High Ability Update

After giving the students a few minutes to try to figure out how a telephone keypad cipher works, I revealed the system to the students. Even though nobody figured it out on their own or with their neighbors, I appreciate the fact that the students were determined to figure out the cipher before I explained it:) After we decoded a message using the telephone keypad cipher, we had a mini-lesson on syllables and vowels to prepare for Pig Latin. Through the years, it seems learning Pig Latin is the highlight of first grade HA language arts. It's so fun for the kids! Ave-hay a-way ood-gay eekend-way! Have a good weekend!

The students had more fun playing Grupo this week! They are experts at naming at least four criteria that pair the shapes. I love that our HA math curriculum incorporates fun games that effectively review material. We moved on from the game and created a shape to pair with another shape. The shape we created had to share 4 criteria with an existing shape. We wrote down the shared criteria and also investigated & recorded the differences. It's always good practice to do some writing in math. The students took their papers home with pride:)

Our novel study is moving along. We read aloud in class and had great discussions. We are in a dark section of the book. Our class discussions are helping the students keep the characters straight and helping to understand how the characters' lives connect/intertwine. It is complicated for the students, because there are stories within the story that take place at different times. The book is not written in chronological order, so it is more complex than what the students are accustomed to reading. There is no homework this weekend.

The students had fun solving more addition problems using relational thinking. I love that they think this math is fun:) The students took home a paper you might like to look at. You may find that this is how you approach addition. It’s a great skill to know for mental math. During our second class, we worked on multiplication. We interpreted Halloween word problems and solved. The students shared how they solved the problems. Not everyone thinks about multiplication the same way or solves the problems using a consistent method, so it's great for them to hear how their peers think. Some are drawing pictures. Some are doing repeated addition. Some are using mental math with relational thinking. They're all able to solve these problems. The students took their papers home, but I'll share a couple examples anyway.

5 black cats are yowling at the moon. How many furry legs are dancing to the tune?

6 screeching bats, heading out into the sky. How many wings will flit and flutter by?

Using an excerpt from our current myth, students worked in pairs/small groups to identify nouns and specify whether they are people, places, things, or ideas. I encouraged them to work collaboratively to answer questions before coming to me for help. We continued reading Iduna and Her Apples: How Loki Put the Gods in Danger. As we read, we stopped to discuss the aspects that make it a myth. We will be moving on from myth to other types of folklore.

Students looked over their graded check-ups from last week and asked a few questions. After going over that, we moved on to some word problems. The word problems were not that complicated, but they were all very different from one another. Often times students are given word problems that all require the same math function, but these required them staying on their toes to interpret each problem. It is good exercise for them to bounce around from one math function/skill to another. Students shared their approaches to solving each problem. It was interesting for them to see that everybody arrived at the same answers, but nearly everybody approached the math differently. During our second class of the week, we played Sudoku. Our class has a wide range of experience with Sudoku from some having never done it before to students that have a lot of experience with it. Slow and steady wins the race, so we worked slowly and thoroughly exploring and explaining every step. We did not finish our first puzzle, but we had a great start.

Students enjoyed playing the root word memory games they created last week. I loved overhearing their conversations as they connected root words to words they know! Fourth grade won't have HA on Monday due to the fall celebration/costume parade, so we had a little Halloween fun on Tuesday. Doing a few Halloween madlibs was a fun way to work on parts of speech:)

As you know, our HA math curriculum incorporates writing in math. Students worked in pairs to explain how they began to solve a variable puzzle from last week. While writing sentences to explain how we think about math can seem intimidating, the students are learning that organizing their thoughts pays off. They are also getting more comfortable writing their explanations down the same way they would explain it verbally. They're realizing that using their own voice explaining their own thinking is the best way to communicate their processes. Their answers were beautiful! It is so rewarding to watch these students grow in here two years in a row! They have grown so much in their ability to explain their math thinking in words:) The students have been asking me for PEMDAS (order of operations) since the beginning of the year. They could not get enough of it in here last year. So, we did some PEMDAS this week. I have several pages on hand for filler material. It really is such great practice. We touch on integers and fractions with these problems, and we will have decimals in some upcoming problems. The mixture of parentheses, exponents, multiplication, division, addition, and subtraction keeps them on their toes.

Email: kapeterson@duneland.k12.in.us
Location: Jackson Elementary School, North 400 East, Valparaiso, IN, USA
Phone: 219-983-3680