PA and TD for the Week of 1-19

 We have a short week of school this week, but I am excited to continue the work we began after winter break. The kids came back excited to get back to work and all of my K-5 students did an outstanding job at school with our first week together again. It was the best week of this school year in my humble opinion.

The week of 1-24, there will not be PA or TD classes. I am going to be assisting in different classes all week with school wide assessments we do three times a year to measure progress.

KMath will have two days of skip counting activities as we begin to understand the relationship between repeated addition and multiplication. Last week, we got a bit sidetracked with symmetry and snowflakes because of what I was doing with the lit group.

KLiteracy will only have one day with me this week to discuss the main idea in a beautiful picture book The Scarecrow by Beth Ferry. The kids and I will work on the key elements included in a retelling of this tale. 

1TD will be reading a variety of beginning chapter books with just the right amount of challenge. Our focus will be learning about the point of view in the story and how ideas develop in the text.

2TD are all reading past winners of the Caldecott Medal, but they are reading the books like a judge. We are pulling out good qualities about the text, bad qualities about the text, good qualities about the illustrations, and bad qualities about the illustrations. The students are then assigning an overall rating using a 1-10 scale. The group has shown really good higher-level thinking skills in their analysis. I also need to give a shout out to the 2011 Caldecott Winner, A Sick Day for Amos McGee because after reading it again this week, I'm now in love with a book that I really didn't like the first few times I read it. 

3PA worked hard last week writing four paragraphs that compared The Green Book to The Girl Who Owned a City. The first paragraph is about the primary theme of survival, the second is about a secondary theme the kids selected that both stories share, the third paragraph shows how characters from each story have connections, and the final paragraph is about which book was better and why. During our time this week, we will spend three hours revising, rewriting, adding, editing, and proofreading this work. It's not going to be particularly fun for the kids because they think when they "finish" writing, they are "done" with the assignment. Silly kids!

4PA had our best week of the school year last week! The group is very excited about the watercolor tryptic we are creating. We learned about different painting techniques so kids will have the tools to show an understanding of figurative language through a visual assessment. Ask your student why I'm bring salt into class next week. So cool!!!

5PA started 2022 with creative writing fireworks. The Battle Bunny project is going extremely well. You can always tell that something good is happening in this group when they all shut their mouths and just start working right when they walk in the door. No directions, nothing, kids come in and get busy writing. I love it. We will be working on Battle Bunny all week long. 

Covid Absences

 If your child is in PA and will be out for an extended absence, please check Google Classroom. Some of the work we do can be done at home, but some projects can only be completed at school. 

PA and TD for the Week of 1-10

 Welcome Back!

K Math will explore skip counting by 4's and 6's this week. We will be discussing the idea of repeated addition and the relationship to multiplication.

K Lit and 1TD will be learning about the science behind snowflakes this week. I have four articles about how snowflakes are formed, what conditions need to be in place for snow to form, and what makes snow different in each storm. The kids and I will also be reading the Caldecott winning picture book Snowflake Bentley, about Wilson Bentley, who was the first person to photograph a snowflake under a microscope. The kids and I will focus on the meaning of unknown words and strategies to use when reading. We will also look at some of the photographs he took which are now in The Smithsonian. 

2TD will be learning about the highest award given to an American picture book each year, The Caldecott Medal. This award is given each year to the most distinguished American picture book and is given to the illustrator. The award was first given in 1937 and will be awarded in late January. We will be reading and evaluating past winners, and we will eventually begin reading a selection of the books eligible for the 2022 award. 

3PA will be spending the week making connections between the two novels we focused on during the first semester, The Girl Who Owned a City and The Green Book. Both books have a primary theme of survival, but what was the secondary theme? Kids will be writing about this, as well as going deep with three connections between the plots, and connections between three characters in each of the books. 

4PA will be working on the final project for The Secret Garden, a watercolor tryptic assessment. That's right, watercolors. I bought sets of watercolor paints, brushes, and special paper for this assessment using art to assess understanding of literature. The kids will be tasked with creating a watercolor tryptic, a series of three paintings, showing the garden when it was barren, growing, and in splendor. Each painting will have an accompanying quote from the story that illustrates the stage of growing. This will take this week and next week, but the results show a complex understanding of the layers in this beautiful novel. 

