Friday, October 15, 2021

October 15th, 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:  CIPHER WHEEL

This week we had one more student that needed to share their shield of connections.

Then, it was time to have a quick review on how to work the Caesar Cipher Wheel. We continued to practice deciphering our secret messages.  Next, the students had a chance to encipher a message.  This led us to a discussion on the difference between decipher and encipher.  For the rest of class, the students continued cracking our codes!

Next week we will begin a new lesson.


2nd Grade:  BOOK STUDY - The Tale of Despereaux

This week the students were introduced to their 1st book study.  We reviewed our class expectations of the book study.  The students were told that if their reading assignment was not completed they will be sent back to class.  This is not to be looked at as a punishment, but because in class we will be talking about things that they aren't prepared to participate with the class. 

 Staying in class would spoil for them what they have not read yet and they would be lost with the class discussion.  Then, I showed them the book and from the cover we made some predictions about the book.  We also discussed the size of the book and to not be intimidated by it's length.  They were up for the challenge!  

We read the first chapter together.  I was excited to hear how much they enjoyed the book from Monday to Tuesday.  On Tuesday, we held a class discussion about the first two chapters.  

Our Journey with Despereaux will continue next week!


3rd Grade:  MYTH

This week the students finished their retell of a myth.  Then they took a moment to share their retell with the class.  Next, it was onto us looking at our myth's and defining the genre. We back tracked for a moment to discuss what a folklore was and brainstormed the different types of folklore.  We created an 8-grid chart to help us track the different genres throughout the year to have as a quick comparison of our different folklores.  We created our definition of the folklore and added it to our chart. 






 





















We will continue creating our definitions next week.


4th Grade:  CHANGE INTERVIEW

This week the students completed the final copy of their Change Interview.  They took their sloppy copy and created a final version on Google Docs.  We were focused on making sure we composed our three paragraphs with the introduction, body, and conclusion.  

We also made sure the intro and conclusion had three to five sentences as our goal and the body was 5 or more sentences.  This was a little tricky on the introduction and conclusion, but they succeeded!  They had plenty of details for the body which means they did a great job getting those details from the interview.  Thanks for your help with that step!

Next week we will move onto a new lesson. 



1st Grade:  Making Shapes
This week we began to prep for our next game.  It was all about creating shapes.  The prep in this game was to help to train their brain to see shapes within other shapes.  This activity took place by us turning squares into rectangles and then rectangles into squares.  The students saw that two of our rectangles or the 4 small squares made our original square.  We also took our original square and repeated this process by looking at triangles within the square.

A Little Kahoot Review






Next week we will continue learning the "why" behind our new game.


2nd Grade:  Think Deeply
This week the students completed another Think Deeply.  This one was all about symmetry.  They were great at remembering our two strategies of using the mirror or folding and making sure the sides and vertices matched up.  I was impressed with this group because they took their answer a step further and made sure we mentioned that we must look at the design too!  They are ROCKSTARS!



We will move onto a new topic next week.

3rd Grade:  What's Next?

We played a quick "silent game" to fill in the rest of a pattern on the white board.  Then, we looked at a trick with our calculators to help us fill in a pattern.  This got us ready to complete the activity "What's Next?" to explore finding functions.  As a class, we completed number one together and began number 2.  When completing the assignments we made a rule that the students must define the function before finding the 15th number in the pattern. 








We will continue with this lesson next week.



4th Grade:  Magic with Algebra

This week I shared a magic trick with the students.  Most of them do not know the secret to the trick yet.  We did have a student figure it out after the first day!  Less is more over the next few weeks will be my motto for the blog as a magician never reveals their secret!  After showing them the trick the students started a worksheet for them to start to discover the secret.





Testing out a Theory


Magician of Trickery - Mastered the Trick!



Next week the students will continue to uncover the trickery!


