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