Mrs. Husack's TARGET Class
Weekly Newsletter
1st GradeThis week, 1st grade students practiced their non-verbal reasoning skills with picture analogies. Students learned new vocabulary words to help describe the relationships they observed in the pictures such as rotated, flipped, reversed and also directional words like clockwise and counter-clockwise. This week's convergent thinking skills work was solving mysteries involving the PETS Dudley the Detective and Sybil the Scientist by using logic elimination grids. We also began exploring algebraic concepts with a game called Turn Over Tiles. In this quantitative game, students listen to clues to eliminate numbers that can't be x and then turn over the tiles until they are left with only one number tile equal to x. 2nd GradeOn Tuesday students in 2nd grade participated in a Compare Contrast lesson to become experts in either Physical and Chemical Change. After researching, students taught their partner about Chemical or Physical Change and then worked together to find similarities and differences between the two types of change. Partners displayed their findings on a paper plate Venn diagram. We also sang the Atoms Family song to learn more about these tiny, teenie molecules! To strengthen their divergent thinking skills and practice fluency, flexibility, originality, and elaboration, students did some Kitchen Chemistry Thinkercises! These were a hit! It's always fun to work on creativity! 4th GradeAlthough it was a short day with Early Release, we enjoyed our time in TARGET together! We continued reading our class novel of Chasing Vermeer by Blue Balliett. Students practiced their non-verbal reasoning skills and convergent thinking skills by discovering possible pentominoes that could be made with five 1-inch squares. As students worked through this challenge, many realized how deceptively easy it is to think you've discovered another pentominoe only to figure out that it's the same shape, just with a simple reversal or rotation. After finding all twelve pentominoes, we assigned each shape a letter which will help us solve the ongoing mystery in Chasing Vermeer along with Calder, one of the characters. Fourth graders were challenged to memorize the phonetic alphabet and also play around with six 1-inch square tiles to discover how many possible shapes can be made. *Hint: It's way more than 12! :-) 5th GradeFifth graders weathered the storm this week! It was a wet day in TARGET but students were excited to work on their latest challenge: solving a Medical Mystery. In this fictitious simulation, students will be tasked with roles each week to work closer to diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of a mystery disease. This week students acted as nursing staff at the Barrow County Hospital to deduce that many patients were suffering from a type of food poisoning. Next week, students will confirm or deny their suspicions and then research the actual diagnosis to complete the next step of the challenge. We also began working with Hands on Equations this week for our algebraic thinking component in TARGET. To foster creativity through divergent thinking, students practiced fluency, flexibility, originality, and elaboration as they completed some Epidemic Thinkercises!
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Mrs. HusackGifted Specialist Teacher at Teasley Elementary Archives
May 2018
Categories |