General News
It was so lovely to be back together again after fall break! We had a quick but action-packed week. Remember to look over science fair materials and due dates and add them to your calendars, as we are moving quickly through the scientific method. Testable questions (Part I of the packet) are due in class on Monday! Next Thursday, on Halloween, we’ll head to Shipe Park in costume (optional, of course.) Please be mindful of our Alphas and be sure that our costumes are Rated G on the scary scale. Thanks!
ELA Update
This week in ELA we launched our new genre study unit and spent some time getting reflective and philosophical together. On Tuesday we filled out a reading profile questionnaire and responded to some reflective questions. The purpose of this was to have kiddos honestly reflect on their current reading habits and come up with some growth goals for this unit. Ms. Ansley told some “spooky” Halloween stories about some of her adult friends who haven’t read a book in years or have trouble sitting and reading without getting distracted by screens. Their ELA P&P this weekend is to write two paragraphs reflecting on themselves as readers currently and what their goals are for this quarter. On Tuesday we responded to reflective questions about ourselves as readers and wrote short narrative responses. We reflected on our favorite reading memoires, reading habits, types of books we like to read, how we choose books, and more. Lots of gammas reported this was the “best ELA class ever.” Sometimes you never know what is going to be a hit like that 🙂 On Thursday we dove into learning some of the specific features of different book genres and picked our top 3 for the first round of book clubs. On Monday of next week we’ll self-select our books in our assigned genre and get together with our book clubs for our first meeting. We will be reading animal stories, thriller books, fantasy, sci-fi, mystery, and realistic fiction for our first round of genre book clubs. Enthusiasm and reflectiveness was very high this week in ELA Gammaland!
Math Update
We had a really fun week in math class–lots of gaming and adventure! First, Year 1 kids are moving into fractions so we tackled one of Ms. Lorrie’s favorite activities (it’s at least 20 years old!!!) that involves fraction challenges using pattern blocks. It’s an excellent way to begin to understand how fractions work. We moved into making equivalent fractions and then ended the week with a tough escape room. The group was amazing throughout all activities! Year 2 kiddos continue the trend of being very motivated by upper-level learning so we are going to move out of factorization and into fractions a little earlier than expected. To wrap up prime factorization, we learned a new game called “Prime Climb” (Fun fact: Ms. Lorrie acquired this game at the AHB swap last semester and then ended up playing it about 243 times over the .all break–while CAMPING, no doubt! In other words, it’s actually a really fun strategy game you can buy at any game store or even at Target. And, it is excellent number sense practice!) Next, we designed prime number art using Lite Brights. Finally, we ended the week with a fun game of “spoons” exploring exponents. This is actually a 6th grade skill but the group has been so enthusiastic about learning how to wield them and we had the time for a little extension. Next week, we’ll head into fractionland along with Year 1 students.
Theme Update
We bet it is no surprise or secret that this week has been all about getting kids feeling confident and excited about beginning their science fair projects! The launch went great! Kids were so focused while receiving their “Power Packets” and the excitement has been contagious. We are lucky to have so many science-minded students in our group as they are helping to boost motivation across Gammaland. You have in your email many supplemental resources to get you going and don’t forget you can visit Whippermathers if you need links for idea-generating or following the process of the scientific method. We made flipbooks in class that should help walk kiddos through the process as they try it at home with their own experiments for Science Fair. At week’s end we conducted a class experiment in small groups–timing and testing the fall time of paper helicopters. We moved through the process of identifying dependent and independent variables and constants and then formed a hypothesis. We ran through several trials and learned how to take the average of our results. It was hands-on fun but also a great way to explore the scientific method in a non-intimidating way. Great job, Gammas!
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