News for 9/24

Wow! It's hard to think that September is over. It has been an amazing month in TAG and a fantastic start to the year. We have learned so much and had so much fun too. We are super excited about what lies ahead for us in the month of October!

For those of you who were unable to attend the Parent Webinar group offered through the district on 9/25. The webinar link has been shared and is linked below if you would like to view it. 

TAGT Parent Webinar Link

1st Grade Talent Development

First graders have had a great week continuing with our Mary Poppins adventure.  The students loved the part of the book when Mary opens her magic "empty" bag and takes out all kinds of useful items.  We have been working on our own carpetbags, and thinking of items to put in them that we would love to have with us at all times.  We will finish this up next week.  We also spent Thursday afternoon enjoying the sunshine and creating chalk drawings, just like Bert the pavement artist in the book.  We are all loving this book!

2nd Grade Talent Development

Second grade started their first novel study this week. We are reading "The Unlucky Lottery Winners of Classroom 13" by Matthew J. Gilbert. The kids have enjoyed reading all about this group of lucky, unlucky kids. We did a character analysis and the students will be writing their own chapter in the book as well. 

3rd Grade Math

Third graders have spent the week exploring rounding numbers to different place values, and adding and subtracting large numbers.  We have played Roll It Rounding, created rounding roller coasters in our journals and colored mystery pictures to practice our rounding skills.  We started a project involving purchasing furniture for a hotel.  Each student will choose furniture for a hotel from a catalog and calculate the cost of their project.  We will also be creating a blueprint of a room that they furnished.  What a fun way to practice addition and subtraction! 

4th Grade Math

Fourth grade has spent the week exploring division.  We started off studying the rules of divisibility, and discussing how it might be useful to know them.  We created a foldable where they are all in one place, easy to use as a reference.  We've also practiced our dividing skills by completing a project involving managing a movie theater.  We thought about everything from ticket sales to concession stand sales to how many doors there would be in the theater!  We have also discussed interpreting remainders in division problems, and ended the week with a small project called "Division House".  Ask your student what it was all about!

5th Grade Math

Fifth graders spent the week exploring relationships between natural, whole and rational numbers and integers.  We created our own number lines and really thought hard about where to place positive and negative numbers.  We ended the week with an introduction to plotting points on a four quadrant coordinate grid (including negative points!), something no one in the class had ever done!  We had quite a discussion about how to do this, and practiced our skills by creating a pumpkin on the grid.  We ended the week with an activity where we created an outline of the United States on the coordinate grid.  It was a challenge, but they all enjoyed it and felt accomplished when it was over!

3rd Reading

Third grade grade is wrapping up their novel "The Great Shelby Holmes". As part of that we visited the library and learned how to use Storyboard That! to illustrate scenes from the book. We had a great time integrating technology into our learning. 

We also discussed character traits and compared characters in stories. We then wrote about how text evidence supported the traits that described our characters.

4th Reading

Fourth grade began their unit on nonfiction text features this week. The students have been tasked with collecting evidence of various text features and presenting their findings in a google slide show with explanations of the purpose of the various features. 

We also ended our week with a mentor match up with our buddy class. We guided our buddies through using Sphero robots. This was a great practice in leadership, communication, and building relationships for all students. The students did an excellent job and had a great time!

5th Reading

Fifth grade is wrapping up their novel study of "Chasing Vermeer". We will be moving into our unit on informational text next week. The students will be studying and researching a famous artist. They will present their findings to the group. As a culminating activity they will recreate one piece of art that their artist is famous for. It will be so fun to see what we learn and create!

Have a great weekend, see you next week!

Important Dates:

10/1 Student Council Application Due
10/1 UIL Practices begin this week
10/8 Fall Conferences- Student Holiday
10/9 Student Holiday 
10/19 5th Grade Field Trip
10/22-26 Red Ribbon Week

News for 9/17

It's been another great week in TAG. We had a lot of fun learning! We are looking forward to another great week next week!

There are two opportunities for TAG families coming up next week. Please see the flyers below for more information.

1st Grade Talent Development

First graders have had an exciting week.  We finished up our learning of the Depth and Complexity icons early in the week.  We learned about Multiple Perspectives by trying on a pair of goggles with different lenses and had so much fun!  We are busy at work creating a book to show off our knowledge of the icons, and will be making a video as well.  We are also doing a read aloud of the beloved book Mary Poppins together, which will tie in to our fall group ISP.  Lots of fun things happening!

2nd Grade Talent Development

Second grade wrapped up the longest chain STEM challenge this week. Their creativity and team work was great to see. They discovered a lot of ways to solve the same problem. We also worked with more Depth and Complexity icons this week through various activities that stretched their thinking and listening skills. 