Have A Great Weekend,
Ms. Losinski

Friday, October 8, 2021

October 8th, 2021

 



Friday, October 8th:  End of 1st Quarter
Thursday, October 14th:  Yost Blood Drive
Wednesday, October 22:  Fall Break - No School
Tuesday, November 2nd:  E-Learning Day

1st Grade:  Shield of Connections

It was presentation day!  This week the students presented their shield of connections.




Then, we moved onto our next lesson.  This lesson the students got to see their first secret message.  Moving forward each lesson will always begin with a secret message that the students must look for clues to solve.  This message was a little tricky because they could not solve it on their own.  We looked at some clues to discover that we thought it was a sentence.  We saw a capital letter, spaces between a set of letters and punctuation at the end of the sentence.  At this point, I shared with the students a Caesar Cypher Wheel to help us finish decoding the message.  We took a few minutes to discuss the history behind the cypher wheel and to practice moving a cipher wheel.  Then it was time to decipher our message.  After a little practice, they were solving the message on their own.

Letters are symbols that stand for spoken sounds.

We will continue with this lesson next week.


2nd Grade:  Eldorado - The Reading Analyzer

This week we wrapped up learning how to complete our reading analyzer while studying the poem Eldorado.  By the time we completed our analyzer, the students had a different meaning to the poem then when we first heard it.  It was great seeing their understanding of this poem grow.




3rd Grade: Myths

This week we continued with our lesson by introducing the students to a myth.  We read one together and completed a re-tell of the story.  Then, they chose their own myth and began to complete their own retell with their story.






We will continue this lesson next week.




4th Grade:  Change Interview

Thanks for your help this week for the change interview!

This week the students interviewed an adult about a big change in their lives.  First, we looked at a sample interview and then they practiced with me.  This was to focus on writing enough details verse a one-word response.  It was important that they had enough details to turn their information into a formal writing.   For the rest the week, we were working on turning the responses into their rough draft.  They were up for this challenge after telling me how much their writing is growing from in the classroom.  



1st Grade:  Lingo & Think Deeply

This week we had another game day with Lingo!  It is important that at this point the students know the four polygons we are working with by their sides.  This is because from here the lessons will continue to build onto one another.  The second day of Lingo definitely helped us remember those shapes.  They even went on a quick shape hunt around my room to find the four polygons.  To end the week, the students completed their first Think Deeply.  The students will complete these every time a lesson comes to an end.  This is a way for us to review the important parts of the lesson and have a chance to explain what they learned from the it.  


More Fun with Lingo


 

It's a celebration when the whole class got a LINGO!

Think Deeply






2nd Grade:  Symmetry

Our symmetry adventures continued on this week.  This week they created their own design within a 3x3 square and identified the lines of symmetry within their own designs.  Then, they each took turns sharing their designs with the class as their classmates found the lines of symmetry to their patterns.  Next, we completed Triangle Combinations.  For this activity, the students had to use a set of triangles to find a way to use one triangle to recreate 4 different shapes:  a triangle, square, parallelogram, and a rectangle (may not use a square).  They had two sets of the triangles to allow them to have two of each triangle when they manipulated them.



We will wrap up this lesson next week.

3rd Grade:  Functions & Think Deeply

This week the students finished their fish-table assignment.  Then, it was time to review for our Think Deeply.  We took some time to review our key terms and what needed to be in the response.  Then, it was time to write.  We still created this response together, but I could see their confidence growing with their ideas.









We will wrap up our think deeply next week and move onto a new lesson. 


4th Grade:  Review & Think Deeply

This week we continued to practice solving equations by working backwards.  This led us into our first Think Deeply of the year.  We took some type to talk about what key terms should be included in our answer and how to answer the question completely.  Then, for the remainder of class the students wrote their response.  For those friends that were new to math this year, they had the option to work as a small group with me.  If they were ready to try it on their own or remembered it from last year, they were free to give it a try on their own.  





We will wrap up our think deeply next week.

Ms. Losinski