5PA will begin the year with a project aimed at waking up creativity! It's Battle Bunny time! I have collected about 30 picture books that were going to be discarded by the LMC. The kids will be given one of the books to use as a jumping off point for a new story using the original text and illustrations, but modified with ONLY a pencil. I've never done this project before, but I imagine we will be working on it for at least the next two weeks. Here are a few inspiration pictures from the original book. 

Thank You!

Thank you all so much for the gift card! My new house in Winfield will be completed in late March, so I picked Crate and Barrel for my shopping spree. I am looking forward to picking out some new things for my new home. Have a wonderful Christmas everyone. I am very fortunate to spend my days with the amazing kids at Brookdale Elementary School. See you in January.

Thank you so much,

Mr. Schumann

 

PA and TD for the Week of 12-20

 TD kids will be having fun with alliteration this week as we explore the picture book Animalia by Graeme Base. This beautiful picture book explores the idea of alliteration, using the same letter sound at the beginning of a group of connected words, through the words and illustrations. Look at the pictures below and see how many images you can find that begin with the same letter. Teams of students will be making posters with a holiday twist.

3PA will have an opportunity to explore the projects classmates completed for the wrap-up of The Green Book. Shortly after we return from break, we will begin learning about Ancient Egypt. The kids will be exploring some of the links on this website that we will be using in 2022.

4PA will be watching the 1993 film version of the novel The Secret Garden. The group made this decision after watching the trailers of the 1949, 2020, and 1993 films and deciding which one looked like it stuck most closely with the original text. We will be discussing the film on Wednesday, with a focus on how well the film matched the original text. 

5PA will finish presenting TED talks on Monday, and on Tuesday, the kids will be picking a picture book to use for our Battle Bunny project that we will begin after break. 

PA and TD for the Week of 12-13

 K Math will be going on a shape hunt around the school this week. We will be learning about two-dimensional shapes and their properties. The kids will learn about vertices and sides, and we will be learning the names of some new shapes. 

K Lit students will continue our crayon theme this week with the picture book The Day the Crayons Came Home. Unlike last week, we won't begin by reading the story to start the week. Instead, the group will be writing Duncan post cards explaining the adventures that were had while on vacation and the ultimate reason why their crayon decided to come home, all before reading the book. Then, we will read the book and compare the adventures we came up with to the ideas in the story. 

1TD will be reading beginning chapter books that we are checking out from the LMC. These self-selected books will be used to identify and describe story elements. The group will also work on an oral book commercial to share with their friends. 

2TD will be exploring books written by the author of Frindle, Andrew Clements. The group will be reading and recording similarities to the book we just finished found in the new title. 

3PA will finish our work with The Green Book this week. The kids will be selecting two of three projects to develop in the time we have left before break. All three options are in Google Classroom. We will also be discussing the book, now that everyone is finished with the reading. What do the moth people look like???

4PA was given permission to finish The Secret Garden, and I encouraged everyone to bring the books home last week to read in the evenings and to take it over the weekend to read. Parents, please check in with your student to make sure they finish reading the book this week. While all the kids are at different places in the book, the class will be working on a few things at the same time. We need to finish character notes, finish the examples of figurative language, and develop discussion questions that we will use next week and after break. 

5PA has one more day to polish up their TED Talks because we will be presenting them in class beginning Tuesday. When we finish up this mini-unit, we will begin a complicated creative writing project based on the Jon Scieszka picture book Battle Bunny. This book began life as Birthday Bunny, but some sneaky kid got a pencil and changed the words and the illustrations to write a completely new story. I have about 30 picture books, lots of pencils, and some wildly creative thinkers. 

PA and TD for the Week of 12-6

 K Math will be playing a version of BINGO with addition and subtraction facts, but a simple game like this can become more challenging with how the numbers are called. For example, if the card has 3, I might say, "This number is three more than the difference between six and six." My goal is to develop mathematical thinking though this game. 