3rd Grade Math

Third graders have wrapped up our first unit on Place Value this week.  We have played Place Value Yahtzee, a calculator game called Change It, and even a game where we renamed ourselves as decimals to review our concepts.  We took our first DCA (District Common Assessment) Thursday, and ended the week with some fun by working on a BreakoutEDU box.  They had a great time solving place value problems to unlock the clues to open the six locks on the box!

4th Grade Math

Fourth graders have spent the week working on multiplication and division.  We discussed 3 methods of multiplying large numbers- traditional, partial product and area (box) model.  It was fun to see their brains work on a skill they already knew in different ways!  We also solved a multiplication logic puzzle and took some notes on the rules of divisibility.  Fourth graders also had the opportunity to learn how to play the strategy game of Watermelon Chess this week.  It was fun to see their logical brains at work!

5th Grade Math

Fifth graders started Unit 2:Equivalent Uses and Representations of Number this week.  We started the week by making a graphic organizer to show the relationship between natural, whole, and rational numbers and integers.  We took notes on absolute value and opposite numbers on Tuesday, and showed what we knew with a quiz.  We wrapped up the week by creating posters to show how to classify numbers using ideas and objects with four parts, just like our graphic organizers.  There are some very creative ideas in our group!  They worked so hard.  Posters will be up in the hallway soon, and will be added to Seesaw as well.

3rd Reading

Third grade learned about the stop and jot strategy this week. We talked about stopping to take a few notes about important things in the text. We also discussed character traits through the use of "A Bad Case of Stripes" by David Shannon. This week we also introduced a readers response menu that we will be using through out the semester to respond to our independent reading.

4th Reading

Fourth grade wrapped up the "Wonder" novel study this week. We really enjoyed the book! Next week we will be moving into Informational Text and text elements.

5th Reading

Fifth grade continued with their novel study "Chasing Vermeer". We will be wrapping that up next week and moving ahead to new ground. We also visited the library and had a lesson on figurative language. Everyone had a blast identifying figurative language found in the story Mrs. Bamford shared. 

Have a great weekend, see you next week!

Important Dates:

10/1 Student Council Application Due
10/8 Fall Conferences- Student Holiday
10/9 Student Holiday 
10/19 5th Grade Field Trip
10/22-26 Red Ribbon Week

News for 9/10

Thank you to everyone for coming to the Back to School Night on Tuesday. It was great to see you all! We are very excited about this year and are looking forward to sharing all of our learning! If you were able to join us the slide show from the night is linked below. Please let us know if you have any questions!

TAG Back to School Night Presentation

Thank you to Mr. Sesh Natarajan, Mr. Di Wu, and Mr. Wulf Sullivan for serving as our TAGPAC representatives for this year. If you would like to receive emails with updates from the district Parent Advisory Council from them please email Mr. Sesh Natarajan at seshatre@gmail.com and you will be added to the email list. 

There are two opportunities for TAG families coming up the week of 9/24. Please see the flyers below for more information.

1st Grade Talent Development

First graders had a great week continuing to learn about our Depth and Complexity icons.  We covered Ethics, Big Idea and Over Time this week.  We discussed the story of Cinderella as it related to Ethics, made posters to show our Big Ideas, and created timelines of our lives to relate to Over Time.  We are having a great time!

2nd Grade Talent Development

Second grade completed their novel study of "Lola Levine-Drama Queen" this week. We really enjoyed Lola's quirky character! 

The students have also been working on Depth and Complexity Icons. We have focused on Details, Multiple Perspectives, and Language of the Discipline. They put the icons to use in a project that had them thinking about their future occupations. The world is in good hands with these future professionals! Friday was STEM Challenge day. The students were given one piece of paper and challenged to create the longest chain they could. This worked on problem solving, critical thinking, and team work. We had a great time thinking outside the box!

3rd Grade Math

Third graders have been exploring decimals this week.  We went on a hunt for decimals up to the hundredths place around our classroom, related decimals to money, showed our knowledge by shading in number lines, metric rulers, grids and circles and ended the week with a fun card game to make the largest decimals we could.  We are learning a lot and having fun!  3rd grade students also began Spanish instruction this week.  We will have language enrichment weekly on Wednesdays from 10:10-10:35.

4th Grade Math

Fourth graders have had a great week showing their knowledge of decimals to the thousandths place.  We have rounded, compared, added and subtracted decimals up to the thousandths place.  They have worked hard on all of their assignments and done a great job of showing perseverance through complicated tasks.

