We started off our short Target Day with recess to get some fresh air and get the blood flowing to wake up our brains!

Vocabulary:
We read our next story in Weighty Word, Expedient.  The kids have finally realized that the animals in the story are related to the word for each week.  Love it when they get to the "AH-HA!" moment!

Unit Study:
We spent some time in the Computer Lab beginning to type our Mystery Stories.  Many of the kids learned how to get to Office 365, so they can save documents to access both at home and at school.  If you'd like to try this at home, check it out here:
The user name is going to be in the format of: firstname.lastname@students.cobbk12.org for MOST students. However, if the student shares a name with other students in Cobb there will be a random number after the lastname. We could check that at school.  The password will always be their network password, the same they use to login to CCSD computers on campus. If they forget this password your media specialist can reset it. Students can access O365 on any device that has internet access, on or off campus; that is one of the greatest things about it! They just need to go to www.cobbk12.org > parents > Office 365 login.

Affective Skills:
We continued our Mindfulness Practice with Mindful Breathing and Listening Activity.  The kids were very engaged in hearing all the sounds they could.  

We ended our day with another chapter in our novel, Be a Perfect Person in Three Days.  Milo gave up the broccoli, but had to do something SOOOO hard for an entire day!  He's trying so hard to be perfect.  Ask your child what Milo had to endure.  This led to a great discussion about one of our character traits: Perseverance.  The kids shared examples from their lives when they've shown this trait.

HW:  NONE!  Enjoy the Break!
Until next time,
​Dr. Kraeger

We started our day off with lots of creativity!  Some worked on finishing their Visual Vocabulary for Coruscate, while others worked on a task called, "Grab a Flashlight".  It was filled with different types of puzzles that call for creative thinking.  The kids really like it, so we'll do one of these each month!

Algebraic Thinking:
We added our creativity into Math with Mystery Pictures.  The kids used ordered pairs to color grid squares certain colors to reveal a Mystery Picture.  Not all finished, but word got out pretty quickly that the Mystery Picture was a sailboat.  They did a great job!  Look for those hanging on our bulletin board later this week.

Stations:
Next we moved on to our convergent thinking with a Perplexor logic puzzle.  The kids are getting better at this type of puzzle, but some are still pretty challenged by this format.  We also used our math skills to play small group games of "Albert's Insomnia", our new game from last week.  I love how the kids created their own "House Rules" to keep the action moving and keep everyone involved in the game!  Truly the mark of creative thinkers!

Unit Study:
We spent quite a while working on our mystery stories, with several kids finishing their rough drafts.  They peer edited, especially checking for the Mystery Elements that we discussed.  We'll continue to work on these stories next week, including typing them, as time allows.

Vocabulary:
Our word of the week is Dogmatic.  The kids found some fantastic pictures to illustrate this word.  I hope you'll ask them what the word means and how they might use it in a sentence or story.

Affective Skills:
We continued our Mindfulness Practice with "Fear vs. Anxiety-What's the Difference?"  This is a great video showing kids how our bodies react the same way to real danger as they do to anxious, worried thoughts.  We discussed strategies to help us quiet those worried thoughts.  We also practiced our relaxing breathing for a couple of minutes.  They are doing great with this!

Later, we read a wonderful book called Courage, by Bernard Waber.  The kids created charts comparing examples of Courage from this book to connections from their own lives and examples of courage from our Novel-Be a Perfect Person in Three Days.  I was very impressed with their deep connections and willingness to share personal instances of courage.  Excellent work on this!

HW:  Courage Exit Slip
Until next time,
Dr. Kraeger

 We started our day by finishing up some ongoing projects--Weighty Word, Tagxedo, getting our Notebooks ready and then moved on to Checkers, Chess, and a jigsaw puzzle.  Lots of good divergent and convergent thinking to get us going!

Algebraic Thinking:
We read a story called, Albert's Insomnia, and learned a new math card game that works on strategy and math fluency.  I'm piloting this game for a friend of mine to see the engagement level and also the positive impact on math achievement.

Convergent Thinking:
We jumped into stations to work on Logic Puzzles and a different type of puzzle called a Perplexor.  The kids really showed their thinking skills to get these done with ease.  They're ready for more of a challenge next week!

Unit Study:
We got started on writing our mystery stories with our Story Pictures from the book, Harris Burdick.  The kids began with a story plan to map out the characters, clues, problem, suspects, and solution to their story.  We'll be working on this project for several weeks.  Stay tuned for updates as we make progress!

Vocabulary:
We read another story in our Weighty Word book, Letter C for Coruscate.  Hopefully, the kids got a good handle on this word.  I would say so from the great job they did on choosing their visual representation of the meaning.

Affective:
We continued our Mindfulness Practice with "Why Humans Experience Anxiety?"  The kids enjoyed learning about one important difference between animals and humans.

We also continued reading Be a Perfect Person in Three Days.  The kids found out what happened when Milo wore the broccoli necklace all day to school.  It turns out that Milo was extra brave, polite, and careful.  We also used our convergent thinking to create Broccoli Transformations.  Check out the fantastic ideas in the hall outside our class!

HW:  Finish Logic Puzzle, Transformation or Weighty Word coloring

Until next time,
​Dr. Kraeger