Welcome to Project SPARK! We are so happy to have you with us for the summer!
Our program runs July 8th to July 25th, Monday-Thursday, from 9:10 to 1:45.
Please join us for Open House on July 25th from 11:15-12:15 for a chance to see what your student has been learning!
Daily Updates
07/25/19
| Class | Today We Learned… |
| Ms. Bedini’s Class (K), Ms. Merati’s Class (1), and Ms. Monahan’s Class (Grade 2) | Today was our last day of our Project SPARK Summer Program! Thank you to all the families who were able to join us to see what we have been learning the past few weeks. Have a wonderful rest of your summer! |
07/24/19
| Class | Today We Learned… |
| Ms. Bedini’s Class (K) | Today we reviewed our game that worked on memory and shape awareness. Students would view a shape combination and then once it was covered they had to use their own shapes to make the combination. Then they could view the original puzzle again and fix their own creation. Then we did centers based on similarities and differences in shape combinations. We began our chapter 3 assessment and will finish tomorrow. |
| Ms. Merati’s Class (1) | We got to play with shapes to make lines of symmetry, create our own symmetrical shapes, and cut out symmetrical shapes. Today was lots of fun building and creating! |
| Ms. Monahan’s Class (Grade 2) |
Today we played a mystery shape game where students had to identify two and three dimensional shapes by feeling them and asking yes, no questions about the features of those shapes. We also drew different view points of three dimensional shapes. Finally we took our chapter three check up to assess our progress on our third and final unit.
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07/23/19
| Class | Today We Learned… |
| Ms. Bedini’s Class (K) | Today we warmed up by practicing our tangram puzzles, and talking about strategies to solve difficult puzzles! Then we practiced memorizing puzzles and trying to create them from memory. The students had the opportunity to view the puzzle again and fix their original design. |
| Ms. Merati’s Class (1) | We learned two new vocabulary words: symmetrical and line of symmetry. We used mirrors to manipulate pictures to create new and silly shapes. We also played a game determining congruent pairs again! |
| Ms. Monahan’s Class (Grade 2) |
Today we built three dimensional triangular and rectangular prisms using tangrams. We also built our floor design models for the shape playgrounds we designed.
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07/22/19
| Class | Today We Learned… |
| Ms. Bedini’s Class (K) | Today we reviewed our 2 dimensional shapes and their attributes. Students are working to use more of our shape vocabulary like “side” and “vertices”. We then worked in stations on designing our own tangrams. Students had time later to work on animal shape tangram puzzles. |
| Ms. Merati’s Class (1) | We learned about Carroll Diagrams with negations today! We ended up making our own for partners. Then we learned a new vocabulary word: congruent! We then learned how to play a Match It game to find congruent pairs. |
07/18/19
| Class | Today We Learned… |
| Ms. Bedini’s Class (K) | Today we were introduced to tangrams. We began by reviewing our two dimensional shapes and describing them. We read a story about tangrams and tried to create the animals. The students got their own packages of tangrams and could create their own shapes. Then they tried to fit the shapes into puzzles! |
| Ms. Merati’s Class (1) | We learned about sorting trees using the different attributes. We then learned about Carroll Diagrams (ask your child about the fun fact we learned about who it was named after). We then spent time completing several Carroll Diagrams |
| Ms. Monahan’s Class (Grade 2) |
Today we traced and discussed the faces of 3-dimensional shapes. We then used 3-dimensional shapes to start planning a play ground design.