5th Grade Math

Fifth graders have wrapped up our first unit of learning this week.  We have spent the week converting between fractions, decimals and percents.  We've discussed real world applications for these numbers, used conversions to do some puzzles, and classified our learning into 'Always, Sometimes, Never' statements, among so many other things.  We ended the week today with a test over Unit 1: Equivalent Representations and Uses of Numbers.  Grades will be in HAC by Monday 9-17.

3rd Reading

Third grade continued their study of "The Great Shelby Holmes". They are recording details from the text and plot. Students checked in on their Growth Mindset goals and made plans for this month for how to continue moving forward. These goals are loaded into SeeSaw and ready to share with families next week. They also wrote a letter about a pleasure book that they were reading. We will begin recommending books next week.

4th Reading

Fourth grade checked in on their Growth Mindset goals this week and made plans for the rest of the month. They have loaded their goals into SeeSaw to share with their families next week. 
The students are almost done with their "Wonder" novel study. They have been working hard to show deep thinking and make connections to the characters and text. 

5th Reading

Fifth grade did a check in with their Growth Mindset goals this week and developed a plan. The goals are loaded into SeeSaw to share with families next week. They have also been working on their novel "Chasing Vermeer". We did take a break from our novel mid-week to work on a genre project. Students were paired and given a genre to present to the class. They were allowed to be creative in their presentation method and they did an excellent job. We will be loading those projects to SeeSaw next week as well. 

Have a great weekend, see you next week!

Important Dates:

9/18 Homeroom Parent Meeting- 7:45am
9/20 Coffee Chat in library- 7:45am
10/8 Fall Conferences- Student Holiday
10/9 Student Holiday 

News for 9/3

It's been a great week in TAG. There has been great learning happening all around. We are looking forward to seeing everyone at the open house for current TAG families next Tuesday at 5:15!

1st Grade Talent Development

First graders have spent the week continuing to learn about our depth and complexity icons.  We've explored the "Trends" and "Unanswered Questions" icons this week.  They all enjoyed reading books by Robert Munsch, who always ends his books with a picture with no words.  They all thought of several unanswered questions for each one.  We ended the week with some social/emotional learning about being generous to others.

2nd Grade Talent Development

Second grade continued their novel study of "Lola Levine-Drama Queen". As we read through the novel we stopped and created our own additions to the story line. We created original ice cream flavors that could be found at the ice cream shop the characters visited and we imagined who our own surprise visitor might be. We are having a lot of fun following the plot and jumping into the story ourselves. 

The students are also continuing the exploration of the Depth and Complexity Icons. We revisited the "Rules" icon this week with a project about animals. We discussed the rules for living in different environments and then students worked together to invent a new animal for their environment.

3rd Grade Math

Third graders have spent the week continuing to learn about place value.  We moved from whole numbers up to the hundred thousands into decimals with tenths and hundredths.  They all enjoyed playing place value yahtzee and "Change It", a calculator game.  All of them are doing great learning about decimals!

4th Grade Math

Fourth graders have spent the week becoming more precise with their knowledge of decimals.  We have explored the thousandths place, and learned all about how decimals can be used in our world.  We've watched videos of Olympic swimming and NASCAR races, and talked about how decimals must be precise in those situations.  Students ended the week with some practice in ordering and comparing decimals, and stretching our brains with pentomino puzzles.

5th Grade Math

Fifth graders have spent the week working on converting between fractions, decimals and percents.  We completed some fun journal notes by filling in an easy to read math wheel to help with conversions.  Students ended the week by creating a fun pattern on a 10x10 grid and completing the fractions, decimals and percents for each of their colors.  These will be on display outside my room next week.  Stop by and check them out!

3rd Reading

Third grade studied Mount Vernon for social studies this week. We learned about George Washington and even got to take a virtual tour of Mount Vernon. The students really enjoyed taking a step back in history and exploring things from the past. 

We are also continuing to work on our novel study of "The Great Shelby Holmes". We are making predictions, following the plot, and are discovering the mystery that the characters must solve.

4th Reading

Fourth grade is deep into our study of Wonder. We discussed conflict this week and identified the various types of conflict in literature. We also explored figurative language and discussed similes, metaphors, idioms, and personification. 

5th Reading

Fifth grade is moving along in their study of "Chasing Vermeer". We have been analyzing the book from the perspective of various Depth and Complexity Icons. We also discussed foreshadowing this week and had a lesson with Mrs. Bamford in the library. The students then investigated elements of foreshadowing in our novel and made predictions based upon their discoveries.

Have a great weekend, see you next week!

Important Dates:

9/11 CCE Back to School Night & PTA Meeting
9/18 Homeroom Parent Meeting- 7:45am
9/20 Coffee Chat in library- 7:45am
10/8 Fall Conferences- Student Holiday
10/9 Student Holiday