~HAPPY HOLIDAYS~

     That is a wrap for 2016!  I can't wait to see all the kids next year...Due to being out of school yesterday, Holiday Parties were rescheduled for today.  I did not meet with my Language Arts groups today as there were many Holiday activities going on in the classrooms.  So our blog will be very short this week.

   

  

I just want to take a moment to wish all of my Yost 

Families a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

4th Grade Language Arts:  We will look at our chart with our deadlines when the children return and make adjustments accordingly.  Over break they can work on organizing their list of 10 or more events and putting them in the correct order.  However, I will allow class time to finish this up when we meet again.  If you could however ask the students to find the pictures they would like to use and have those prepared - that would help us finish up our next step.  Thanks!

When we return we will have a new monthly focus for the class...as we approach January I thought what better movie we could learn from then...FROZEN

Our first week back from break will be another short week and I will only see my Math groups.

IMPORTANT DATES:

December 21st - January 3rd:  Winter Recess

January 4th:  School Resumes

January 13th: End of Second Quarter

January 16th:  NO SCHOOL Martin Luther King Jr Day

January 20th: Report Cards Available Online

~Falling Temperature Friday~

Can you believe it - we are just days away from Winter Break!  This week we will end our challenge on Teamwork in the room.  As we are reaching a halfway point to the school year, it was perfect timing for us to have a few reminders on working well with others.  These past two weeks I have seen great effort from all of my classes to work hard together as a group and not just an individual.

We do not have a weekly quote for next week because of it only being 2 days and not all my groups will see it.  We will continue with our monthly theme next month when we return from break.  Check back next week to see a hint of our new theme for the month.

Happening Around the School:  Tonight Yost will be hosting its Winter Wonderland.  The cost for admission is $3.00 - admission includes the activities of cookie decorating, reindeer food and pictures with Santa.  For an additional cost you may visit Santa’s Secret Shop and do a little shopping with your children.  They will also have food available to purchase if you are hungry. Bring the whole family for a fun time in Winter Wonderland!

Next week, I will only see my Language Arts groups - so I wanted to wish my Math Groups a Happy Holidays!

 

I hope you enjoy winter break and I will see you next year!

Our Class of the Month is…

2nd Grade Math

All of my classes did a great job with this challenge.  3rd Grade Math and 1st Grade Math tied for second and 3rd place finishing one point behind the winning class.

Below, you will also see some of our students that were the Character of the Month for November.  These students are always optimistic and enter the room with a positive attitude.  They motivate the entire class to keep trying or simply bring a smile to our faces with their great attitude!

Next week I will have the rest of our Character of the Months...

LANGUAGE ARTS

1st Grade:  : Alphabet Acrobats - Magical Connections:   This week we introduced a new term to the students - Magical Anagrams.  We took our four letters from last week - P, T, S,O - and I allowed each student to come to the board and arrange them with the word they made.  Then as a class we worked towards finding the other 3 words we could arrange with the letters.  This was an introduction to our new term of anagrams.  We looked at a few more examples as a class and then read the story - The Great Show and Tell Disaster.  In this book the author Mike Reiss uses anagrams to write a silly story.  The children really enjoyed this book.

  On Tuesday, we started with a class discussion from our story.  We looked back at the text and noticed what the author did special to the text so the anagrams stood out - capitalizing them.  We also looked back at a few of the illustrations and discussed how the illustrator added to the anagrams.  To end the day, the children were given a set of the alphabet letters and worked through some anagrams in their student journals.

2nd Grade:  Text to Text Connections - The Velveteen Rabbit:  On Monday we briefly discussed what has happened in our story from last week.  Then the children listened to the remainder of The Velveteen Rabbit.  Afterwards, we discussed what happened in the story and focused our discussion on the “nursery magic” and a toy becoming Real.  We also learned that the author will sometimes add a special text feature to have the reader focus on a part in the story.  In the Velveteen Rabbit the author always capitalized the word Real to have our reader focus in on this key part of the story.  

Then we changed our focus to the lesson for the week - making a text-to-text connection.  We reminded ourselves of some of the connections we have seen so far and then thought about what a text-to-text connection might mean...This led us into our project this week - we made a Venn diagram with The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane and The Velveteen Rabbit.  

