FREAKY FRIDAY the 13th

Be SuPeR,
Be INCREDIBLE,
Be a Good Friend



AROUND THE SCHOOL

October 13th: End of 1st Quarter
October 20th: Report Cards Available Online
October 23rd-26th: Red Ribbon Week

October 24th: Picture Retake Day

October 27th - Fall Recess - No School
October 31st: Costume Parade and Dance for K-4th


PENNY WARS start next week! Bring in your pennies to vote on Mrs. Stillman's Halloween Costume. The money raised will be donated help for hurricane relief in Puerto Rico.



LANGUAGE ARTS

1st Grade: Caesar Cipher Wheel: This week we finished working with the Caesar Cipher Wheel. We have been learning to decipher our secret code. They were also introduced to enciphering a real word and turning it into the secret code.




We even had to do a little bit of math calculations. It asked us to unlock the combination by figuring out the minus rule. If the shift was plus sixteen, it would also equal a minus_____? The answer would be 10. This allows us to either move forward sixteen or backwards 10 and we would land on the same letter.



To end the lesson, the students selected one word from their previous worksheet. They chose from the words playground, mother, water or sky and wrote a sentence about a connection with the word. Then they had to draw and label a picture as another way to show their connection.

2nd Grade: The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane: This week the students were introduced to our 4-level analysis of sentence structure. This sheet introduced them to labeling the parts of speech to a sentence.

Our focus was also on identifying prepositional phrases within a sentence. (due to technical difficulties we will discuss prepositions for a few minutes next week) They will practice labeling sentences throughout out the book study. We took some time to discuss our reading up to chapter 4. Then we shared a read aloud with chapter 4.

This is a very important chapter to our entire lesson, which is why we take our time in identifying the meaning behind this chapter. If the students understand this chapter, it will help in understanding the message throughout the story. To discuss the importance of this chapter, the students were introduced to Paul's Reasoning Wheel. This tool gets students to look through a character's eye to see how they are thinking, feeling, and why they make the choices/decisions they do. We will finish with this discussion next week.

3rd Grade:  Character Traits:  This week the students were introduced to the hamburger model for organizing a paragraph.  The hamburger model is a visual organizer that outlines the key components to a paragraph.  It helps the students "piece" together the topic sentence, supporting details, and a conclusion.  We had to pick a character from our story and write a paragraph on a character trait they displayed.  We decided the girl in our story was caring.  
Each student took sometime to fill in their hamburger model with  different interactions we could use as the supporting details.  Then we came together and filled out a class model sharing our ideas.  After having our class model filled out, it was time to turn it into our paragraph.  We walked through this process together.  The students helped compose our introduction and our first 2 supporting details.  I challenged them to write their own sentence for the 3rd detail.  Then they asked to write the conclusion on their own.

  We tackled a lot of information this week and they were rockstars!

4th Grade:  Introduction to a Biography:
We were introduced to a biography by reading  a short biography on Ruby Bridges - Through My Eyes by Margo Lundell.  
This unit is leading us into our Change Maker Project. 



 The students will select 1 person to research and prepare a presentation on for class.  The key to this project is their person of choice must have influenced change in society.  The idea of change is what led our discussion with Ruby Bridges.  To end our week, we had a quick review on dissecting sentences.  We went over the 9 parts of speech, so we could label our sentences.  We ended the day by identifying the subject and predicate within our sentences.  

MATH

1st Grade:  Attributes of Shapes:  This week we reviewed our definitions of a side and vertex.  They also began to correlate that if a shape had 3 sides then it would have 3 vertices.  Next, it was on to designing our new shapes
The goal was to use the shapes we created last week (large and small triangles, a square and a rectangle) and create new shapes.  The only rule was they must properly align with another side.  After they created a shape, they had to identify the number of sides, vertices and the name of the shape they created.  It also asked them to identify how many shapes were used to create the new shape.  We will use these shapes next week as we introduce our new game.


2nd Grade:  Symmetry:  This week the students were in charge of creating a design in a 3x3 square with triangles.  They were required to use 8 triangles in the design.  The triangles were divided into two different colors.  

For the 8 triangles to fit into the square, they had to visualize 4 quadrants within their square and place 2 triangles in each section.  
To help with this idea, they were told to imagine the vertical and horizontal lines of symmetry.  Some students challenged themselves, as they made a goal to design a pattern with zero lines of symmetry.  It was great seeing their creativity as they worked towards this goal!

3rd Grade:  Growing Patterns:  This week it was their turn to investigate growing patterns.  To do so, they were asked to solve for the solution of their think deeply question:  How many fish would be at 23 tables - making sure they are aligned side-to-side? 

 Most students were able to identify the solution of 48 fish.  Now we needed to discuss the strategies.  Again, we had many friends that drew the picture.  To my surprise, no one drew a table, but we discussed this could have been another option to drawing a picture.  After looking at our data in a table, the question we needed to figure out was if their was a formula we could apply to any number that would apply to our pattern.  

Some students were able to grasp this idea quickly, as this was the strategy they used to solve.  We wanted to identify a formula we could use with any number in our pattern and get the solution.

We decided the rule was doubling the number of tables and add on 2 more fish to account for each end of the table.  We wrote our formula as F = 2T + 2 or  F = (T + T) + 2.  We practiced our formula with a few numbers.  We will continue investigating growing patterns next week.

