Target

Week of March 26, 2012

Second grade and third grade took this week to catch up on many of their heart activities.  Students worked with heart idioms and practiced their poetry writing with similes and shape poems.  When we return we will be looking at the heart and emotions and continue our exploration into poetic writing.

                                     Have a great spring break!!!!!!

Week of March 19, 2012 First Grade

What a fun and exciting day we had today!  We started our day talking about variables in equations and wrote some equations with variables in them.  We also worked on some other convergent thinking activities to warm up our brains.

We read Horton Hatches the Egg and talked about what it means to be responsible and faithful to promises.  We also talked about situations when people took advantage of others and how things should be handled in such situations.

We then focused on "eggs."  We learned about the significance of eggs in many different cultures and then watched a PowerPoint presentation telling us about the Faberge Eggs.  We looked at a book with pictures of these eggs and then designed an egg of our own using plastic eggs, "gold and silver," and "jewels.  We also created a stand for our "Faberge Egg."  We are very proud of our artistry!

After this, we completed an "Imagine That" sheet using our divergent thinking to turn doodles into pictures.

Homework:  None this week.  Due to "Art Day" next Friday, there will be no Target.  We will resume classes after Spring Break.  We hope everyone has a safe and restorative break!

Week of March 19, 2012

Heartfelt quote reflection: "The way is not in the sky. The way is in the heart." Buddha

Our second and third grade classes are using this week and next week to catch up on several of our "heartfelt" activities and lessons before spring break. Students finished sharing their research on heart problems and some began their heart healthy posters. Students also are exploring and collecting many heart idioms. They read "A Story of the Heart" full of "hearty heart" idioms. Students selected some idioms to illustrate comparing the literal meaning with the figurative meaning.

Some classes are pursuing their divergent thinking skills as they become more actively involved in expressing their feelings in poetic form. Students are working on shape poems as others begin to explore the power of images with similes. Convergent thinking skills were challenged this week with a new Hands on Equations lesson (3rd), a quotation quizzler and designing their own grid to solve a logic puzzle.

As we head to spring break we want to wish all of you a wonderful spring holiday season.

Week of March 19, 2012 Fourth and Fifth Grades

Sibley Pond Update:

Spring is definitely here (even though it feels more like summer lately). Unfortunately, that means lots of pollen. As a result, we were not able to go to the pond to view the thousands of tadpoles this week. See below for pictures from the week prior. Hopefully it will rain and much of the pollen that is layering on the surface of Sibley Pond will be washed away, as we hope to hike there next week. Make sure to wear appropriate shoes!

In Target Classes:

Our students are continuing to learn algebra with Hands-On Equations, and logic puzzles are getting progressively more challenging to keep their brains sharp. Creative writing abounds as students are asked to write the ending to a story called "The Frog and the Hares" after answering thought-provoking questions to the beginning of the story. Building on the research students have done on the various threats to frogs, they are also exploring another danger to frogs, the chytrid fungus, in a video called "The Vanishing Frog."  

Homework (Connections Project):

Please see the sheet entitled "Message in a Bottle" for a description of your child's homework this week. In connection with the project your children are doing, we are asking that they transform a plastic water bottle or an Altoids tin into something useful. It is not only important to recycle, but also to reuse! Please continue to work on your presentation for your Connections Project topic as well as the service project that goes with it.

Target Progress Reports are going home this week, so keep an eye out.

Week of March 12, 2012 First Grade

We warmed up our brains today by using our Convergent Thinkings skills.  We worked on logic puzzles, analogies, word bogglers and even did some "detective thinking" to link two otherwise unlike words.  We also used our math skills to determine answers to questions.

Today we had a "feetstival," because everything we did involved the subject of feet.  We read The Foot Book, by Dr. Seuss.   We discussed all the things that our feet, our hands, and our hands and our feet together could do.  We also read How Big is a Foot? which tells the true story of where the measure, "foot," came from, and then did several measuring activities involving the use of our feet and a ruler.  We wondered if the term, "ruler," came from the fact that 12 inches was the measure of a king's foot.  We read a story with foot idioms and discussed the literal and figurative meaning of each.  Some of them were really funny when we thought about the actual meaning of the words!

 

Week of March 12, 2012

What amazing divergent thinking skills were demonstrated this week by our second and third graders! The healthy heart creatures were too cute to eat!

Classes work on their convergent thinking skills with our weekly logic puzzle. Third graders HOE skills get stronger each week. Students viewed a visual presentation on heart problems with examples of a healthy heart compared to a stressed diseased heart. Students began sharing their research on problems and diseases of the heart as their classmates took notes on their graphic organizer. Due to a Target teacher county workshop on Wednesday third grade had a shortened Target day. Next week we will continue to share our heart problem research.

Our heartfelt quote for the week was; "Beauty is not in the face. Beauty is a light in the heart." We discussed some of the common themes of our heartfelt quotes and connected this theme to our poetry unit and the reading of Love that Dog.

Week of March 12, 2012 Fourth and Fifth Grades

FROG MAN

Dr. Fenolio (otherwise known as the  "Frog Man") from the Atlanta Botanical Gardens visited Sope Creek last week to speak with our fourth and fifth graders. He presented his research on amphibians, and it was informational as well as enlightening. The Target teachers were extremely proud of our students for asking incredibly thoughtful and insightful questions. Dr. Fenolio even commented on how impressed he was with our Target students' inquiries regarding his research. 

CONNECTIONS PROJECT:

Our students have been given time in class to research the Connections Project topic that they chose. They should also choose a service project that relates to their topic and begin doing it as soon as possible. 

IN OUR TARGET CLASSES:

Along with our many convergent (logic puzzles, Hands-On Equations,...) and divergent thinking (brainstorming, creative writing,...) activities, this week we are continuing our studies of frogs and toads by examining the many threats that face anurans. Our students researched and became experts on these threats, then they became the teachers to their peers. We also delved further into the mechanics of how adult frogs and toads breathe.

                                            

Check out this web site from the American Heart Association

American Heart Association

Week of March 5, 2012 First Grade

Today we do lots of convergent thinking with a logic puzzle, a word connections activity and some heavy duty Mathematical thinking.  We also share our "room cleaning machines."  We then read The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins and talk about the message in the story.  We discuss the type of ruler the king in the story is and about rights and fairness.  We think about a right we would not like to give up and use our divergent thinking to portray that right with a partner to our classmates.

The Week of March 5, 2012

Our day started with our personal responses in our journals to the heartfelt quote from Helen Keller; "The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched. They must be felt with the heart." Students are taking on a new challenge and creating their own elimination grids to organize their analytical problem solving when tackling a logic problem. It is truly stretching our convergent thinking skills. Third graders are consistently gaining skills as they master their legal moves in Hands on Equations.

With the students' growing knowledge of the complexity of the parts and functions of the heart, children brainstormed possible problems and areas of dysfunction of the heart. Computer lab time was used to begin student's research on assigned problems and diseases of the heart. For homework many students are to finish and add information to their notes. Next week students will share their knowledge as the "expert" on these heart problems. The day ended with our reflection on how do we think problems of the heart can be prevented. For homework students are to create a healthy veggie creature and bring in a heart healthy snack to share for Heart Healthy Day.