New PA and TD Schedule

This is the new PA and TD schedule for 4th Quarter

4PA 9:30-10:30

2TD 10:30-11:00

KTD 11:30-12:00

5PA 12:35-1:35

3PA 1:35-2:20

1TD 2:35-2:55 

Safety First

 

Safety is our first priority at Brookdale, so I wanted to share a photo of what my classroom looks like as we head back to a five day schedule. The carpet circles have been measured out to have 3 feet of space on all sides. We will be safe and ready to learn!

PA and TD for the Week of 3-16

 KTD Lit will learn about the non-fiction text feature of captions this week. We will learn what they are for, what kinds of books will have them, and we will write some of our own using some very interesting pictures!

KTD Math will work on estimation and a video division problem using a chocolate bar. 

1TD will be using the information found last week to create an infographic poster with images and facts on the topic they explored. The remote kids can do a poster at home or a Google Slide. 

2TD will be discussing perspectives during our time together this week. How do two, or more, characters view the same event differently? Why can the same event be interpreted in different ways?

3PA Will continue reading The Girl Who Owned a City and exploring the change generalizations we developed at the beginning of the school year. This week, the group will also be using the Visible Thinking strategy called "Step In" focused on exploring viewpoints. Three questions will guide our thinking this week. What can this character perceive? What might this character know about or believe? What might this character truly care about? These questions will be examined for each character in the novel.

4PA will be using the same Visible Thinking strategy as the third grade group, but using the characters in The Secret Garden. The kids started this last week in small groups, and the conversations I heard were excellent! 

5PA has been very persuasive in asking to write sequels to the creative writing we did earlier this year using microscopic photography as their inspiration. The first stories were very clever and entertaining, so, we will be writing sequels this week in the same groups as before. This writing also allows for more Zoom socialization, something has been difficult to foster over a screen, but when I pop into breakout rooms and hear the kids being kids and laughing while they work, it almost feels like normal school.

Middle School Transition Night

 https://us02web.zoom.us/rec/share/NyVOlyx9lprqjAeMdiCLZUyxPFduEvrzqR6zSlNmyjqeaYsWQIiemyh3nqLBgXR_.I6xWuHWRwZs-xk1p Passcode: K=$2$&i1

The Zoom meeting last night was limited to 100 people, I'm not sure why, but the link and passcode above will take you to a recording of the meeting. 

Monday No PA

 Starting next Monday, I will be giving the IAR test to a small group of students, so there will not be PA. For the next three Monday's I will be assessing students in grades 3-5. 

PA and TD for the Week of 3-9

 KTD Lit will be reading the first book in a trilogy by Aaron Becker titled Journey. The kids and I will be discussing story elements like main idea and the problem and solution in the story.

KTD Math will be playing a game this week, where we will use questions to guess a mystery number. 

1TD will be using the website DK Find Out https://www.dkfindout.com/us/  for a research project on any topic that the students choose. The kids will create a way to share what they have learned with the whole group.

2TD will be reading the next section of Charlie and The Chocolate Factory, working in teams on the visible thinking strategy of "See, Think, Wonder." After reading a chapter, kids will discuss what the most important thing they saw in the chapter, what they thought about the most, and what do they wonder about the story moving forward. 

3PA have reached the half way point in The Girl Who Owned a City. This week, we will continue to work on the change generalizations for the novel, and teams will be using the visible thinking strategy of "See, Think, Wonder" in small groups to help facilitate meaningful conversations about the book.

4PA has really gotten into The Secret Garden this year. During our time together this week we should get through a chapter a day, if you are following along at home. The group will continue to chart notes about the evolution of Mary and Colin and how Martha and Dickon are helping them, as well as looking for the meaning behind all of the symbolism in the text.

5PA has been working in teams to complete a variety of activities based on a folktale from Japan titled "The Enchanted Sticks." We will finish this work, and then move on to a short story by Shirley Jackson called "Charles" about a kindergarten class. Thursday will be a Capstone research day. 

PA Middle School Transition Night

 Good morning!

I hope that you are all doing well! Below is the Zoom info for the IPPA PTA Middle School PA Info Night. I will be sharing it on facebook and through memberhub as we get closer to the event, but I wanted to give it to all of you now so you have time to share it with your 5th grade families. Thank you for all you do and your help getting this info out!

Catey 

Catey Genc is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.