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07/17/19
| Class | Today We Learned… |
| Ms. Bedini’s Class (K) | We reviewed what we already learned the last two weeks/chapters by each getting a turn to be the “teacher” and ask questions about shapes. We then worked in our journals to follow directions to specific locations. The students took their chapter 2 assessment and did a wonderful job! We then played on our life size game board again giving each other directions to find the hidden frog. |
| Ms. Merati’s Class (1) | We played the Two-Loop game again in a different way. We love playing this game! Then we helped Imi and Zani complete and win three Two-Loop games and spoke about the reasons why they were able to win with our choices. |
| Ms. Monahan’s Class (Grade 2) | Today we dipped the 3-dimensional shapes we created yesterday into bubbles to see what 2-dimensional we could see. Then we began exploring 3-dimensional shapes so that we can plan a shape playground. |
07/16/19
| Class | Today We Learned… |
| Ms. Merati’s Class (1) | We learned how to play the One-Loop Game and spent time in groups using attributes to place shapes and guess the rule. We created our own for Imi and Zani and made our friends solve them. Then we learned how to play the Two-Loop Game sorting shapes by two attributes and finding the intersection that went for both attributes. |
| Ms. Monahan’s Class (Grade 2) | We warmed up today by practicing placement. Students had to find the orientation of certain objects in relation to other objects. They practiced following directions and moving around a grid. After being good listeners while moving their frogs around a grid they got to move around a life size game board. They gave each other directions to find a hidden frog. |
07/15/19
| Class | Today We Learned… |
| Ms. Bedini’s Class (K) | Today we warmed up by reviewing our shapes. Students had to draw our 3D shapes and describe them by what they can do and what they have. Then we moved on to giving direction/ position. Students were given directions to place objects in certain places on a simple map. They then got a turn to give the directions to their friends and see if they could follow along and place them in the right places. We then used a map to answer true and false questions about locations on a diagram. |
| Ms. Merati’s Class (1) | We learned about angles including how to tell if one is acute, right, or obtuse. We made our own protractors and went on an angle scavenger hunt! Last, we played a one loop game with student attributes and we had to guess why the students were grouped together. |
| Ms. Monahan’s Class (Grade 2) | Today we followed specific critter is to create a basic pattern unit and described how the shapes in the basic pattern moved to cover a plane. We then reviewed topics covered in chapter 1 and completed the chapter check in. |
07/11/19
| Class | Today We Learned… |
| Ms. Bedini’s Class (K) | Today we finished up chapter one, working with 3-D shapes! We reviewed our shapes, played I spy by using descriptions of shapes to give clues about what object we were thinking about. We took our chapter 1 assessment and the kids did a wonderful job! We finally met our frog friend, Farley, and played a game called “Farley says”. We worked to learn directional words to describe locations. |
| Ms. Merati’s Class (1) | We learned how to play a new game called What Happened? We had to create shapes that matched our playing cards and then while the other team wasn’t looking we had to either take a shape off, move a shape, or do nothing. When they turned around they had to guess what happened. We discussed strategies that were used to help us figure out what happened and then tried to use those strategies to help Imi and Zani with the game they were stuck on. We also learned some new vocabulary words like polygon and octagon! |
| Ms. Monahan’s Class (Grade 2) | Today we described different shapes and created our own patterns using those shapes to cover a plane. |
07/10/19
| Class | Today We Learned… |
| Ms. Bedini’s Class (K) | Today we reviewed concepts of symmetry and manipulated triangles to create different 2-D shapes. |
| Ms. Merati’s Class (1) | We loved playing the game Groupo today! We made our own shape cards and helped Imi and Zani create a match for their shape cards. We explained how the shapes we made were similar to their cards in four different ways and explained how they were different. |
| Ms. Monahan’s Class (Grade 2) | Today we found lines of symmetry in a square. We then cut along sides of symmetry to create small triangles that we then used to create patterns. We then determined how many lines of symmetry each pattern had. |
07/09/19
| Class | Today We Learned… |
| Ms. Bedini’s Class (K) | Today we began by reading “Jack the Builder” and tried to guess what he was making with each of his block combinations. We then moved on to sorting objects of a similar shape. We sorted boxes, cans, and balls. We then learned the proper terms for those shapes. Students then moved on to explore some of the properties of those shapes in different centers. Today we learned the term for cylinder, sphere, and rectangular prism. Later we worked to build with the shapes. Students had to look at a picture of a structure and try to build the same structure using the blocks. Finally they were able to build a structure of their own and record it in their journals! |
| Ms. Merati’s Class (1) | We practiced our speaker and writer roles by figuring out a way to help Zani win a game of Lingo. We learned how to create shapes out of post-its. We used those to make a new shape and labeled the vertices. We took the new shapes and put them into different categories based on the number of sides they had and how many shapes it was composed of. Finally, we learned all the rules for our new game, Groupo, so we can start playing tomorrow! |
| Ms. Monahan’s Class (Grade 2) | We challenges ourselves to draw pictures using only shapes! |
07/08/19
| Class | Today We Learned… |
| Ms. Bedini’s Class (K) | This morning in our kindergarten class we took our initial assessment on what the students already know about shapes. We opened a package from our Frog Friends, Farley and Freda, (part of the SPARK program) and introduced our adventure in exploring shapes over the next three weeks! We talked about our roles as a speaker and as a listener. We explored different 3 dimensional and two dimensional shapes. Lastly, we participated in different shape based learning centers where students would match different shapes, describe different shapes, and find certain shapes around the classroom. |
| Ms. Merati’s Class (1) | We had a great first day of SPARK! We learned about our new bird friends, Imi and Zani. We went through the package they sent us with our speaker, listener, and writer scrolls and practiced doing each of them. Then discussed shape attributes and learned a fun new word: quadrilateral. We ended the day by playing a fun game called Lingo! |
| Ms. Monahan’s Class (Grade 2) | Today we were introduced to our new pen pals Dru and Teller and explored concepts of symmetry. |