By drawing names, we split the class into two groups - each one focusing on one part of our two stories.  Then they were asked to use sticky notes to write about the characters, setting and plot of each story.  Each group came forward and added their notes.  Next, we looked at what we could pull off from each side that was similar and moved those notes to the middle of our diagram.  To end the day, we used our Venn diagram to compare and contrast the two stories together as a class.

We will now move our focus back to Edward Tulane and the children were asked to read chapters 14-16 by next Monday.

3rd Grade:  Fairy Tales:  We started this week by looking at the different elements that make up a fairy tale.  Then it was time for the students to explore their own story.  Each student picked a story to read and they will present it to the class.

On Tuesday, the students continued with their readings. We started to look closer at one of the stories as they had a few questions about the events in the story. This week was a short week for this group because we had students missing for part of each class. Next week the students will analyze their story and share it with the class

4th Grade:  Change Makers:  We are onto our final week for the Biography Summary.  I was happy to see that most of the students are just adding finishing details into their papers.  I mentioned to them to try and be specific with dates - to dig a little deeper in their research and see if they could find month and day.  We also went through each question one last time and made sure they understood what was needed with each question.  They seemed to have a good understanding with what each question was asking.  As I reviewed what students had so far - I pulled some of them to me that needed to clarify a few things in their summaries.  

Due next week - each child will look at the material they have gathered and pull out at least 10 facts about their person.  The events they use must have dates, as they will build their timeline with this list.

MATH

1st Grade: Check-Up:  On Wednesday, we finished our study on Transitivity.  We continued working with weighing all three bags and recording our results.  However, this week we added a twist - we only weighed each object with the pennies.  We didn’t add the third scale of comparing the other two objects.  We had to look at our results from weighing each object with the pennies.  We worked through this new idea while working through our student journal.

We completed our unit on weight and  it was time for our Check-up!  The children will complete a Chapter Check-up after we work through all of the lessons in a unit.  With Winter Break around the corner I wanted them to take their check-up before our break.  After the check-up we had just enough time to write our letter to Imi and Zani comparing our three weights.

2nd Grade: Marble Crash Test:  We received our fax from Dru and Teller.  Our new task will be to invent a seat belt for our friends - keeping in mind we have to be creative with our supplies because Dru and Teller might not have what we would normally use.  When we return from break the children will work towards creating and testing a car seat using eggs in their crash tests.  

Due to Winter Break we are waiting to start our crash test - so Thursday we had a fun day!  We played around the world with addition.  Then we switched it up and played it with subtraction.  The kids were doing so well that for a third round to the game - each child had a white board and as I would say the problem - they all had a chance to answer these questions.  For the final round the students did amazing and we had 5 winners!

3rd Grade:  Linear Measurement - A Pen for the Yeti's Pet:  We started our new lesson this week and our new math focus will on perimeter.  Our first challenge after hearing a story about our Yeti having a pet in a pen - is figuring out what pet would fit in the 8x20ft pen.  We made a long list and slowly started eliminating some of the animals from our list with our discussion.  Our final conclusion was a pig or dog would be a good fit for the pet.  Then we split into two groups and each group measured out the dimensions of the pen using their feet.  After the groups were finished, we were confused because the pens did not match…

    

On Thursday we started to talk about the reasons why the pens did not match by discussing the different approaches the groups took to measuring.  This led us back into a discussion on benchmarks and shoe sizes.  We then talked about what would have been a good way to measure it out properly and the group decided that a tape measure would be a perfect tool!  Now, we had to solve a problem...We have to find a way to fit a pen in the schoolyard using exactly 56 ft of fencing, but the 8x20 ft pen is too big for the schoolyard.  The students must create a new pen with different dimensions and they must use all of the fencing.  They will continue with this task when they return from break.

4th Grade: The Shape of Things - 3-D Shapes Inside Out:  This week we began to take a closer look at 3-D shapes.  The students finished filling out their worksheet tallying up the number of faces, edges and vertices of each shape.  Then as a class we looked at the results and came up with some patterns we discovered for the prisms and the pyramids.  We also looked further at these numbers and came up with mathematical equations we can use if we know one of the numbers.

Some conclusions we discovered:

Prisms:  

1. We can double the number of vertices on the base to find the total vertices of the shape.
2. To find the number of edges we can multiply by 3 the number of sides of the polygon that is the base.

Pyramids:

1. The number of vertices is the same as the number of faces.
2. To find the number of edges we can multiply by 2 the number of sides on the base.

