The Kindergarten classes of Mrs. Cope, Mrs. Harpe, Mrs. Holt and Mrs. Moore have finished 2nd quarter
assessments! We are so proud of ALL of our students and the growth they have made so far this year! Students are
working hard in reading groups and are enjoying all of their reading practice at school. Remember .... practice
makes perfect! Parents, please make sure you are reading at home with your child each night for at least 20
minutes, and make sure your child is reading their homework book to you each night as well! In math, students are
reviewing teen numbers 11-20. Students are also working with addition number sentences and adding groups of
objects together to figure out how many they have "in all." Thank you parents for all your help with math homework
at night. Students are really enjoying math practice at school and are getting good at solving math problems!
Miss Davis's first grade class would like to welcome Mrs. Cathie Garner as our new TA! Mrs. Garner has done a
wonderful job being thrown into the crazy, fun mix of 1st grade! The students have been so excited to work with her
and we appreciate all of her help so far!
Second graders at Pinebrook kicked off the quarter being scientists while learning about Matter. This week they
brainstormed what they know about matter and developed questions of what they would like to know. Throughout the
week they have read articles, books, as well as, song songs and watched videos to research the topic. Next week, they will
use their research to help them make hypothesis and conduct experiments.
This week Ms. Rea’s third grade class was busy solving equations with variables. We practiced the Order of
Operations by using Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally. (Parentheses, Exponents, Multiplication, Division, Addition
and Subtraction). We have also been learning our multiplications facts. Our basal story was Symphony of Whales.
We discussed the habitats and sounds whales make. We also watched a video of a Russian Icebreaker on its way to
the North Pole. Our technology facilitator came in a presented an interesting experiment with robots this week. We
have been studying Forces and Motion and the effects of friction and speed on objects. During the experiment the
students worked in groups, collected data, and graphed our results like real scientists do. It was lots of fun! We are
preparing to take the 2nd quarter Benchmark tests next Wednesday and Thursday in Reading and Math.
Fourth graders had a blast at the first ever Pride Jam sponsored by the PBIS team and our Pinebrook PTO. What a great
way to celebrate Pinebrook PRiDE behavior! It was a huge success as the kids raced each other to build snowmen, tried
to place the nose on the snowman, and enjoyed sno cones while hanging out and listening to winter music!
In the classroom fourth grade is completing our unit on division and will soon turn to fractions. We're hoping this will be a
WHOLE lot easier. PART of the problem was remembering all the steps in long division. The COMMON DEMONINATOR
is, as in all math, students must have a strong number sense. In Language Arts we have completed our second Book
Talk. For most of us, this was on a mystery. Others worked on biographies. We're also talking about non-fiction text
features. Hopefully our biography book talks will demonstrate these features. Stop by the fourth grade hallway for a peek
at our work!