Almost every day, each grade level begins the period with a warmup; usually the activity is a
deductive or logical thinking puzzle as well as analogies and language puzzles. We do these as a
group.
The warm up generally lasts 5-10 minutes.
Bales Lesson Plans:
1st 9 weeks:
4th & 5th grade: The fourth and fifth graders are working on a This I Believe essay. Students are
selecting a topic based on their beliefs, writing a persuasive essay, typing their essay and presenting
it to the class. Student presentations will be filmed and made available on my website. 'Best' essays
will be voted on by the classes with the winners being invited to attend the National TAGT
conference in Houston later this year.
- Check back after November to view the student videos!
2nd 9 weeks:
4th grade: TBD
5th grade: Begin Mars Rover unit. We will study background information about Mars and NASA's
exploration program. Students will discuss and take notes. Student teams will have the opportunity
to participate in a Mars Rover competition! Please encourage your child to compete. Permission slips
for entering the Mars Rover contest are required... they will be sent home.
Westwood Lesson Plans:
1st 9 weeks:
1st & 2nd grade: The first and second graders will begin the 9 weeks by creating a '10-Dots' book!
The students will create and publish their own rhyming book using 'dots' to both create pictures and
rhyming sentences. The students will have access to the online dictionary to help identify rhymes.
After the completion of the books, we will focus on a kaleidoscope learning unit. In this unit the
students will explore color through hands-on mixing to create a color wheel. They will learn about
light and it's properties through some classroom experiments. Tessellations will be taught using
various websites. The project will end with each student making their own kaleidoscope which will be
brought home.
3rd grade: The third graders are working on a Artifact Box project. This is a collaborative project with
school districts throughout the U.S. Students learn about the uniqueness of their region and local
community through guest speakers, online video, newspapers and books. They will turn these facts
into clues, complete with written and artifacts. These clues are exchanged with another school
district in an 'artifact box'. We will receive a similar box and work together to decipher what region
the box came from. It is a great unit on both creativity and critical thinking!