We did not meet on Thursday due to the two hour delay.  We will continue exploring 3-D shapes when we return from winter break.

Important Dates:

December 16: Winter Wonderland 5:30-7:00 p.m.

December 19th: Holiday Parties

December 21st- January 3rd: Winter Recess

January 4th: Class Resumes

January 13th: End of 2nd Quarter

~FRIGID FRIDAY~

Hello!  The kids are up for our new challenge for the month of December.  We started the week by talking about our new theme for the month with Monsters University - with our class focus being on Teamwork, Friendship, and Following Class Procedures.  This week's quote talked about if we work together as a TEAM we can reach any goal.  However, we can quickly get off track if our team begins to fall apart.  Never worry because we learned earlier this year with a good leader on your team you can quickly get back on track.  

For the next two weeks, until we announce the winning class I will display on here the leaderboard for the Character of the Month.  Look below to see if your class is in the lead…

Our Leaders:

3rd Grade Math - 11

4th Grade Language Arts - 8

2nd Grade Math - 8

Check back next week to see who finishes the challenge as the Class of the Month.

Next week we will also have our pictures announcing our Character of the Month from Just Keep Swimming.

LANGUAGE ARTS

1st Grade:  Connecting Letters and Language  :  On Monday, I had a lot of friends absent so with the friends I had we finished our word ladders we were working on last week.  We waited to review them until Tuesday, when all of our friends would hopefully be back.

On Tuesday, the children were given 5 minutes to finish up their word ladders.  Then they were given a worksheet to complete in class.  They were given four letters and they needed to unscramble them to form a word.  There were many different combinations they could have made with with these four letters - it was great to see each person have a different solution!   To end class today, we looked at our new secret message.  Each student was given a mirror to try to decode the message.  They successfully used the mirror to decode their message.

Afterwards, we looked at the message and I showed them two other ways they could have solved it if they didn’t have a mirror.  We will begin our new lesson next week.

2nd Grade:  Text to Text Connections - The Velveteen Rabbit:  On Monday, we discussed chapter 13.  We focused on two important details from this chapter, first Edward was given a proper outfit to fit in as an outlaw.  Second, how he would stare at the stars every night and listed off the people he has grown to love.  Always beginning and ending with Abilene.  We also discussed the important reference this chapter was making back to the story Pellegrina told Edward in chapter 4.  After talking about it as a class, they were given a worksheet to complete.  On this worksheet, they had to describe what happened to Edward on the 180th day in the garbage dump.  

On Tuesday, we were setting our story aside for a moment to read a selection from the Velveteen Rabbit.  We gathered in the circle and the children listened as I read them the story.  We took the last few minutes of class to write in our journals the description they have of the rabbit from this story, so they can use that as a reference next week - just in case any one forgets! We will finish this story next week and the children will work towards making a text to text connection.

3rd Grade:  Fairy Tales:  We are onto our last Folktale- a Fairy Tale.  As a class, we came up with a list of Fairy Tales the children knew.  Then it was time to define a fairy tale from what we knew from our list.  We came up with a few things to start our definition - starting with it being a folktale, meaning fiction and passed on over time.  Then we talked about the very first sentence in a fairy tale - leading us to our last part of our definition for now - Once upon a time…  After that we listened to a fairy tale together.

On Tuesday, we finished reading our story.  Then we went through the events in the story.  When we completed talking about it - we went through a checklist to a fairy tale.  As I read through the elements a fairy tale would have, we quickly checked through all of the events we had on the board.  We will continue exploring more about fairy tales next week.

4th Grade:  Change Makers:  On Monday, most of the students turned in their references.  I am still waiting on one reference from two students.  Then they had the remainder of class time this week to work on their biography summaries.  

While they worked on their projects I called each student to me one at a time to conference with them on what they have completed so far with their summary.  Most of them our off to a good start.  I did stress to them a few details in each area and they should have more than one sentence for each question.  I also expressed the need for details to what they are writing.  I explained to them that although they are researching this information and it makes sense to them, they need to write it as if the audience knows nothing about their person - which might be the case.  Details...Details...Details…  After this talk, I saw most of them go back and add on to their summaries.  

