We were all relieved for a regular week in HA. All classes were seen and we got so much accomplished.
The LifeSkill focus was on organization. It was interesting to me to hear them talk about how they are organized in certain areas of their life. Some are organized at school, but their room is a disaster. Others thrive on organization and don't function well when it's not. They even rated themselves on a scale from 1-10, of how organized they were . . . ask them their number. I loved seeing what they were. Some were surprising and others easily guessed, lol!
- Feel the sensation of organization.
Fourth Grade:
On day one we had several things to wrap up. They presented their "bio" posters to the class. Just an informal presentation on their bio word, word parts and illustrations. We then diagrammed sentences which I remember from middle school and still absolutely LOVE! By fourth grade, they are all very familiar with the parts of speech, but finding and identifying them brings it to an even higher understanding.
They mixed up articles and conjunctions, so I was forced to bring out my old faithful Grammar Rock videos. Remember?!?!?!? We watched the conjunction one, but they are begging to see the rest. I'll work them in each day until we've seen all the grammar ones that apply.
Finally, they have all chosen a person to do their biography report on. We have spent a lot of time just reading and learning all about their subject which they really enjoyed. Ask them who they chose. An interesting fact they learned? Many were anxious to share them with me. Most facts I'd never heard of. I'm glad they are taking to this.
I could not wait to begin the lesson on logic. Little did I know when I introduced it last year, it would take off like wild fire. I believe this year is even worse! I displayed a series of clues about The Cabbage Band. Their job is to determine the full name of each band member, the instrument each played, the brand of equipment each used, plus each member's favorite magazine. I modeled the spreadsheet we'd be using and how to go about using it. Originally we were going to do it as a group, but quickly changed when I saw they were chomping at the bit to get started. I gave them the option of working solo, in pairs or in a small group with me. They did what works best for them and got right to work. A few even finished! I'll have another one ready for them next week as the others, myself included, finish up. I'm really enjoying this group! They are excited about learning, respecting each other and truly coming prepared to take on whatever I serve up.
Second Grade:
I'm not exactly sure if their excitement for Edward is due to my love of the book, or if they truly are loving it. Regardless, I'm going to run with it and keep the enthusiasm going. I know the book will eventually "hook" them, but we've only just started our journey. I read the first three chapters to them then they read the fourth chapter on their own. Lots of conversations are happening with the rich vocabulary. I want to make sure they are following along and not getting lost with some of the unfamiliar words. They are journaling as we go along and I'm enjoying reading and responding to their entries. I did this back when I taught fifth and also third grade and forgot how important it is. I learn so much from them through their writing and it's a great way for them to love writing. It's not graded or judged, just a wonderful life habit to get into.
To continue with our unit on money, we found out how much each of our names are worth. We began by writing our first, middle and last names. Then we used a chart to translate each letter into money (cents). A is worth 1 and Z is worth 26. I had them add up their names one at a time (first, middle and last). We had a chance to practice adding multiple numbers. I pointed out that they needed to be organized when writing these so that their ones and tens stayed aligned. We also worked on which numbers to add first to make the mental math easiest. We found our names grade total by adding them all together. The following day they visited stations which had money on a flash card. They were to add them up as they walked around with their clipboards. I worked with a few to step them through which ones to add.
We'll finish and review next week.
Third Grade:
We read a third genre of story telling and discussed/highlighted parts that were exaggerated. The specific type has yet to be revealed, but we did go back and summarize the other genres we've talked about. Over several weeks we have read various myths, tall tales and legends plus this week's. Next we started on a three way Venn diagram where they decide which have things in common. Funny, they remember using the diagram the first week of HA when we had each one of them as the subject during our "get to know you week."
We finished up our Hershey Chocolate Fraction Packet. Fractions are a tough one to grasp, but they are working hard. One minute they will understand when ordering fractions from least to greatest with a common denominator, then switch it to different denominators and they're thrown. We have different learners in here . . . some who need to see the fraction as a picture and others who just need to see the fraction. We'll make room for all!
They also are working hard to make their ice cream cone (AKA-learning their multiplication facts). Again we have them in all areas. All have passed their times 2's, a majority are on times 3's or 4's, and one is on his times 6's. They've got what it takes!
First Grade:
We had a challenging time with our Pig Latin. I really could see their wheels turning as they translated a word into Pig Latin or vice verse. We took the lyrics to a song we would be listening to and translated them into Pig Latin. This can be frustrating to them, but we work together. They started making up their our melodies because they knew these were the words to a song, lol. The song was from a long ago time by Lead Belly called Pig Latin Song. I tried to copy the link for you with no success. You can google it if you're curious. Your child would enjoy listening to it with you. They may even sing along! They also took their connection paper and translated it into Pig Latin for the class to decipher. For example, curtain and window became urtain-cay and indow-way
The boys were excited to use our "doc cam" to go over their answers from the previous week. We reviewed the equation and sum or difference from the problems posted around the room last week. They reason they enjoyed this so much is because they can actually see their own hand as it writes on the screen. They all did well and even graded the paper with a special mark or picture that they came up with. One the second day, we worked on sequencing numbers using the Smartboard. They were numbers that went up by 2, 5, and 10 both forwards and backwards (gave them a hundreds chart to help with their figuring). The great part is they physically move the numbers into place. It's great for any grade, but especially for first with all their energy! We saved the last five minutes to work on an extreme dot to dot which is all the rage of my upper grades. I selected one that was around 300 for this group. They got a good start and will continue when we have time.
Yours in education,
Mrs. Koedyker
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