~ FASCINATING FRIDAY ~

Finally, a normal week!  We are back to normal for a while, meaning I will be seeing both my groups every week.  We are looking for another Class of the Month and our focus is on Kindness to our Friends in our room.  I am assuming this will be another close competition between my groups and I can’t wait to see which class will win.  The quote last week talked about being kind and if you are kind to others, you too will be rewarded. I saw many friends making an extra effort to help a friend in class this week. 

Our leader board after the first week is:

1st Grade Language Arts 10

3rd Grade Language Arts 9

2nd Grade Math 8

Around the School:  We need your POP TABS!!!  The school is involved in a competition with all of the other schools in our district.  We are trying to be the school to collect the most Pop Tabs.  We are collecting them to donate for Hannah’s Hope.  We appreciate any support you can give in this effort.

We have two more students to feature from November’s Character of the Month club.  Again these are students that come to class and add that positive energy to the room!  

LANGUAGE ARTS

1st Grade:  Alphabet Acrobats - Magical Connections:  Since it has been a while since we met - I let each student share something they did over break...Then it was onto our Magical Anagrams.  After a quick reminder over our definition of an angram it was time to continue practicing with anagrams..

.On Tuesday it was a BIG challenge with anagrams because we have moved onto 5 letter words.  This was a little trickier, so we did the first page together.  They took turns coming to the board and sharing an answer they found that another student might not have been able to solve.  They are now ready to solve their 5 letter anagrams and will complete the second page on next week.

2nd Grade:  Text-to-Text Connections - The Velveteen Rabbit:  On Monday, we took some time to re-read chapters 14-17 in class together.  It has been a little over a month since they were asked to read it and we decided a reminder would be good.  While reading, we paused for a moment and begin to think about how much time has passed in our story.  We will look further at this on Tuesday when we add to our timeline, but I wanted them to start to think about it.

On Tuesday, we finished reading chapter 17 and then we looked at our timeline.  It was time to look at how much time has passed throughout the story.  While looking at this we thought of how old Abilene would be now...I asked them to try to keep that in their mind as we work towards finishing the book.

3rd Grade:  Fairy Tales:  To begin class from our long break, we went through our list of elements in a fairy tale.  Then we took some time to look over a book my daughter is letting us borrow that contains an entire collection of Fairy Tales.  Looking through this book got the students excited to work with fairy tales again.  Each student picked out a fairy tale for us to look at as a class.  They picked some good stories because our other students were not familiar with the title the other selected.

On Tuesday, we finished our second selection.  Then we made a chart to compare and contrast our fairy tales.  For each story we read, the students will add it to the chart and go through each element marking what applied.  We will continue to add to this chart as we read a few more fairy tales.  When our chart is complete we will look back and compare and contrast between the stories.

4th Grade:  Change Makers:  Conference time again!  Monday, I met with each student individually to look at what they had to turn in and to see where they were at with their project.  I was happy to see that most students are right on track.  We have made some slight adjustments to the deadlines to allow for class time to complete each step.  Each student found at least two images for their project this week.  

Then they used the remainder of their time this week and they will have next week to prepare their list of ten or more events in a chronological order.  Next, we will take these two steps and combine our materials to create a timeline for our project.   Some of my friends were ready to move on and begin to prepare their events for their timeline.  At this point, we have some friends at different parts of the project as some have worked ahead.  I will continue to post on the blog what they are working on and what is due the following week to have dates on here for all of my students.

Upcoming Due Dates: January 17th:  List of 10 or more Major Events

                     January 24th:  Create Final Timeline

MATH

1st Grade:  That Covers it - The Target Design Team:  We started this week looking at two new shapes and making another prediction of the larger shape.  After they recorded their prediction, they practiced measuring with our small square unit to determine which shape was larger.  Then they had the chance to create another shape using 7 or less square units.  We came together and shared our shapes.  We had two students create a shape with 7 square units and two with 6 - this gave us a perfect opportunity to test out our Target Designs!  Although they had the same area, we practiced throwing at the shapes of 7 and then 6 to see what would be easier shape to land on.  We will come back to this thought in this chapter and our next one - so this was a great introduction for us!

