Have a Great Summer!!!

Thanks for all the hard work and creativity this year kids!  See you in August when PA and TD will begin again.  To my 5th grade friends, Hill is lucky to have you! 

5PA will meet on Wednesday for one final Capstone.

2TD will meet on Wednesday and Thursday.

I'm in end of the year meetings and finishing up the administrative sides of my job the rest of the week, and then off to Door County for the whole summer. 

Ultimate Paper Airplane Challenge

Next week will be the final week of PA and TD for the year.  I wanted to spend some of our time finishing up what we have been working on, and some of our time having some challenging fun as well.  All I'm sharing now are these three websites...hmmmm...I wonder what it might be???  You might want to try a few of these to warm-up.

http://www.foldnfly.com/#/1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-2

http://www.funpaperairplanes.com/

https://safeshare.tv/x/QdgtYTgmmf

PA and TD Next Week

I will be giving CBM tests to our K-1 students next week, so we will only have Friday groups.  5th grade will have laptops to continue to work on their Capstone Project during their PA time.   

https://www.ted.com/talks/chris_anderson_teds_secret_to_great_public_speaking

We watched this video today on tips for giving a great TED talk, I recommend everyone watch it again as our presentations begin in 8 school days. Our schedule is below, and parents are invited to come watch your kids.

Capstone Schedule 1:00-2:00

Monday 5-22

Jayden, Charlie, Will

Tuesday 5-23

Megan, Mehar,  Dhiraj

Wednesday 5-24

Lucas, Felipe, Martin

Thursday 5-25

Abhilasha, Jack,  Zoe

Friday 5-26

Ethan, Sarah

Wednesday 5-31 Make-ups

PA and TD for the Week of 5-8

Thank you for everything you did to make Teacher Appreciation Week so special.  All the notes, treats, gift cards, and flowers were very kind.

KTD spent last week going through different nonfiction and fiction stories looking for text elements common to each.  As a group, they came up with almost 50 ways they are unique!  We will start off our week learning about what a Venn diagram is using a math game I found: http://pbskids.org/cyberchase/math-games/ Next, the kids will make one big diagram comparing fiction and nonfiction text features. Then, we will be learning about captions found under photos in nonfiction books and we will be writing some of our own using a slideshow I created with photos of animals.

1TD will continue our work with protagonists and antagonists this week as we explore a variety of books. Teams of students will be making T charts to show what they pulled out of the stories. Later in the week, we will be using Scrabble tiles to have a verb battle!

1CD finished up their ultimate tree houses with me on Friday, so this week, we are going to create a creature that is able to survive in a very inhospitable habitat, inside a volcano. What adaptations would it need? What features does it have? How does it hunt? What does it eat? How does it survive the temperatures? Teams of kids will pool their ideas to create a new creature!

2TD will explore more secrets of The Parthenon this week. Did you know the restoration took over 30 years and cost more than $100,000,000! As the most copied building on Earth, and an enduring symbol of wealth, power, and democracy, we will explore how they put the pieces back together again.

3PA will end our Egypt unit on Monday as we finish examining the fall of Ancient Egypt, was it really a massive drought? We will have to see what the soil samples from the area show in the documentary we started on Friday. We will end the year reading a Newbery winning novel, The Watson's Go to Birmingham by Christopher Paul Curtis. This is a story of a family from Flint, MI who takes a summer trip to Birmingham in 1963. We will be talking about family bonds, racism in the South during the 60's, bullying, friendship, guilt, blame, and the good times people have with those they love.

4PA have all cut out the six panels for their Emily Dickinson houses. This week we will finish the designs and put them together. Look for them outside of the PA room. The week will end with an examination of our personality types using the Meyers-Briggs test. This will lead to a final neuroscience project to end the year.

5PA is almost done with the Capstone project! This week, the bibliographies are due on Tuesday with 20-30 sources in APA format, and the class will put the finishing touches on their visual to go along with their TED talks. As I write this, the PTA is supervising the whole school while they watch the movie of The Tale of Despereaux. Best part of my day was when the whole fifth grade group asked if they could bring laptops to the gym and sit in the back to work on their projects. That's a cool way to end Teacher Appreciation Week.

The Time You Have (In JellyBeans)

PA and TD for the Week of 5-1

KTD will be exploring the differences between fiction and nonfiction books this week.  Teams of students will be making  Venn diagrams showing how the texts are similar and different. 

1TD will be learning about common traits of protagonists and antagonists in fiction stories.  Teams of kids will be reading a variety of picture books and creating an infographic poster that shows what these characters have in common. 

2TD will continue to work on their posters comparing life in Athens to life in Sparta.  Later in the week, we will be watching a PBS documentary on the Parthenon.

3PA will finish up our Ancient Egypt unit this week.  The kids will be designing a set of stamps showing important moments in Egyptian history.

4PA will be creating a "Little White House" honoring a poem by Emily Dickinson.  This project was inspired by an art show in Amhurst, MA where artists created an outdoor exhibit on the grounds of Emily's house.  

   

5PA is nearing the end of our Capstone journey.  This week, the solution writing is due, and we will continue to add to the visuals that will pair with the speech.  

PA PTA Fundraiser

SCHOOL SPIRIT

TASTES GREAT

Make dinner a selfless act by joining us for a fundraiser to

support IPPA PTA. Come in to the Chipotle at 2856 S. Route

59 Suite 108 in Naperville on Wednesday, April 26th

between 4:00pm and 8:00pm. Bring in the flyer I emailed everyone, show it on your smartphone, or tell the cashier you’re supporting the cause to make sure that 50% of the proceeds will be donated to IPPA PTA.

A Message from the PA Classroom Coordinators

Hello PA Families,

I just wanted to reach out to let you know next week is teacher appreciation week.  You will be getting information from your child's classroom coordinator on the events happening that week soon. As we have done in the past, I would like to organize a group gift for Mr. Schumann from his PA families.  If you would like to participate in this, please send the money to school with your child in an envelope for the office for Nicole Briggs. 

I would like to present this gift Monday May 1st. Please send your contributions by Friday the 28th . If you are are unable to get the money to me in time, but would like to contribute please just let me know so I can include it in the gift. We will get him an Amazon gift card, as that is his favorite thing! 
This teacher appreciation gift is replacing the end of year gift like last year.

Thank you for your consideration
Nicole Briggs & Kristen Harding

Nicolegvbriggs@gmail.com

PA and TD for the Week of 4-24

KTD has become a traveling theater group, sharing our Runny Babbit plays with kids all over the school.  Later in the week, we will be looking at an invention everyone knows about, but we will try to make it even better! 

1TD continues to do a great job examining a variety of picture books looking for examples of different types of symbiotic relationships. This unit will finish up this week. 

2TD will turn our attention to Sparta this week.  The kids will be researching this second city state to compare the systems of daily life and the values of these different parts of Ancient Greece. 

3PA will be presenting their slideshows on three different parts of Ancient Egypt this week.  Monday and Tuesday we will be making our speaker notes and rehearsing.  We will begin presenting on Wednesday.  On Friday, the kids and I will begin examining how the women Pharaohs ruled differently than the male Pharaohs.   

4PA will spend the week exploring the writing of Emily Dickinson.  I have a link on the PA site to all of her poetry, and the kids will be examining her work with a SIFT graphic organizer.  S: examine the title and the text for symbolism. I: identify images and sensory details. F: figurative language, looking for metaphor, simile, repetition, omission, unusual word order. T: tone and theme. 

5PA will be working on their Capstone projects all week.  The first part of the summary is due tomorrow.