Chalmers Elementary

CHALMERS ELEMENTARY 2ND-4TH GRADE

Chalmers Elementary is dedicated to providing a positive, caring, and safe environment, giving all students an equal opportunity to reach their full potential for academic excellence.

SECOND GRADE

It is all adding up at Chalmers Elementary as our confident second grade students learn addition and subtraction. Our friend Addition Annie helps us learn that addition is all about combining, putting together, and the sum. Then we have Subtraction Sally who teaches us that subtraction is about taking away.

We are second grade students, but we equally compare to all students because we are motivated in our abilities to learn about greater, less, and equal numbers. That’s right, second grade might be one grade lower than third, but we are all eating the greater number called 100% learning.

As Ember Garrison in Mrs. Gibbs’ class said, “When I learn about math, my brain starts to work all the time. Math takes focus.”

THIRD GRADE

In third grade, we have learned how to develop engaging ideas, develop elements of how-to articles, organize steps, include introductions and conclusions, include a variety of transition words, and develop structural elements for our how-to articles. We did this all while going through the steps of the writing process. Our main goal was to be able to use elements of an informational text to write a how-to article independently.

We developed two final pieces of writing during this unit with two projects: How to Carve a Pumpkin and How to Create a Monster Craft. We were able to brainstorm, plan, rough draft, revise, edit, and complete a final draft. Through this unit and the writing assignments, we have gained a better understanding of the genre elements and writing process for a how-to article.

FOURTH GRADE

Throughout the second six weeks, fourth-grade students worked on an animal research project. We researched many different animals in the categories of amphibians, mammals, birds, fish, insects, and reptiles. We each then selected the animal we wanted to research and used books as well as educational websites

Brandon Whiten, Principal to find information about the animals’ characteristics, habitat, diet, survival, and life cycle. Next, we completed our research paper and cited our sources. For the final piece of the project, we created a poster that displayed our animal and our research. This project encouraged us to think outside of our comfort zone as we worked on research, grammar skills, and comprehension.

Hispanic Heritage Celebrations

“We celebrated Hispanic Heritage month by making a poster of our identity and culture and sharing it with our classes. We also made posters of any part of Latin America we wanted to visit. It is fun to learn about other cultures and to see that everyone is different and unique and you are too!” ~ Sofia Castillo, 4th grade dual language student

“Hispanic heritage means that you can be proud of yourself because you are Amy Allen, Assitant Principal

“My heart is dedicated to children, and I will do everything in my power to always make sure our students are safe, loved,and happy. I come to school every day excited to watch the kids grow and learn from the very best.”

~ Principal, Brandon Whiten special. It makes you feel like you have a lot more in common with other people than you ever thought. Celebrating the culture makes me smile.” “La herencia hispana significa que puedes estar orgulloso de ti mismo porque tú eres especial. Te hace sentir que tienes mucho más en común con otras personas de lo que tu creías. Celebrando la cultura me hace sonreír.” ~Evelyn Serrano González, 4th grade dual language student

STEM Program

Project Lead the Way launched at Chalmers in 2019 as a new addition to the Specials rotations. All 700 students rotate through the STEM room every six days to learn different PLTW modules such as Structure and Function of the Human Body, Grids and Games, Programming Patterns, Input and Output: Computer Systems, and Properties of Matter. Currently, they are working on learning to Code. Second grade is using Grids and Games, third grade is working with Programming Patterns, and fourth grade will use Input/Output: Computer Systems.

In February of 2020, Chalmers hosted our own STEMposium and had more than 30 participants. Unfortunately due to COVID, the district STEMposium could not be held last year. Scan the QR code to watch a short video presentation of the 2020 Chalmers STEMposium.