NOVMEBER 4-NOVEMBER 8

Hello everyone

I hope everyone is settling into the weather change and enjoying the Fall weather and the Fall colors.  I love getting up in the morning and having sunlight and not the darkness, though I know we will be soon rising and going to sleep in pitch darkness.

KINDERGARTEN
For Thinking Skills with Kindergarteners Mr. Packer has been addressing some of the CCSS in Math and the students have been actively showing that they can quickly identify the number of dots projected in front of them, and tell if there are more or less of an item in front of them.

FIRST GRADE
First graders have been receiving their Dudley the Detective badges and continue to work on applying the skills Dudley is teaching us which are 1).  Look for all of the clues or information 2).  Don't jump to CONCLUSIONS, and 3).  There is only one right answer (unless we are creating something) but many ways to get that one right answer

SECOND GRADE
Second graders have met Yolanda the Yarnspinner and have begun working having fun with words and seeing that words can be arranged in multiple ways so that a variety of sentences can be created.  We have started to talk about ways to become better writers by simply rearranging the words in our sentences, and we've talked about fluency and the ability to change when their is an obstacle in front of us.

3rd GRADE READING
Third grade reading students have read "How the Camel Got Its Hump" and have turned the story in short skits on which they were judged on how well they took key elements of the story and communicated the message of the story to the audience.  They are going to read "The Elephant's Trunk" and be given a limit on how many frames of a cartoon they can use to retell the story (summarizing and identifying key events).

3rd GRADE MATH
Third grade math students have been working on excessing our mind's eye by using visualization to solve problems.  We have also been learning how to draw pictures to solve problems as well as use logic.

4th GRADE MATH
Students are finishing up their "Average Fourth Grader" project which will soon be displayed in the halls.  They have begun working on some Math Olympiad problems in preparation for upcoming competition and will share various strategies for solving these types of problems.

4th GRADE READING
Students are finishing up their MovieMaker movies retelling "Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves" and some of those will be shared soon on here and YouTube

5th GRADE MATH
Students have been working on unit 2 (Ratios and Proportions, Expressions and Equations).  They have done a lot of work writing ratios, creating equivalent ratios, finding Unit rate, solving percent problems, and a lot of Algebra work (expressions) and have been impressing Mr. Packer with their skills greatly.

5th GRADE READING
Just finished reading our second Edgar Allen Poe story, "The Fall of the House of Usher".  Finishing up some work and will begin reading either "The Mask of the Red Death" or "The Cask of Amontillado".

That's all for now.  Enjoy your 3 day weekend with Monday off for Veteran's Day.

All my best,
Mr. Packer