On Thursday, we discovered that Zani needed our help...it was time to answer our Think Deeply  Question.  As a class, we reviewed our math term of Area and discussed the right and wrong way to measure a space.  Now the students were ready to answer Zani’s question - what did he do wrong when he measured for area?  All the students were quick to identify that he overlapped his squares.  Some of our friends drew him a picture of the right and wrong way to measure to help express their thoughts.  We had some time left over and so  we completed our Think Beyond cards together.  They were excited to discover we were using triangles as a new measuring unit!  They were able to work with this new shape as a measuring unit very quickly.

2nd Grade:  Length - Car Seats for Egg Passengers:  This week the children began to assemble their plans.

We reviewed the rules they must follow:  

1 - Less than 50 cms of supplies

2 - choice of 1,2,or 4 egg cartons

3 - 5x7 piece of foam

4 - 2 holes attached either to the carton or foam

Most groups used the two days to assemble their car seats and they also began to work on their drawings of their designs.  Next week the groups will submit their car seats to Quality Control for inspection - each group will get a chance to be Quality Control for another group.  Then they will submit their plans to the class.  Based on their plans the class will guess if the egg will stay in the car or fly out.   We are hoping to test the car seats on Thursday.  

3rd Grade:  Linear Measurement - A Pen for the Yeti’s Pet:  This week it was time to think about our lesson and what we learned from it.  As a class, we worked through our first Think Deeply question together.  We started by first looking at our pens created and putting them in order without using our dimensions.  Then I added in the dimensions to see if the orders would change.  Then each person shared their list they came up with and we compared them.  The first thing they needed to share with the class is how they chose to organize the pens and then they shared some of their thoughts.  The entire class chose to organize the pictures from biggest to smallest, but then some flipped from smallest to biggest when I added in dimensions.

On Thursday, it was time for them to write on their own.  This time they had to look at the pens they created and choose which one would be best for the Yeti’s pet.  I had students still struggle with writing down their thoughts and idea - so I told those students to list all  the vocabulary they think would be important to use in their writing.  For the rest of class it was their time to write.  At first it was a struggle, as it had been a while, but as they got started they had some great ideas to share about their selection.

4th Grade: The Shape of Things - 3-D Shapes Inside and Out:  Kahoot was a Hoot!  To review our class lesson we started the week out with a short video on cross-sections.  Then it was time for Kahoot.  Kahoot is an interactive game the students played with their Chromebooks each student buzzes in when they have the correct answer.  The faster you answer the more points you can win!  The students were excited with this new tool to use and are looking forward to playing it again soon.

On Thursday, it was time for us to look at our Think Deeply question. The students were asked to come up with a rule for shapes that have a rectangle as a cross-section.  We started with a class discussion on what the question was asking us.  Then we brainstormed a list of shapes and came up with some things they had in common.  This had many students begin to establish a rule - so now they had the remainder of class to write their response to the question.

IMPORTANT DATES:

January 13th: End of Second Quarter

January 16th:  NO SCHOOL Martin Luther King Jr Day

January 20th: Report Cards Available Online
February 1st: Early Dismissal

~ FREEZING FRIDAY ~

Happy New Year and Welcome Back!  I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday over winter break. I enjoyed spending the past two weeks with my children. We finally had time to go see a few movies. It was also nice seeing family and friends. However, I was excited to come back and see all my kiddos.  Due to it being a short week, I only met with my Math groups.  

Next week we will start our new monthly theme for the classroom. We are learning from Frozen this month. Just like December we are going to run it as a class this month. We are going to look for what class cooperates and works like a family in the room. Kindness to our classmates will be a BIG focus.

