October 29, 2021

 

Tuesday, November 2nd:  E-Learning Day

Tuesday, November 2nd:  Parent-Teacher Conferences

11-7pm

Wednesday, November 24:  Thanksgiving Break

Thursday, November 25:  Thanksgiving Break

Friday, November 26:  Thanksgiving Break

Thursday, December 9:  E-learning Day

1^st Grade:  Silly Speak:

    This week we continued our journey with Pig Latin.  The students completed several worksheets to practice encoding and decoding.  Then it was time to decide a question…Should all first graders learn Pig Latin?  This led to an interesting debate and led us into the idea of persuading another person to our opinion.  Together, we started to write a persuasion paper on this topic.  The class chose to write it with the thought that all first graders should learn Pig Latin, but a few friends chose to write it the other side of the argument.  To introduce writing a paragraph, we use the hamburger model as a format to create our paragraphs.  This week the students completed a hamburger organizer with their ideas.  Next week we will complete our persuasion papers.

2^nd Grade:  The Tale of Despereaux:

    The students have completed book the first.  This story is organized in 4 mini books.  Books 1 through 3, introduce and tell the story of 3 different character.  Book the 4^th will show where all 3 of those characters come together.  As a class, we continued our focus of adding on to our light verse dark theme from the book.  We began book the second which introduces us to the rats.  This led us to meeting Roscurro and a very interesting rat that goes by the name of Botticelli.  We will continue our tale with Despereaux next week.

3^rd Grade:  Grammar Time:

    This week the students went on a noun hunt.  This hunt puts a strong focus on finding all 4 types of nouns.  The students are familiar with people, places and things, but ideas tend to be a struggle.  We discussed that an idea is something intangible that you cannot touch.  We had to have a quick review on pronouns as some of my friends wanted to highlight some of those on their hunt.  Next, we switched gears to focusing on the purpose of nouns in our sentences this led us to diagramming a sentence.  The students are familiar with our subject noun, but our new focus was on the object of the preposition.  This of course led us into introducing the prepositions.  We will continue with our grammar next week.

4^th Grade:  Change in People:

    We saved our last word from the Greek and Latin words for this week.  It was an autobiography.  This was what introduced us to discuss an autobiography verse a biography.  It led us into what it meant to them for someone to be a change maker.  This week I asked the students to come up with 3 possible ideas of who they would like to research as a change maker.  I emphasized to them to make sure it is someone that not only fits our idea of a change maker, but someone they want to learn more about as we they will use this person for a major research project.  We used the remaining time to practice diagraming some of our sentences.  This is a great practice we use throughout the year as a review to parts of speech and identifying parts of a sentence.  This week they saw several sentences focusing on a linking verb.  They got to see with several examples of how it links the subject noun to the predicate.  We will continue with our change making project next week. 

1^st Grade Math:  Groupo:

    It’s GAME TIME again!  This week the students learned the rules to Groupo.  This game has a dealer and the students have a goal of creating the most pairs of shapes.  The shapes are like the new shapes we created last week, where they are made with several shapes on the inside to make one new shape.  To qualify as a pair, the students must meet 4 of the 5 different requirements listed below:

The students quickly saw that items one through three on the list would be correct with the same sides, vertices and shape name, if they counted either the sides or vertices to make the pair.  The tricky part came to the last two – made with the same number of shapes or all shapes on the inside were the same.  They quickly saw it all came down to what is inside the shape to make the pair.  We will continue with our lesson next week.

2^nd Grade:  More with Triangles & Transformations

    This week we continued exploring geometry with triangles.  I was happy that they remembered our magic number with a triangle is 180 degrees.  We continued to look for the missing angle and practicing adding and subtracting with our numbers.  Then, it was onto transformations!  We completed a set of worksheets to teach the three transformations:  flip, slide and turn.  We discussed the importance of a turn moving from a fixed point and a flip with reflect over a line of reflection.  They rocked this part out!  To end the week, the students completed Transformation Trip where they transformed a triangle all around a paper by identifying the different transformations.  We will continue with this lesson next week.

3^rd Grade:  Chapter Check-Up

    This week it was time for the students to complete their first chapter check-up for the year.  At the end of each chapter, we have a check-up to see if the students have mastered the lessons or if we need to have a quick review before moving onto the next chapter.  The chapters each build upon each other with our big topic of algebra, so it is important that they master these lessons before moving on to the next.  We will continue exploring algebra next week.

 

4^th Grade: Variable Puzzles

    This week the students finished creating their magic tricks.  Then, it was their turn to be the magician as they tested out their tricks with other  classmates.  They took them home this week, so they might have shared them with you and maybe they even told you the secret.  Next, we moved onto our new lesson on variable puzzles.  This involved them solving for two different variables within a chart where the letter had the same value each time while being represented in different equations.  They were solving these quickly!  However, I slowed them down a bit to focus on our equations.  I wanted them to be able to use our math language and create an equation each time they were solving the puzzle.  They did a great job with this challenge.  We will continue with this lesson next week.

