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Grady Gazette
October 2023
Second Grade
The second grade has been very busy in the month of October! The students enjoyed the Hispanic Heritage Month assembly where they performed a song to the school that they had been working on with Mr. Funke.
In reading, we have been studying the various characteristics of poetry and reading different types of poems. Students are enjoying creating their own poems and sharing them with their class!
In math students have been working with patterns in numbers. We will be looking at the meanings of addition and subtraction in word problems.
In social studies we are continuing to explore the three communities: urban, suburban, and rural.
Our second grade scientists have been identifying the properties of various materials and will be conducting experiments in class. The focus is to examine why certain materials are used for specific purposes.
We look forward to seeing you at parent teacher conferences in November!
Third Grade
Recently, the third graders took a trip to the Greenburgh Nature Center! We had a lot of fun! Students saw different types of animals in their habitats.
In ELA, we are reading our new core novel, The Knight at Dawn. We are also beginning narrative writing. Students are creating their own Magic Tree House story.
In math, we are working on three digit addition and subtraction, with regrouping.
Fourth Grade
Humanities: This month we continued to work in our Power of Story Unit. We recently began our first novel study, Because of Winn Dixie. We have been analyzing the characters' thoughts, words, actions and feelings to help us understand character traits. The students are truly enjoying it! We are also learning how to respond to questions using the RACE writing method…restate, answer, cite two pieces of evidence and explain to show that we can analyze text to facilitate reading comprehension. In addition to our novel study, we recently initiated our Geography unit of study before diving into our instruction on the state of New York.
Once again we would like to thank our 4th grade families for making our Hispanic Heritage Celebration a huge success!!
Our mathematicians have continued to build upon addition and subtraction strategies while focusing on breaking down multi-step word problems. We look forward to showing off our multiplication skills in the next unit of study.
In science, we continued our focus of study on phenomenons through observations and brainstorming real life connections. Utilizing open-ended and closed-ended questions to guide our understanding of investigations. We were very excited to share in Regeneron’s Day at Grady! What a day in the life of a scientist!
Fifth Grade
In 5th grade ELA, we are engaged in our ELA Unit 1: The Search for Who We Are. We are learning about the stories of others and what these stories can teach us about ourselves. The students are exploring narrative writing and will start writing their own personal narratives. Students are also working on conducting an interview with a person to share the story of their life journey. Our novel study for this unit is Esperanza Rising by Pam Munoz Ryan. We are using the novel to explore characters, figurative language, theme, central idea and support literature response questions with relevant text evidence.
In 5th grade science, we are completing our study of space systems. The students built several models to demonstrate earth’s rotation and why we see different things in the night sky during different parts of the year. We studied the phases of the moon, constellations and gravity. The students conducted research projects on the planets and presented them to the class. At the conclusion of our space systems unit, we will begin our unit on structure and properties of matter.
As we bring our Culture unit to a close, our “Explorers” have been learning how the Earth's geography affects many aspects of culture, such as the foods we eat, the clothing we wear, and our beliefs. We have been engaging in classroom discussions about different types of maps and their various uses. Also, we are making connections between how maps help us distinguish various landscapes in the world and how different landscapes affect how people live. Lastly, we will explore the 5 Themes of Geography (region, human environment interaction, location, place, and movement) in the coming weeks.
In 5th grade Math class, we are working in our Place Value Unit to understand how the place of a digit in a number affects its value. Students are being introduced to decimals and are multiplying and dividing by powers of ten. We will be learning about exponents, comparing and ordering decimals, rounding and using estimation to make sure our answers are reasonable and for real world application. Students are continuing to practice their times tables to support success in current and future units.
Sixth Grade
6th grade had a fun October. We went on our first Field Trip to TeaTown Reservation where the students learned about animals and went on a stream study. We also held our annual walk-a-thon in order to help raise money for our 6th grade events. We were able to save every family $40 for all future events! Thank you to all of those who donated!
In math, our mathematicians are starting their Unit 2. They will be reviewing decimal operations and multiplying fractions. This will lead them into dividing fractions. We will finish the month off by working with positive and negative integers and their relationships.
In ELA, our writers are hard at work writing their first essays of the year! They are writing literary essays using their knowledge about what makes a person a "Doer and a Dreamer". The writers develop claims about characteristics of doers and dreamers found in the text selections.
In science, our scientists are learning to navigate through the periodic table. They can locate the atomic number, chemical symbol, and the atomic mass of any element. They can also tell if an element is a solid, liquid, gas, metal, or nonmetal.
In Social Studies, our historians are learning about Prehistory and the Theories of Early Man and the Paleolithic Era.
