9/7/2023
Preschool
This week in Miss. Gracie’s class we learned all about the letter E
Kindergarten
This week in Kindergarten we had an unexpected visitor who taught us a very important lesson. A nickel sized spider joined us for group time! We learned that even scary visitors need to be treated with kindness, and sometimes things are less scary when you take the time to study them up close. Matthew the spider has happily been relocated to the school gardens.
First Grade
We have thrived this week in 1st grade! We are making new friends, learning about helpful thoughts, mastering number patterns and reading every day!!
2nd Grade
In the second grade the students are working hard on finding the main ideas of a story, identifying three digit numbers in math, and labeling the continents in social studies.
Third Graders
In third grade this week are still reading Stone Fox for our reading unit and looking at concepts like cause and effect and visualization. We are practicing identifying verbs and learning about adverbs. We are continuing with our RACE writing. We are still practicing citing text evidence. In math we have started place value and are practicing writing numbers in standard form, expanded form and word form. In social studies we are continuing learning about what the R means in our RIASEC and looking at different jobs that might interest someone with a R in their RIASEC score. We learned about being a forester, studied what they might look for to determine if a tree was healthy and then went out and actually studied a couple of trees based on the criteria we learned about.
Fourth Grade
In 4th grade we are “FALL-ing” for some new language arts lessons! Our students are discovering the “WHY” behind word meanings and spellings these last few weeks. As they begin to synthesize information independently, students are more able to comprehend on a much deeper level. We are beginning to bridge the gap between several subject areas, and use cross curricular materials to enhance our writing and reading skills! Fourth grade mathematicians were busy this week using multiple strategies for solving addition and subtraction problems. We even shared our methods with our classmates. Be on the lookout next week for some pictures of our very first room transformation of the year as we celebrate the beginning of fall in math class.
Fifth Grade
We have been ACTIVE readers this week working hard on synthesizing what we read from fairy tales to fables. We will be so prepared to dig deeply into our next unit on elements of fiction with our ability to be ACTIVE readers!
We had a great Second Steps lesson with our IU nursing students about setting attainable goals. I was impressed with the goals that these 5th graders were setting for themselves!
Science
Kindergarten – This week in science we learned about where animals live and how where they live keeps them safe and helps them get food. We also looked at how animals use different tactics and defenses to keep safe. This included some time pretending to be some animals to show how they hide or defend themselves.
1st Grade – This week we continued our “Animal Superpowers” unit. We learned how animal offspring learn from their parents. We found out how some animals learn the different things that will help with their survival. This included how animals meet the needs of eating, nesting, avoiding predators, and staying clean.
2nd Grade – This week we learned about classifying animals into different groups by species and type. We learned how scientists classify animals based on both their internal and external structures. They also look at whether animals have live babies or lay eggs. We began an activity where we began to classify animals into the following groups: mammals, reptiles, birds, and animals with no bones (invertebrates). We will continue to classify animals next week.
3rd Grade – This week 3rd graders continued our unit called “Animals through time”. We classified animals and bone segments of modern animals to help us figure out how to classify dinosaurs. We used this information to try and figure out what an unknown dinosaur might have looked like. We got to see and experience what paleoartists do when deciding how to draw dinosaurs. We finished the week beginning to learn how fossils can tell us about how animals acted (for example: did they walk on 2 legs or 4 legs).
4th Grade – This week 4th graders finished our multi day lesson on how space could affect our traits. After learning about traits, heredity, and selection over the last couple weeks, we began to look at selection and practical ways that we could try to lessen the population of one of the most dangerous animals. Students learned that because mosquitoes carry disease, that many scientists consider them to be the most dangerous animal/insect in the world. We spent part of the week studying habits, needs, traits, and the life cycle of mosquitoes. Then we used this information to solve a real world problem. We created plans to help a town that has a high population of mosquitoes due to lots of spring and summer rains. The students had rocked this with awesome ideas!
5th Grade – This week we took time out almost everyday to view our mold terrariums. We are beginning to see what types of things can help prevent mold and what can cause mold to grow quicker. We also began to learn about earthworms this week. They are decomposers. We learned what type of habitat they are looking for. We did a fun observation activity where all of our 5th grade scientists actually got to have live worms. Students looked to observe what worms were doing in different provided conditions. We finished the week by creating an student chosen experiment where students could learn even more about their worms, including what they eat. What a fun week with mold and worms LOL!
Physical Education
PE we have been working on cooperative team work games and our daily workout starts each PE class.
School Nurse
Hello Everyone! It has been a great start to the year! Here is some information from the health office this week. The “back to school germs” are back, and the extreme heat is not helping. Lets please make sure our students are staying hydrated, eating healthy, and getting a good amount of sleep at night. This will help our immune systems stay strong and fight away any germs we contact. Students, washing our hands is a big part of staying healthy while our systems adjust to being back in school, please do your part by using soap, and saying your ABC’s while you scrub! I am glad to see you all again, and look forward to a healthy year for all!.
