~ HAPPY FRIDAY ~

Where has the time gone?  It is already December 1st!

AROUND THE SCHOOL

December 7th: Early Dismissal Day at 1:45
December 8th: Winter Fest 5:00 to 7:30

December 22nd: End of 2nd Quarter

December 25th - January 7th: Winter Recess

LANGUAGE ARTS

1st Grade:  Reading Analyzers:

After reading our story, the students were introduced to a reading analyzer.  These are used in all grades of Language Arts, as a tool to better understand what we read.  Some information it helps us organize are our feelings to the story, the images we see, ideas we have and key words. 

 
Asking these questions to our reading will help them develop better comprehension skills. They did a great job working through this sheet together.
Then it was onto our new word game - Word Ladders.  Word Ladders were created by Lewis Carroll, author of Alice in Wonderland, in 1877.  Overtime the name has changed from Word Links to Doublets and now they are commonly known as Word Ladders.  The name has changed, but the rules remain the same...
1.  Change only one letter in each step.
2.  Change each letter only one time.
3.  Each new word must be a real word and no proper nouns are allowed.


The rules led us into a brief discussion on proper nouns and then they were ready to go.  We worked through some samples together.  We saw that some puzzles will have more then 1 solution.  We will continue with word ladders next week.

2nd Grade:  Metaphors:  We started this week by looking at an excerpt the author included at the beginning of our story.

  The Testing Tree:

The heart breaks and breaks

And lives by breaking.

It is necessary to go

through dark and deeper dark

and not to turn.

After discussing what they thought this meant,  I showed them this excerpt was included in the beginning of our story.  The question was why did they think our author included it?  Some of my students quickly came up with the idea of it being a metaphor to our entire story.  

More specifically, we decided it was a metaphor to Edward's Journey.  We took some time to look at some other metaphors and compared them to our story.  They had some amazing ideas and held a great discussion on our metaphors.  We were able to take each example and relate it back to Edward.  It was great seeing them make such deep connections to our story.  Then with the remainder of class time I read aloud chapters 18-.20.  We took our last moments in class to look at how much time has gone on in our story.  Our goal is to figure out how old Abilene would be now.
HOMEWORK:  They are to read chapters 21-23. 

3rd Grade:  Jane Goodall:
This week in class we started by reading excerpts from Jane Goodall's autobiography My Life with Chimpanzees.  We briefly reviewed the difference between a biography and autobiography.  After reading each excerpt, it was our job to identify the interaction that took place, decide if it met our interaction guidelines, look for any character traits and  identify any fact or opinions. 


 Before starting this project, we discussed the difference between a fact and opinion.  They did a great job at spotting the facts, but it was harder for them to identify the opinions. 
 Now it was time for independent practice.  Around the room, I placed more excerpts from our story.  


While visiting each station they would read the excerpt and complete a chart answering questions to each reading.  We answered one excerpt together.  They must identify the interaction and fill it in, in a complete sentence.  Then they must answer the 3 requirements to an interaction - marking what one applies to each of the interactions. 
 
They were amazing while completing this assignment.  They were so focused and quiet that you could have heard a pin drop in the room.  I was very proud at the effort they were applying while working through the assignment.  They need a little more time next week to finish the project.


MATH

1st Grade:  Chapter Check-Up:  This week the students took their first chapter check-up.  This tool allows us to see where the students are after completing a chapter.  It lets me know if there is any material we need to review before we move onto our next topic for Chapter 2.  

We reviewed what we know about attributes to shapes: sides and vertices.  These two attributes are allowing the students to classify and compare shapes.  To review the attributes the students walked around enlarged shapes on the floor stating side and vertex as they walked on each attribute. We had enough time to introduce our new attribute that we will be focusing on in the new chapter - angles.  Next week, we will explore angles further when we play our new game.
 

2nd Grade:  Smile Gallery:  It was time to create our own murals!  This week we started by reviewing a Basic Unit in a pattern.  Then we went over the instructions to the Smile Gallery.  Our first step was to allow each student to create a basic unit for their mural.  

They were allowed to select 2 or 3 shapes to create their unit.  They traced, colored and cut out their design.  Next, it was onto creating their mural.  They were allowed to flip, turn or slide their shape while creating their design.  We will continue creating our murals next week.

3rd Grade:  Chapter Check-up:  We are ready for our Chapter Check-Up.  This tool allows us to see where the students are after completing our first chapter.  It will allow me to see if any material needs to be reviewed before moving onto our next chapter.  I am excited to see how they do because I feel like they were able to understand the function rule when we last met. 

We had enough time left over to begin our next lesson.  The students were introduced to a 100's chart where they were asked to identify patterns with multiples.  We ended the week by sharing some of the patterns the students discovered.  We will continue to discover patterns with the 100's chart next week.







Enjoy some extra photos from this week!

4th Grade:  Think Deeply:  We picked up right were we left off! We looked back at our second Think Deeply and we reviewed how we should divide our fraction strip to answer the question.  Then they solved the Think Deeply.  We shared our results and had enough time to look at some of our Think Beyond cards.  We discussed using a clock to break it into fractions with a denominator of 3, 5, 6, and 12.  This allowed us to take some time to review equivalent fractions.  
We began to look at our new lesson.  It introduced them to comparing a set of fractions.  We started with a set of fractions on the board that all had the same denominator.  This allowed us to generate a rule:  If the denominators are the same, you can list the fractions in order by the numerator. 

 Then we listed fractions with the same numerator.  After finding their order, we came up with the following rule:  If the numerators are the same, the smaller  denominator the larger the fraction will be.  This took a little more time, but when I reminded them to think of their fraction strips it helped them visualize the idea.  We will continue comparing fractions next week.

  

Ms. Losinski