Music
October has been an amazing month in the general music room! Students learned music in celebration of Hispanic Heritage Month. Grades 2 and 3 learned the song “Dulces Suenos” and grades 4 and 5 learned De Colores. Our students presented their songs during two events that showcased music and cultures of Spanish speaking countries. We presented for students in Mexico and Ecuador during our OneWorld event and later in October they sang both for each other and for our guest musicians during the Cumbia for Kids assembly which was put on by Folklore Urbano NYC. This group followed the student performances with a wonderful program of music, culture and history of Colombia. Students are making good progress in literacy and ensemble skills.
ART
Among the many projects we're working on are.... texture and mixed media, recycled/reused/repurposed, positive/negative, the work of Andy Warhol, winter season projects and more!!!
Please enjoy looking at these pictures of some of the finished work!
STEAM
October has been a busy month in the STEAM classroom!
2nd and 3rd graders built Lego bridges, learned about algorithms with unplugged coding activities, and brushed up on their geometry concepts by constructing 2-dimensional and 3-dimensional shapes out of straws and connectors.
4th graders learned the basics of using Google Slides to create presentations, raced balloon rockets, and learned about the human skeleton with a fun science/art project.
5th and 6th graders perfected their Google slides skills while learning several advanced presentation features, and used Legos to engineer some "chain reaction" contraptions that combine multiple simple machines.
Physical Education
Things are moving fast and furious this month in physical education.
Our soccer unit has begun. Students have been engaged in a variety of games, such as Make It Take It Soccer, Two Point Soccer, Soccer Goalie Challenge, Full Court Soccer.
*Please remind students to wear sneakers on their gym days.
Speech
Speech/Language Corner
Strategy of the Month: Categorization with Mrs. Delaney
This month we are placing items into categories to better understand concepts like same/different.
We can also use categorization as a memory trick.
Try this at home! Using toys you may have or even food in the kitchen, categorize items by size, function, or color. Practice talking about how these items are the same/different in each category.
Activity! Candy Categorization - Add some Speech to your Fall Festivities by categorizing your yummy treats! Organize the candy you have by size, color, taste, smell, etc. Talk about why that candy bar belongs in that group and how they are all similar/ different!
AIS
ELA
October was a busy month for teachers and students. All the students have been assessed and teachers are using the IRLA Toolkits to deliver small-group instruction based on specific skills to teach foundational skills, including spelling/sound patterns of English. Students have multiple opportunities to apply foundational skills as they read and spell words both in and out of context using highly engaging tasks and texts. Foundational skills instruction includes print concepts, phonological awareness, advanced phoneme awareness, phonics, word recognition, word study, spelling, morphology, and fluency. Every day, students apply newly learned skills as they read connected text during their W.I.N. (What I Need) period.
We look forward to meeting with you during parent teacher conferences in November.
Math
2nd grade - The 2nd grade Math students have been reviewing how to determine odd and even numbers and using arrays for addition. The 2nd graders have also practiced skip counting to help add. The 2nd grade has learned math vocabulary terms such as patterns, repetitive addition equations, rows, columns, and equal groups.
3rd grade - The AIS Math team has been reviewing strategies when adding and subtracting multi digit numbers. We are honing our skills in rounding, estimating, decomposing and regrouping. We have been practicing strategies for multi-step word problems in addition and subtraction such as identifying key terms and underlining the numbers and questions in word problems.
4th grade - The 4th grade Math groups have been practicing their addition and subtraction skills and strategies with multi digit numbers. The focus has been on regrouping. We have been applying our learned strategies to multi- step word problems. One strategy that we have been working on is the “CUBES” strategy. We are also preparing to start multiplication next week.
5th grade - The 5th Grade Math groups have been focusing on place value to the millions place and understanding the relationships between the different places. We have worked with decimals place value to the Thousandths place. The 5th graders have been practicing finding and comparing values of the digits in a number. The 5th graders have also learned how to multiply and divide by 10, 100 and 1000.
6th grade - Mr. Garners group has been reviewing skills from 5th grade such as multiplying and dividing. The 6th graders are also continuing their efforts in becoming more fluent with their multiplication facts. Ms. Iorio’s group is working on foundational skills in addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. We are working to master these skills to move on to new challenges in math.
School Counselor
October is National Bullying Prevention Month
Grady students participated in a school- wide superhero theme bullying assembly presented by Omegaman & Friends. Students learned about good choices, character traits such as "respect", and how to stand up for themselves and each other. Let's say that Grady students had a lot of fun (as seen in the photo), and also learned many lessons through storytelling.