We simply can’t thank you all enough for the love and appreciation your showered upon us this week! We basked in the sweet gestures each and every day and feel entirely grateful for your support.
Memorable Moments
There is a morning dove who (bravely!) has chosen to build her nest right about our new Ga-Ga Ball pit. Her name is Cashew. This week, we were pleased to see that those little eggs have hatched and momma bird has two little babies: Peanut & Kevin, (For those interested: the dad pigeon has been named Walnut. He visits every so often.)
The Gammas have been taking great pleasure watching this little bird family grow.
What’s Up in Math Class
All the Gammas continued working on their area/perimeter “dream room” projects and they are coming out so lovely! (Homework completion/return was SO much better this week. Thank you!) Year 1 students dove into a 5th grade skill: adding and subtracting with decimals. They nailed it! Year 2 students learned how to divide with decimals in the divisor, as well as explored a few types of graphs (dot plots and stem & leaf plots) We also had Alexis and Sid lead the class to teach everyone how to play the Math Pentathlon game of Contig 60. We plan on learning a new game each week until the year is over. (We are lucky to have experts in our group!)
What’s Up in Language Arts
This week we added some new poetry skills to our repertoire. We learned about simile and metaphor by acting out different comparisons with a lively game of charades. We also went outside to seek inspiration for writing some simile and metaphor poems. The flowers blowing in the wind like dancers! We also spent a little time returning to our fiction books as some folks needed more time to work on their stories, plot mountains, and cover pages. When everything is complete the gammas are binding the books with a book binding machine. We can’t wait to show you all of our stories at POP very soon! We continued on with our novel study and this week gammas are finishing up the last three chapters of the book and we will be discussing it in class next week.
What’s Up in Theme
You already know the basics of our theme plans as we copied you on an email to students, reminding them of the project parameters and timelines (as well as links to resources.) Students self-selected a topic of interest related to medieval Asia. Next, we watched a tech tutorial and explored an example presentation (and rubric) to begin wrapping our brains around how to turn research into a polished presentation. By Tuesday, the research began and the Gammas are doing an incredible job! (SPECTACULAR!) The teachers keep marveling as to how much growth has been made in the areas of independence and self-starting during research. We can’t wait to see the finished projects.
1. He has been super motivated to research his theme topic! 2. In the midst of creating her magical room 2. Her taste in tile is fabulous! Creating her custom room for our area/perimeter math projects
1. We learned a new math pentathlon game this week: Contig 60 2. These kids are math pentathlon experts so they were our guides as we taught the rest of the class how to play this fun (high-level!) game 3. Her New York room is fantastic!
1. & 2. Kids creating their custom dream rooms. 3. She is working on her title for her fancy cat apartment 4. She is working on the artwork for her theme presentation 5. A group of Gammas getting going on their research projects
1. In the midst of a Contig 60 game 2. Showing up the rules about how to use the flag card 3. The group intro to our math pentathlon game 4. Playing a game to practice subtraction with decimals 5. Collaborating in math
1. Working together to include an acrostic poem (from writing) into their math project! Neat-o! 2. Working hard on her room creation 3. Researching a kind of ancient Japanese dancing drama called Noh 4. Deep in research on the Code of Bushido
1. Working together on a math scavenger hunt 2. Working their way through a math adventure 3. Wondering where to hunt for their next clue 4. Looking up flooring prices at Home Depot
1. The Gammas gathered ‘round to learn a new math game 2. Putting so much love and effort into her custom room 3. Wubtracting decimals like 5th graders! (So exciting!)
1. The famous ga-ga ball bird family 2. Wuper focused on some poetry writing 3. In the midst of a fun game of charades
1. Thinking about his strategy in a game of Contig 60 2. A student & Ms. Lorrie ended up getting the SAME score as their opponents in a game called “First to Zero” 3. Researching (once more! Oops!) 4. At Home Depot (once more! Oops!)