Topic: IPPA PTA’s Middle School PA Info Night

Time: Mar 10, 2021 06:30 PM Central Time (US and Canada)

Join Zoom Meeting

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89538223784?pwd=ZW9ibk56cEhMS000Si8rZXJXMk0zdz09

Meeting ID: 895 3822 3784

Passcode: 561257

One tap mobile

+13126266799,,89538223784#,,,,*561257# US (Chicago)

+13017158592,,89538223784#,,,,*561257# US (Washington DC)

Dial by your location

        +1 312 626 6799 US (Chicago)

        +1 301 715 8592 US (Washington DC)

        +1 929 205 6099 US (New York)

        +1 346 248 7799 US (Houston)

        +1 669 900 6833 US (San Jose)

        +1 253 215 8782 US (Tacoma)

Meeting ID: 895 3822 3784

Passcode: 561257

Find your local number: https://us02web.zoom.us/u/keEu6GduiF

Milo Imagines The World By Matt De La Panea

 

https://deik0574u6tgw.cloudfront.net/2021_02_27_f74811a3-7460-4c86-8e3a-df0049477338?Expires=1614488395&Signature=c3yXthwgAqVWJeqaq03vOxAHBUChhnAv3HOZXhzGobiGDlGsFYeheMjFbhmGsUjwZymqSGg8BPjuYxx3vHd0nqeOQhZii6wsa8OobPUhQwWP3s-i4sN-lF2xiNN~9I-qGo5XkW22gnOdLo8vLf2JPBTBxfNzcw7ZjBhmjHDP08s_&Key-Pair-Id=APKAJWJWOAOYMRHCRWYQ

PA for the Week of 2-10

 3PA will focus on chapters 5 and 6 of The Green Book this week. How will the colonists survive if their crops fail and have crystalline elements absorbed from the soil? What will the moth people do to the residents of Shine? We will finish reading the book this week!

4PA is enjoying The Secret Garden! The small group discussions about symbolism and metaphors have been fun to listen in on over Zoom. This week I anticipate reading chapters 8-11, continuing our work with the characters and figurative language, and we will finally find out where the sound Mary keeps hearing is coming from.

5PA spent last week working on their Capstone and conferencing with me about the direction of their projects. There are some really interesting topics being explored and the kids are all doing well as they continue their passion project. This week, we will work on Capstone just on Thursday as we circle back to the inaugural poetry we were reading. Teams of kids will extract the themes from the three poems and what the poems say about the times they were written in, and then we will discuss their thoughts as a whole group. Later in the week, we will begin reading a short story titled "Ghost Cat" that I have in our Google classroom. 

Talent Development for the Week of 2-1

 I am excited to get TD going again, and this time with a few live children with me in my classroom. This will be my first time doing a combination of students in the room and students over Zoom. I have no idea how its going to go, but we have all learned to adapt during the pandemic, and I'm sure we will get the hang of it eventually.

Kindergarten Literacy will meet on Tuesday and Wednesday from 10:00-10:30. If your child is going to be in school on Tuesday, they will need their Chrome Book for accessing digital resources. This week we will be reading two Caldecott winning picture books with a lot of snow. In Owl Moon we will try to identify the main idea and discuss what we learned about the two characters in this quiet, peaceful story. We will also read a true story about the first person to photograph snowflakes in Snowflake Bentley. The kids and I will discuss the differences between the two types of picture books when we have read both. 

           

Kindergarten Math will meet on Thursday and Friday from 10:00-10:30. There are many kids who are in both the literacy and the math group, so I'm going to do a bit of a crossover lesson using the snowflake photography of W. A. Bentley. We are going to look at the geometry of snowflakes, identify different shapes, and make our own snowflake drawings. 

First Grade Talent Development will meet from 10:30-11:00. The first grade team and I split TD into two groups that will meet on Tuesday/Wednesday or Thursday and Friday. The students who are in school will come to my room and meet their classmates on Zoom. This week we will be learning about an inspiring individual, a theme for first grade this quarter, Sonia Sotomayor. Kids at home will have access to a digital copy of the text and the kids at school will have the actual book. We will focus on the key moments in Justice Sotomayor's life and why she is seen as an inspiring person. You can see an interview with her about this book in the clip I posted on the website.

Second Grade Talent Development will be seeing me Tuesday-Friday from 11:00-11:30. We will be doing a combination of in person learning and Zoom, so some kids will be in my room and others will be joining on their computers. The second grade teachers gave copies of the novel Charlie and the Chocolate Factory to all TD students. If your child does not have a copy of the book yet, please come by school and pick one up. I put a few extras inside the main door of school on Friday morning. I was able to find a link to a complete copy of the text that I have under the "student resources" tab on this website that the kids can use until they have the book. We will begin reading this week and recording character traits for the main characters as we discuss this classic of children's literature.