~ CHILLY FRIDAY ~



Mark it on the Calendar!

Thursday, March 5th:  K Round-Up 3-8PM
Sunday, March 8th:  Daylight Savings 
Spring Forward
Tuesday, March 10th:  Spring Picture Day
Friday, March 13th:  End of 3rd Quarter
March 23rd - March 27th:  Spring Break

1st Grade:  REBUS PUZZLES:
The week the students read to me The Fantastic 5 & 10 Cent Store:  A Rebus Adventure by J. Patrick Lewis & Valorie Fisher.  This book is full of rebus puzzles for the students to solve while reading the story.  They did a great job! 
 Next, it was onto creating their own rebus puzzles.  We looked at a list of words from a grocery store and the students took turns coming to the board drawing a rebus puzzle for us to guess.  To end the week, we played a few rounds of guess my rebus puzzle - where the students took turns coming to the board and drawing different puzzles for us to guess.
We will move onto a new lesson next week.


2nd Grade:  MY FATHER'S DRAGON:
We have wrapped up our book study with My Father's Dragon.  Before reading the last chapter, the students shared several predictions on how the story might end.  Then, we listened to the last chapter.  To conclude our study with the book, we looked at the structure of a chapter book.  We reviewed the parts of Freytag's Pyramid.
  We took some time to discuss the whole story with the pyramid and agreed that the climax, falling action and denouement all took place in chapter 10.  We discussed how these must take place at the end of a chapter book to keep the reader hooked on reading the book.  
We switched gears to look at an individual chapter and how it followed Freytag's Pyramid.  I told the students that one part would be missing from the structure.  We plotted a summary of chapter one together on the pyramid. 

 As we were finishing it up, I heard several students mention that there is no denouement.  Instead, we get left with the reader wondering a question - making them want to turn the page and read chapter two in search of the answer.  This led us to discuss if each chapter ended like this and they agreed until we reached chapter 10 - which resolved the whole story.  We took some time to discuss why it is important for an author to compose a chapter book in this way.  

Next week we will move onto a new lesson.


3rd Grade:  BLACK BEAUTY:
This week was all about discussing what the students have read.  We had to back track to chapter 9 to get us started, but we were able to walk through each chapter.  We were able to look at the actual events of what took place in each chapter.  Then, we look at those events further and look at the lesson being taught to the reader.  This book is full of lessons, as each chapter focuses on teaching us something about how we treat people/animals and how it defines our character.  It can become overwhelming with 40 chapters and 40 lessons - but they are doing a great job at sharing their thoughts and ideas. 
We will continue our novel study next week. 
HOMEWORK:  Please read Chapters 16-18.

4th Grade:  THE WESTING GAME:
This week the students began to analyze our characters.  We created character cards, which have them matched with their paired heir.  We also color-coded the families to help us track their relationships within the story.  On each card, the students will be able to take notes, track any changes in the character, track physical characteristics, character traits, and their connection to Sam Westing - this already led one student to discover another character with a possible motive.  These will be important for the students to continue to complete as they work through the clues of the mystery.  To end the week, the students were given class time to work on their assigned materials.
There is no assigned reading this week - as we are still discussing and tracking notes from the previous chapters.  I don't want them to get to far ahead without understanding the information they have been given already.  They are making great connections and I want them to continue analyzing the chapters.


1st Grade:  UNIT TEST:
This week the students took their Post Unit Test.  This is the same test we took in the beginning of the year prior to learning all of the material on the test.  I was very pleased with their post results - these kids ROCKED it out!

  To celebrate completing this unit, we had a Kahoot day of fun on Thursday.

We will move onto a new lesson next week.


2nd Grade:  FLOOR DESIGN:
This week the students created a floor design to their playground models.  Their was a list of requirements that the students had to follow and then they had to pass an inspection on the requirements.  
The big requirement was they had to leave 30 square inches of space for children to be able to runaround on their playground designs.  This was the big one that made students have to manipulate and think about the size of the playground equipment they were choosing.  By the end of the lesson, all the students were able to create a design and pass inspection!

We will continue with our lesson next week.  


3rd Grade:  UNIT TEST:
This week the students continued to complete their Unit Test in the room. 

Next week we will move onto a new activity.


4th Grade:  REVIEW WEEK:

We have wrapped up our Geometry Unit.  This week we took the time to review the topics we covered throughout the year.  This was in preparation for the post-test the students will complete next week.  The post-test is the exact unit test they saw at the beginning of the year.  This time they have been taught all of the information and have all the tools needed to succeed on the test.
We will complete the post test next week.

Have A Great Weekend,

Ms. Losinski