Here is a picture of our winning class from the month of December…

This Class did a great job of working together as a team and following class procedures!

Here are some more of our Student of the Months from November that we are still featuring. These are some of the students that come to class everyday with a positive attitude.  We will have the last of them next week when I see my Language Arts friends…

 

4th Grade Language Arts: Change Makers:
Please make sure you are using this time to continue to work on your project. When we meet next week each child should have two or more pictures of their person cut out. When we meet next week we will make adjustments to the timeline with us missing a week of class.


MATH

1st Grade:  That Covers It - The Target Design Team:  We started class with each person sharing a story from over break...Then it was onto our New Chapter!  Our next big math concept will be on Area.  As an introduction to area, the students needed to figure out which placemat would hold more food on it... a perfect question because Ms. Losinski Loves food!  We took a vote and it turned out to be boys against the girls on which would hold more food.  We used 3x3 post-it notes as our tool to measure the inside of our placemat.  The boys predicted correctly which placemat was larger.  For the remainder of class, the students practiced measuring area with post-its around the room.

    On Thursday, it was time for them to have some more practice at measuring area.  I had some some pre-cut papers for them to predict and measure..  Then we went through a worksheet together.  This time we introduced measuring with a 1 inch tile.  To end the day, each child got a chance to be the teacher and come up to the camera and show a new shape with the tiles.  They loved being the teacher!

2nd Grade:  Length - Car Seats for Egg Passengers:  The kids were super excited to be back in class!  We took a few minutes to let each student share something they did over Winter Recess then it was onto some measurements of our tools for our car seats.  We started by having each student draw a color and this determined who their partner would be for this project.  Then they had a bag of supplies that they worked with for the day.  They first had to make a guess of how long they thought it was in centimeters and then use the ruler to find the actual measurement.  Finally, they took their two numbers and subtracted to find the difference of their two measurements.  It was great walking around to the groups and seeing some of them remember to use their finger nail as a benchmark to use for their estimate.  

On Thursday, we looked over our results from the previous day.  Then we went over all of the rules and requirements for their car seat designs.  The biggest twist is the limits they must follow with the tools they are given.  They can only use a total of 50 centimeters of supplies and each supply has a limit too.  They will submit their plans to Quality Control to make sure they followed these rules!  They used the remainder of class time to begin to draw up their plans with their partner.  Each group had to make a decision of how many egg cartons compartments they wanted in their design by the end of class today...They could choose between 1, 2 or 4.  Next week they will take their plans and build them!

3rd Grade:  Linear Measurement - A Pen for the Yeti’s Pet:

 We took a few moments from class to discuss our winter breaks.  Then it was onto a quick review of our topic - perimeter.  After that we looked back at our problem of taking an 8x20 pen and creating one with different measurements -  smaller than the 20 ft, but they must use all 56 feet of fencing.  We worked through one together as a class and then the kids were ready to try it on their own...this time with great success!  

On Thursday, each student took their turn of coming up in front of the class and being the teacher.  When it was their turn they came to the board and walked us through the steps of how they found their new measurements for their pen.  We will continue working with their pens next week with their Think Deeply Question.

4th Grade:  The Shape of Things - 3-D Shapes Inside Out:  We started this week out with a review of what we learned about or 3D shapes so far.  We went back to the beginning since it had been well over 3 weeks since we last met...After we were caught up for our lesson we switched our focus onto learning about cross-sections.

On Thursday, we filled our set of 3D shapes with water to help us visualize our cross-sections.  This helped us work through our worksheet that had us look at a shape and mark the different cross-sections each shape contained.  When looking for cross sections our in the shapes our focus is visualizing the 2D shape we would see at the plane.  This has helped them when determining what shape we would see.

IMPORTANT DATES:

January 13th: End of Second Quarter

January 16th:  NO SCHOOL Martin Luther King Jr Day

January 20th: Report Cards Available Online
February 1st: Early Dismissal