4th Grade:  Think Deeply:  This week we quickly reviewed the steps to our Think Deeply process.  After seeing some responses from last week, we had a quick review of finding an equivalent fraction.  They added onto their responses.  For added practice, they attempted to answer the second question on their own. 





This question goes into the process of explaining the strategy to finding equivalent fractions.  To end the lesson, we worked with our Think Beyond cards.  After completing a lesson, we have additional problems we can solve by applying the math concepts we learned throughout the lesson.

Have a Great Weekend,

Ms. Losinski

~ Create Your Own Sunshine ~

Be Super, Be Incredible,

Be KIND:

 Our trait of the week is Kindness.

AROUND THE SCHOOL

October 13th: End of 1st Quarter
October 20th: Report Cards Available Online

October 24th: Picture Retake Day

October 27th - Fall Recess - No School





LANGUAGE ARTS

1st Grade: Caesar Cipher Wheel: Due to early dismissal, we only met on Monday. We started class by sharing the secret message: Letters are symbols that stand for spoken sounds. This led our discussion for the day, as we discussed the meaning of our message.

We talked about each letter being a symbol for a sound and we went over a few sounds our letters make. To practice our message, we sounded out a few words together. Next, it was time for additional practice with our wheels. They began a set of worksheets that they will complete in class to master our Caesar Cipher Wheel.

2nd Grade: Intro to Our Book Study: This week we finished making our predictions on our story: The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane. Then the students were taught how to use the vocabulary map. This is another reading tool we will use in the room to define challenging or important words throughout our book study. Then it was onto a reflection before we read our book: "If a journey is to be miraculous, what are certain events that must occur during the journey?" We had just enough time to read our first chapter together.
IMPORTANT NOTE: They have a folder and book that will travel back and forth on Tuesdays. In this folder, is a homework sheet showing the assigned reading. I am asking the parents to sign this sheet so I know the students completed their reading. Thank you with your help in monitoring this project. Many of them were excited to take the book home and share it with their parents. This week I have only assigned chapters 2 & 3.

3rd Grade: Character Traits: This week the students were introduced to interactions through character traits. Our focus would be on inferring a character trait through an interaction. We first were introduced to our author Paul Goble. We read a short biography on him to understand his passion for Native American stories and art. Then we read aloud The Girl who Loved Wild Horses. As a class, we completed a worksheet together on character traits. We identified the character, an action that took place in the story and the trait we inferred from it. They did a great job filling up our sheet with traits. We will continue to work with this lesson next week.

4th Grade: Introduction to a Biography: This week we finished up the last of our Greek and Latin Roots. We completed our 2nd worksheet that had them define words by their prefix, root word and/or suffix. This led us into our lesson with a Biography. We first looked at this word and defined it by it's word parts:
Bio meaning life, graphy meaning writing, Biography meaning writing about someone's life. To end the day, we brainstormed some components that are found within a biography. We will continue our study on a biography next week.

MATH
I was out of the building on Thursday, so my math groups only met on Wednesday.


1st Grade: Shapes, Shapes & more Shapes: This week we started by reviewing our word wall terms. We also reviewed the attributes to our shapes. Then, we spent the rest of the day creating shapes. We took post-it notes and created rectangles and turned some of them into squares.
We also created large and small triangles.






We were creating these shapes for a project that we will use them with next week. Our goal will be to take these shapes and create new ones using our squares, rectangles and triangles. To end the day, I asked each student to correctly identify the number of sides a shape had in order to line-up. They are already showing improvement with the proper names of our shapes!


2nd Grade: Symmetry: Our journey with symmetry, continued on this week. As a class, we looked at our Triangle Designs and identified the line of symmetry. This time they had to focus not on the square, but the pattern within the square to correctly identify the line of symmetry.



Students took turns coming to the board and identifying the line of symmetry. To better understand symmetry with design, we discussed this idea thinking of the wings on a butterfly. That helped them better understand that the colors must line-up across the line of symmetry.


I was SUPER excited that they did not get tricked with the no line of symmetry this time. I watched as they thought it out and then concluded their was no line. This was much better then last week when they were determined to find the line in every shape.

For the rest of class, we prepared more triangles for a project we will complete next week. This time they focused on their line of symmetry to create better triangles.



3rd Grade: Growing Patterns: The students were introduced to our Awesome Algebra Game. In our final chapter, the students will create their own game. To complete this task, the students will create the cards at the end of each lesson. We started the day, by creating our questions from the Name Game. Next, the students were introduced to the new concept - growing patterns. The students were already able to define it as a pattern that will increase. The students were given a scenario of setting up tables for a restaurant.

1 table would seat 4 people, but how would the number change each time we added another table. They must connect the tables side to side. They were able to identify our results were increasing by 2.





We started to organize our data in a chart. The students were also able to tell me that a chart is a useful way to organize our data.  We will continue with this concept next week.



4th Grade: Equivalent Fractions: This week it was time to write our response to our Think Deeply question. We quickly reviewed our question and what our response should contain. Then they were busy writing for the remainder of the class.



Just like last year, they would bring me their writing to review and I would guide them if they needed to add-on more information.


They did a great job with 2 out of 3 parts of their writing. We will take a few minutes next week to review how to create equivalent fraction.


Have a Great Weekend,

Ms. Losinski