K Lit really enjoyed last week's adventures with Gurple and Preen, so this week, I'm keeping with the crayon theme with Drew Daywalt's The Day the Crayons Quit. The kids will all be writing a letter to Duncan using a color not mentioned in the book, explaining why they quit the crayon box. 

First grade TD is still working on the A. A. Milne story "Eeyore has a Birthday and Gets Two Presents." The kids and I are having fun with voices and reading with expression and we discuss the events in this classic tale. 

Second grade TD finished reading Frindle last week. The kids all agreed that this was a great read. This week, the class will be creating detailed pictures of Nick and Mrs. Granger at the beginning of the book, and a picture of these two at the end of the book illustrating how the characters changed during the story. The kids will also complete a short writing assessment on Friday.

3PA worked hard to design their homes on Shine using only the resources available on this strange new world. This week, we will continue our reading in The Green Book to see what happens when the colonists begin farming and what would happen if the crops fail. Can the colonists use the jellyfish they find? What is a famine? Stay tuned!

4PA began the week with an hour-long discussion about why The Secret Garden was set in a 100 room house on an English Moor. Does the house hold a deeper meaning? Does the Moor represent something connected to characters in the novel? We also discussed the similarities between Mary and Ben. What do a 70 year old gardener and a 10 year old girl have in common? Why did the author pair these two? In Google Classroom, there is a list of questions we will be sitting down to discuss all week long.

5PA will be developing the TED Talks this week about a young person who was a catalyst for change in the world. The class will begin presenting these 8 minute talks next Tuesday. This week, kids will be finishing their research, creating their slides, and outlining their speeches using the supporting documents in Google Classroom.

PA PTA Zoom Meeting Tuesday

 This is a message from the PA PTA, a district wide organization for parents of students in Project Arrow. There is a Zoom meeting next Tuesday at 6:30. 

Hi Project Arrow Friends, We're planning to briefly discuss the audit and budget. And also focus on reducing kids' stress, and maintaining a strong PA. Hope you can join us! Topic: Project Arrow Zoom Meeting Time: Dec 7, 2021 06:30 PM Central Time Join Zoom Meeting https://zoom.us/j/3740887024?pwd=Ukw2YmJQNFZSZFI0dDVJSUh1THRFQT09 Meeting ID: 374 088 7024 Passcode: 247880 Dial by your location +1 312 626 6799 US (Chicago)

PA for the Week of 11-29

 3PA will arrive on planet Shine this week in The Green Book. What is this new world like? What resources are available? What will new homes on Shine look like? What is the soil like? Can the colonists successfully farm the land? Is Shine safe? To follow along with what we are working on, check out the hyperdoc in Google Classroom. My plan is to get through the end of chapter 5 this week.

4PA will begin the week learning more about figurative language. The kids will focus on finding examples of  several types of figurative language in The Secret Garden. We will spend the week with metaphors, similes, hyperbole, allusion, personification, and imagery within the walls of the garden and Misslethwaite Manor. By the end of the week, students need to be at the beginning of chapter 11. 

5PA will begin the week going through the organizer for the TED Talk we are working on about a young person who was a catalyst for change in the world. The kids will be completing their research this week, and organizing their notes using the structure provided on the organizer/outline for the final presentations. 

TD for the Week of 11-29

 K Math will be busy during our hour together working through a few complex estimation problems. We will be using arrays of dots to see what multiplication means, and we will be using post-it notes to create layered patterns following different patterns.

K Literacy will be making story maps this week as we focus more on story elements like characters, location, action, problem, and solution...CLAPS. We will be clapping our way through a few picture books based on Crayons this week, beginning with Gurple and Preen by Linda Sue Park. 

1TD will be traveling to the Hundred Acre Wood this week for a special birthday. The kids and I will be reading the A. A. Milne classic story "Eeyore has a Birthday." As we read we will discuss key elements of the plot, what to do with a very useful pot, and how all of the characters have unique personalities that add flavor to the story.

2TD is half way through Frindle! This week, we will see what happens when the media finds out about the new word. We will continue to discuss how the two main characters are evolving and changing as the story unfolds.