas and started to form their sentences.  Some students were ready to turn the hamburger structure into their sloppy copy or rough draft.

We will wrap up our persuasion writing next week. 

3rd Grade:  CHARACTER TRAITS IN INTERACTIONS:

This week the students took their brain storming and utilized the hamburger model to begin forming their paragraph.  The hamburger model is a tool we use to help us practice making paragraphs with 5 sentences. It also helps the students follow the framework of a topic sentence, 3 supporting details and a conclusion sentence.  Next, they turned their model into their sloppy copy or rough draft.

We will continue with this lesson next week.

4th Grade:  INVENTOR STATIONS:

This week it was all about the students using their creativity as they became inventors in the room.  They were allowed to choose from 11 stations with a goal of completing six of the stations.  Each station has a different task for them to complete.  There are various tasks that make them think like inventors.  When they are inventing most of these tasks challenge them to CHANGE something to make it better or create a new purpose.  This let them see how we as people have the ability to make the change happen all around us.  Other task cards would have them respond to certain questions like picking their favorite month, but defend why it is the best or compare and contrast different items.  

We will continue with this project next week.

1st Grade:  50 ITEMS:

This week the students first had to count out same items into sets of 50 items.  We utilized a mat to help us count out our items.  Then, the students ran into a problem the third item didn't fit onto the map.  We came up with the strategy of grouping them into sets of 5 or 10 and then skip counting to 50. 

 Then, the students were introduced to 2 new terms: heaviest and lightest.  We discussed that these terms are utilized when we compare the weights of 3 or more items.  To end the week the students completed a worksheet where they compared the weight of three bags and wrote about what they saw.

Next week, we will continue working with weight.

2nd Grade:  TRIANGLE COMBINATIONS:  

This week the students completed a worksheet creating different triangle combinations.  They were given 2 of the same sets of 6 triangles each marked with a letter.  They had to create 6 new shapes with the main rule being they could only use the same triangle from each set.  

They were challenged to design a triangle, rectangle, square and a parallelogram.  Together, we looked at the definition of a parallelogram before completing the assignment.  Some students were frustrated when creating the square.  This was because this one only had one possible solution while the others had two to three solutions.  It took a little more time and trial and error to find the correct combination to create the square.  Eventually, they were able to find it.

Next week, we will wrap up this lesson.

3rd Grade:  THINK DEEPLY:

This week it was time to wrap up our lesson.  This meant only one thing - it was time for another Think Deeply!  This one continued on with the same function the students discovered from the lesson.  It asked them to look for the number of fish that could fit at 23 tables.  Then, they had to explain how they found their answer.  As a class we discussed the two functions we created and why they work.  Then we worked together on an introductory sentence. 

 Since the students prefer different strategies, I let them complete the next step of explaining their preferred function on their own.  I was able to conference with the students individually to show them areas they were on the right track or where they needed to add on a little more information.  For their first think deeply on their own, they did a great job!  To end the week, we looked at our think beyond cards.  These are additional challenges that let us take the lesson further with quick questions for them to think about or solve.

We will start a new lesson next week.

4th Grade:  TRIPLE PLAY:

This week it was all about Triple Play!  This was a shape card game that challenges the students to find sets of three quadrilaterals with a given amount of cards.  Different sets have different values.  This introduced the idea of strategies to make sure you look for the more challenging quadrilaterals first to score more points.  Then, it was time for our Think Deeply.  The students were given a set of cards and asked which combination would make the best set for the game Triple Play.  They quickly were able to discuss that they needed to make rectangles because that was the highest point total that could be created with the given set of cards.  It made them remember that a square could be grouped with a rectangle to make this set.  However, these guys were really thinking today and said they wish they knew the shapes of the parallelograms from the question.  They said depending on the shape of the parallelogram it could have been a square, rhombus or another rectangle.  I loved this idea and told them to explain it further in the think deeply.

We will begin a new lesson next week. 

Ms. Losinski