2D Shapes

Our shy little lizard decided to pop out of his little log one morning before school started. The kids haven’t seen him much because he doesn’t really come out. We have one more week with him before he goes back.

 We started our unit on 2D shapes. We worked on identifying different shapes and counting their vertices and sides. This upcoming week, we will continue identifying more shapes. 

On Friday, I gave each kid a specific number of shapes they had to use to build their shape monsters. They got to use their creativity and they really had fun with this. You can check out our scary looking monsters in the hallway!

We played a matching game as a warm-up. I try to encourage the kids to work together helping each other out identifying the shapes but also showing good sportsmanship. After they finish the game, I see the kids saying “good game” and shaking each other’s hands : )

Mrs. Skalaban tried something new this year that she’s never done. She took both classes to the STEAM lab for science and they got to build their rock habitat out of recycled materials. This year’s class really enjoys using recycled things thrown in the recycle bin in the classroom and it’s awesome. I love seeing the students be creative and resourceful. I don’t know exactly what the next step to this project is for them but I’m sure they will write about their rock habitat.

Thanks for helping us raise money for the Fun Run. If we collect 100% of the money raised, Summitt will have raised $25,000! The kids did such a good job running their laps. 

Help our Friendship Garden at Summitt!

A message from our fabulous 5^th grade teacher, Mrs. Fleming!

Hi all,

We have entered a contest to win money to help beautify our "Friendship Garden". It is sponsored by Discovery Education. All you have to do is answer 5 questions about soil and then click on Summitt Elementary. (Don't worry - even if you miss all the questions, you still get to vote for our school.)

The more entries we have, the better the chance to win. We're a bit behind the voting since it started a few months ago, but we figure, why not try?

It ends March 14, 2017,, so please click on the link and get us an entry! You can vote once a day everyday. Get your family members to vote, too. Thanks! 

~Heather and the 5th grade Service Group

http://www.thescienceofsoil.com/contests/ref/5b89df686c887967d2fa0628b713f5ba

Graphing, Fun Run and Robotics

As a positive incentive for the students who follow directions and are always making the right choices, they got to go do Robotics with Mrs. Neill during our computer lab time this week.

We wrapped up our unit on graphing this week. We worked on creating bar graphs, pictographs and tally graphs. This week I wanted the students to generate their own questions based on the graphs. Some questions that they could have asked were:

Which one had the most?

Which one had the least?

Which one had more? ______ or _______?

How many more did _____ have than ______?

Were there any that had equal amounts?

Here is a graph we created as a class based on the month we were born in.

My class wrote their monthly Vietnamese writing that we are going to add to their first grade books. Mrs. Skalaban’s class didn’t have enough time Friday. We wrote about people we love since February is the month of love.

 The Fun Run officially kicked off this week and will continue into next week. We have had some students who have received multiple prizes this week from the Fun Run. Here is a picture of our class flag we will be proudly waving when we actually do the run this upcoming week.

In VLA, we have been practicing words with TH and NH blends. We will have our test this Friday.

We received our new class pet on Wednesday. He is a lizard hiding in the log.

Please check your child’s folder for a dance permission slip. First grade does a folk dance every year in the cafeteria and gym. This year, it will be on March 7^th at 6:30PM. The kids are asked to wear their tye-die shirts and denim bottoms.

Also, at the end of the month, we will go on our Junie B. Jones field trip. More info will be sent home later in March.

Ending January and Entering February

Ok, y’all. So I have been so busy that I haven’t updated the website in weeks so hope you’re ready for a long post! There's been so much going on that sometimes I forget to take out my camera to capture moments. 

So glad Tet season is over with. The kids did great with their performance. I didn’t get home until 10pm that night of the show and didn’t get out of bed until NOON the day after. I am usually out of bed by 8 on weekends but I was so exhausted that all I wanted to do was be lazy in bed. I hope the kids learned a lot about the Lunar New Year.

We are already thinking of a new theme for next year's show. If you have any ideas you want to share to see next year, please let me know! 

We celebrated the big 100 days of school last week. In math, we did an activity on “If I had $100, I would buy…” Some said that they would buy a car, a house, or even a computer for $100. If only things nowadays were that cheap! We brainstormed ideas like lots of candy, Legos, pets, Yugioh cards, lots of toys, ice cream, or new shoes. 

  

In Vietnamese Language Arts, we wrapped up our unit on NG and NGH words. Next week, we will be doing TH and NH blends.

On February 2^nd, we learned about Groundhog Day. We read some books and watched a video on what happens in Pennsylvania when they determine if we have 6 more weeks of winter or an earlier Spring. If our “6 more weeks of winter” is going to be like how it’s been lately, I sure don’t mind it. What lovely weather we have had lately. We have been working on sequential words in Vietnamese so we did an activity based on the Groundhog and its’ shadow in our journals.

 This past Wednesday, we went to check out the science expo the 5^th graders threw for us. What awesome experiments these kids came up with! The little ones really enjoyed seeing their science buddies there and getting to touch the different experiments. Some even got pampered and got their nails done in the “glow-in-the-dark” nail salon.

We have been working on graphing this past week and will continue for another week. This past week, we did bar graphs but this week we will learn about different graphs.

Our jelly beans graphing assignment

 Our Goldfish graphing assignment! The challenge was working together to complete a graph based on our how many Goldfish they had in their cups with a partner and if they didn’t argue and worked well together, they got to eat their Goldfish when finished. At the end, each and every one of the groups got to eat their Goldfish. : )

February is Dental Health Hygiene Month. We had our friends over at Sunny Hill come over and do a presentation with the kids. 

We wrote about why it’s important to take care of our teeth. We learned vocabulary like:

Plaque

Cavities

Bacteria

Floss

Fluoride

 We will be having our Valentine’s Day party on Tuesday. Bags are ready to be stuffed! Some have already brought in their cards but if your child has not brought any in, they can do so Monday or Tuesday. 

 Mrs. Cardosa did a guidance lesson with the kids on using nice words. They learned that just because you say sorry after saying something hurtful, it is the right thing to do but it doesn’t always necessarily fix everything.It was a much needed lesson because we have had a lot of this happening in class lately.