Dear Parents,
We’ve had a super start to the new school year. I am excited to share news about what your children are doing in class.
RENZULLI LEARNING
As several of you know, our school now has access to a website, www.renzullilearning.com, that offers educational internet based activities specifically chosen according to your child’s interests. Please email me if you have not received your child’s username and password for the program. Also, if your child completes one of the projects using Renzulli let me know about it – maybe we can use it for our GT Expo this year!
****MATH****
First graders have been extending their understanding of place value by decomposing numbers. We learned there is more than one way to express a number using tens and ones. We have also been using math manipulatives and drawings to concretely demonstrate what happens when we solve addition problems that require trading. Many children are still trying to solidify this concept but are getting more confident and more excited about working with ‘bigger’ numbers. We will continue to work on this concept of adding larger numbers. However, we are also shifting our focusing to problem solving through the use of patterns. Students will look for rules that determine the patterns in numbers then practice verbalizing and writing about the strategy they used to solve the problem. When students can explain their thought processes in an effective way it shows true understanding.
****PLANNER****
We started off the year learning about a very special naturalist/scientist named Carl Linnaeus. Our field guides went home with us last week. I hope you enjoyed learning your child’s chosen Latin name. The WONDERFUL field guide covers were designed by Haejun Lee’s mom, Eunjoo, in Mrs. Nathan’s class. THANK YOU!!! Please send the white poster board folders back to me so that I can use them in the future to send other important items home with your child.
1st grade students then started exploring the use of the scientific method to guide us when we do science experiments. Please ask your child to name some of the steps in the scientific method, explain what a hypothesis is and to tell you about the experiments we have done so far (Rising Marble and Marble Race experiments). Their enthusiasm for doing science experiments is great! Some of the children have shared stories about redoing the experiments at home to share with their family!
----In the Rising Marble experiment we discovered that all matter takes up space and that no two items of matters can’t take up the same space. Ask your child to explain why the marble rose to the top of the cup of rice.
----In the Marble Race experiment we learned that different liquids have different “thicknesses”. The “thickness” affects how quickly a marble will drop to the bottom of a container. We used water, baby oil and shampoo to compare how quickly the marble dropped in each liquid. This week we will learn that “viscosity” is the term used to describe the “thickness” of a liquid and how other factors such as temperature can change the viscosity. This weekend, ask your child to compare the viscosity of two liquids. Which one has the highest viscosity?
***MATH****
We delved into the world of transformations and tessellations. Ask your child to explain translation, rotation and reflection and to describe or show you some tessellations they might see in your home or neighborhood. Understanding and being able to use the three transformations can help students with other geometry concepts. Help point out these transformations to your child when observing people or objects moving. For example, a skateboarder moving down the street is an example of translation. If the skateboarder turns from facing left to facing right that is an example of reflection. And when he turns at a street corner, he is rotating. Although our study of transformations and tessellations will continue, students took a small quiz to evaluate the level of understanding so far. I will be sending the quiz home this week.
Last week we began working with pentominoes. Ask your child about the three rules for making a pentomino. We will be using the three transformations to work with pentominoes.
Students have had a great time solving riddles using $1.00 words! Ask your child to determine if anyone in your family has a $1.00 name. So far we only have found one student with a $1.00 name: Alex Natelson. Natelson is a $1.00 name!
***PLANNER***
Second graders have learned the history of some inventions and are becoming more familiar with some traits of inventors. They worked with a group to create a short presentation about the history of an invention. I was able to take some pictures and video some of the presentations and will send you a separate email so that you can see them. Ask about your child’s presentation. Our next project was to invent/design our own dream house. I was very impressed with the creativity that emerged and the quality of the students’ writing! Look for a display coming shortly in the hallway by my room.:)
****MATH****
In math, 3rd graders continue their in-depth study of measurement. We started off the year learning more about linear measurement. Estimating lengths has been a big part of our study. The students are almost finished making a version of themselves that is ¼ their actual size. This was our “Mini Me” project. It involved estimating, measuring, and dividing each measurement into fourths. We will continue exploring the concept of scale in connection with our Twain Garden throughout the year. Students have also been estimating, measuring and calculating to determine how many laps around the kindergarten playground equal one mile. This has been a great lesson on realizing that we need to know certain items of information before being able to calculate an actual measurement. Estimating is a huge focus during all our measurement projects.
****PLANNER****
Students are almost ready to begin designing their own ad campaign. We’ve had a great time learning about the role of persuasion in advertising, target audience, techniques advertisers use such as emotion-peer approval-escape-science, logos and slogans, and jingles. We have also had some wonderful discussions about the number of ads we see and hear each day, the location of ads, the effect ads and packaging have on the choices we make as consumers, different forms of advertising, how advertising is not just used to promote products and the motives of different advertisers. Our awareness of the effect ads have on our everyday lives has increased. We now have lots of background knowledge regarding the types of skills required to produce an ad so we will soon begin our final project for this planner. Using what has been learned, students will produce a print ad, packaging for a product and either a ‘commercial’ or ‘radio’ ad for a product or organization of their choice.
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****2nd and 3rd Grade Homework****
2nd and 3rd grade students have weekly homework. They are required to spend a few minutes per week reflecting on what they have learned in our class. They may also include questions they have or connection they make that relate to topics we are studying. Some children have been consistently using the Renzulli online journal to write reflections. And I am very pleased with what the children are writing. However, I have had difficulty accessing the journals for the past two weeks. I am contacting our Renzulli representative to ask if the problem can be fixed. If the problem cannot be resolved quickly, I may switch to using regular spiral notebooks for students to use as a Reflection Journal. I will send a notice to you as soon as I find out.
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I would like to thank you for supporting your child’ education and for your feedback on your child’s enthusiasm for the planners. I enjoy hearing anecdotes about action they are taking at home that is connected to what we are studying. As always, please contact me with any questions or concerns. Also, please help spread the word that I have posted a new newsletter on Schoolnotes. There may be some parents who have not signed up to receive the newsletter. Thanks!
Sincerely,
Jackie Norris
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