Birthdays, Balloons and Bowls of DIRT!

This has been a busy crazy week!

First a very heartfelt thank you for all the wonderful birthday wishes.  It was a great day!  We are still loving reading the joy jars hearts.

In science we have been learning about different properties of soil and how it is helpful.  We spent some time in the lab exploring soil and watching what happens when water is added.  Today we were treated to a great presentation that explained how weather and erosion help change our earth...this was a great link into soil.

Enjoy the pictures!

Solving Math Word Problems

We are teaching students to use model drawing to solve word problems.  The idea helps them make a picture representation of the problem and look for the part they are missing.  Students are taught to first read the question, and rephrase in a statement using ____ (a blank) to represent the number we don't know.

Here is an example of what it means to make an ump statement.

Now putting into the context of a real math problem.

Here is a few examples of very simple problem...  We are asking the student to create a model that will help them identify the answer.

A Different Way to Show Your Work...

After looking at all of the work from last week, I just didn't feel good that students understood what they were doing.  Today we worked on showing it another way.  I made an example for you to watch.

We will keep using grit until we understand why we are doing the problems this way!

The Steps to Subtraction

Tonight I took a few minutes to film the steps that we are teaching when subtracting.  You may be asking, "Why are we doing so many steps when my student knows the math fact 16-8=8?"  We are setting the foundation for working with bigger numbers.  If students can see the pattern of subtracting from the tens (if we don't have enough ones) or the ones (if there are more ones than we are subtracting), they can apply it quickly to bigger numbers by just adding in the extra groups of 10.

Students only need to have an understanding of numbers to 10!

I told the kids today, "THIS IS HARD WORK!"  We are stretching our brains to work through the problem.  Please encourage your student to dig deep and use their grit - I promise the pay off will be BIG!

What is SIngapore MAth

As different as it looks to you...I really believe the pay off will be BIG!!! We finished up our unit on adding numbers to 20 last week and moved on subtraction.  I though you might find it helpful to see one of the kids walk through the process.  Thanks Luc for being our model.  I will try to do this for the ways we learned to add.

When students have a solid understanding of number concepts they can manipulate numbers.  The pay off will be big, when they see that bigger numbers just have more groups of 10!

Paw Power...SELF CONTROL

Today starts... Paw Power. Students that show the character trait of the week, are recognized with a paw sticker and a note on the outside of the class door. 

For the next few weeks we are working on showing self control. Today we practiced using self control with bubbles. I blew bubbles while students practiced waiting before popping them. 

Be sure to ask your student to tell you what self control looks like!

Happy Brain Break!

Did you know that everyday, between writing and reading, we do a brain break?  Brain Breaks are a 3-5 minute exercise that helps us get wiggles out, relax from thinking so hard, stretch and be creative!  Sometimes we play a game like Simon Says or Six Dots (that is a class favorite - ask your student to share how we play), other times we do an exercise from Ready Bodies Learning Mind (my favorite way to build brain power), and then other times we just get crazy with a brain break from you tube (a class favorite is Ants in My Pants - Google it!).

On Wednesday we created our own.  It was my oldest son's birthday, so we quickly made a little video to wish him a happy day!  Needless to say, he loved it!

It's been a great week back...I LOVE the Spring, magic happens...stay tuned!