Due Next Week:

On December 13th:

- Biography Summary is due by the end of class

-Works Cited should be filled in with the primary and secondary sources

-they will continue to add to the works cited page as they gather their images

MATH

1st Grade:  It’s Heavy - A Bag of Pennies:  This week we started by looking at our items we brought from home and weighing it against our 50 pennies.  Then we took our bags from the class and tried to put them in order from lightest to heaviest.  This was a perfect introduction into our lesson on transitivity.  Our goal this week was to learn how to figure out lightest to heaviest with items of three.  The problem - we can only weigh two items at once - so how do we figure it out…

We continued working with transitivity on Thursday with sets of three and recording our results in our journals.  We completed the sample together in class and I had sample bags prepared to help them visualize it.  We did one more sample together as a class and then they were working on the next two with a partner.  They are doing a great job working with this new concept.

2nd Grade: Length - Egg Passenger:   On Wednesday, we finished discussing the right tool for the job.  Then we began to write our class summary for the lesson.  We looked at our Think Deeply question and figured out that Dru and Teller needed to know the best tool to measure the circumference of an object.  We then looked back at our class results and evaluated each tool we used. We ruled out using the ruler because it can not bend and although the pipe cleaner can bend it has no markings to know a measurement.

 As a class, we came to the conclusion that if we could combine the ruler and pipe cleaner than they would make a good tool.  However, if only having one tool - the tape measure is the right tool for our job.  It is the perfect tool to use to measure circumference because it has the markings and can bend to measure around an object.  

A little blurry from all the dancing  :)

On Thursday, it was time for the children to write their response while using our class summary to support their answer.  We quickly reviewed our message we wrote from the day before, then the children were off and writing to Dru and Teller.  After the class finished we went through a few more think deeply questions out loud to take our lesson further.  To reward them for an awesome job with their writing, we had a few minutes left at the end for some GoNoodle - to get the wiggles out!  

3rd Grade:  Linear Measurement - In Search for the Yeti:   We started class this week by examining our two hands on our Yeti.  One group had the right dimension and mastered our skill.  Our other group had the right dimensions, but added claws onto their hand - making it too long.  We discussed how they could have added claws, but explained they needed to include them in their final dimension of their product.  This was a perfect learning experience for all the students.  

Then we came together as a class and began to summarize our lesson with our message board.  We started by identifying the terms from our lesson and defining them.  Then we talked about the approach the class took to come up with our benchmark for our Yeti. To end our message, we looked back at the question one last time and identified different parts to the question the students should include in their answer.

On Thursday, we started by having a quick explanation of the details we wrote as our message.  Then the students had the remainder of time to write.  Although they weren’t excited at first about writing - this groups did an amazing job today with this task.  They had so much to write that I even had some students need extra paper to add onto their writing.  It is exciting to see such growth with this area of our lesson so quickly.

4th Grade:  3-D Shapes Inside Out:  On Wednesday, the students were given a little more time to add onto their Think Deeply assignement from last week.  Most students completed the first two questions, but needed to answer why they chose their cards to make a match.  When everyone was finished we had just enough time to play set - the online version - as a reward for working so hard on their writing.  This group has also shown a huge improvement in their writing from our first lesson.  We even looked back and compared the amount of writing they did this time to their first attempt.  It is great seeing them grow in this area of our lessons!

On Thursday, it was back to exploring shapes.  To introduce our new topic we looked back at our Hunt for the Shapes activity from the beginning of the year.  As a class, we worked on a list of attributes for 2-dimensional and 3-dimensional shapes.  They seemed to have a pretty good knowledge on the difference of "flat" to "standing out" between the two.  One of our focuses we added onto the class list was our 2-D shapes have length and width and out 3-D shapes have length, width and height.  

They were also surprised to learn that we could say our 3-D shapes our made up of our 2-D shapes - when we look at their faces.  This introduced the terms: face, vertex and edge.  From here we looked back at our shapes and had two groups - polyhedra and non-polyhedra.  We started to define the attributes to these two groups which led us into discussing prisms and pyramids.  They started working on examining the shapes further by completing Taking a Look at a Polyhedra.  On this sheet, they had to look at shapes and count the number of faces, vertices and edges of each one.  We went over a lot of information today and will continue with our focus on 3-D shapes next week.

IMPORTANT DATES:

December 19th:  Holiday Parties

December 21st - January 3rd - Winter Recess

January 4th - Class Resumes

January 13th - End of Second Grading Period