Ms. Losinski

Thursday, October 21st, 2021

Wednesday, October 22:  Fall Break - No School

Thursday, October 28:  Trick or Treat at CHS 5-7pm

*See Flyer Below

Tuesday, November 2nd:  E-Learning Day

Tuesday, November 2nd:  Parent-Teacher Conferences

11-7pm

Wednesday, November 24:  Thanksgiving Break

Thursday, November 25:  Thanksgiving Break

Friday, November 26:  Thanksgiving Break

1st Grade:  A SECRET LANGUAGE:

This week the students cracked another secret code - The Telephone Keypad Cipher.  The students were so close to figuring out the code.  They quickly saw that each number had letters on them and in alphabetical order.  However, they were just missing the connection with the arrows pointing to the letters. 

 Our message referenced a secret language.  The students found out that our secret language was Pig Latin.  We have one student in the class that shared a story of them already knowing our secret language.  We completed a worksheet together that would help get our brains thinking about vowel sounds to help us with the rules of our language.  Then, we finished class discussing the rules to Pig Latin.

We will continue with our secret language next week.

2nd Grade:  THE TALE OF DESPEREAUX:

This week we started with a quick worksheet the students completed as a check-in to their reading assignment.  Then we worked through a series of discussion questions.  We continued our discussion by seeing if anyone was making any personal connections to the story.  Despereaux is struggling with not conforming and following the rules of the mouse community.  This led us into a great class discussion on is the Head Mouse Council being mean or protecting an entire community with their rules.  All the students agreed that the Mouse Council was just enforcing rules to keep the community safe.  To wrap up our discussion, we started a list on light verse dark.  This will be a continuing theme throughout our story that we will revisit weekly.

They had us in such a great discussion with the book that I forgot their pictures.  I will try for some extras next week!

3rd Grade:  FOLKLORES:

This week we discussed the big difference to help us distinguish between a myth and a legend.  We discussed that our myths would explain the unexplainable while the legend stay grounded in reality.  To end the week, the students were introduced to a vocabulary map.  We used this to wrap up their understanding of a myth.

We will move onto a new lesson next week.

4th Grade:  A CHANGE IN WORDS:

This week the students completed an independent activity on how our language changed.  This focused on our Greek and Latin roots and how they influenced English language.  We talked about how our words can change by adding prefixes and suffixes.  Then the students started the activity to learn more about the history of our language.

We will continue with this lesson next week.

1st Grade:  SHAPES within SHAPES

This week we revisited our shapes the students created from last week.  Now they got to pick 2 to 4 of those shapes to create a new one.  We had to review a vertex and that you might create a shape with a concave vertex.  This would mean that on the inside of the triangle the students would see a reflex angle. 

 They rocked this part out!  In the beginning of the year, seeing a reflex angle was a struggle for some of the students.  This time around they were able to spot more reflex angles on their own!  From here, the students had to follow a set of rules to connect the shapes and made a new shape.  They had to trace the sides, of the shape, place a sticker on each vertex, name their new shape, and tell us the original shapes that created it. 

Next week, we will take what we learned and play a new shape game!

2nd Grade:  ALL ABOUT TRIANGLES:

This week we stepped aside from our unit and had some enrichment with triangles.  We quickly discussed the three type of triangles.  Then, we reviewed ALL our angles.  I showed the students a line, but also told them we call this a straight angle.  A student quickly identified for us that this must measure 180 degrees because of their knowledge that a circle measures 360 degrees.  This led to us discussing that all three angles of a triangle measure to 180 degrees - our magic number of a triangle.

  A trick I tell them is to remember the line is 180 degrees and if you open it up, all the angles of a triangle will create a straight line.  This week we were looking for a missing angle of a triangle.  This had us working with adding our 2-digit numbers and subtracting a 2-digit or 3-digit number from a 3-digit number.  They were working hard to solve these problems!  We used some teamwork to work on the subtraction.  I also explained to them on these enrichment days that they should not panic if they did not understand all of it.  We use these days to introduce some other topics throughout the year and expose them some more math concepts.  If they understand or master any of it - great!  If they get some of it - awesome!  If they don't quite get any of it but remember bits and pieces for the next time the see it - success!

We will wrap up our triangle fun next week!

3rd Grade:  FINDING A FUNCTION:

 This week was all about sharing the secret to finding a formula and breaking the habit of extending the table in their brain.  I shared two functions that are needed to solve What's Next depending on if the pattern was increasing or decreasing.  This gave them an understanding to why we first identify the pattern and then the starting number - both are needed to create the function for our tables.  

If a pattern is adding to the previous number, the students will always multiply the term by the number they found for the pattern and then add the starting number to their answer.  We identified this as F = (T x P) + S.  If the pattern is subtracting from the previous number, the formula would be F = S - (T x P).  

This meant to start with our starting number and then subtract the difference from multiplying the term from the number they identified in the pattern.  In both formulas, they are always multiplying the term with the number they identified with the pattern.  How they utilize the starting number in the function is determined by if the growing pattern was increasing or decreasing.  As soon as the students identified how the pattern changed, then they could determine the function to solve!

We will wrap up this lesson next week.

4th Grade:  CREATING OUR OWN TRICKERY:

This week the students were revealed the why behind the magic trick.  Then, it was their turn to set-up their own version of the trick.  They completed part 2 of their worksheet to walk them thru the steps to setting up their own version.   Since we know how the trick works, the students were able to see that they can set it up in four different ways.  It is their choice to which trick they create.  Next week they will be able to share with you their trick and you can see if your magician will teach you the secret.

We will continue with our lesson next week.

Ms. Losinski