Thank you as always to our valued volunteers. We enjoyed good Mystery Readers, book swappers, great pizza lunch help and a full week with Mrs. Nagi - aren't we lucky! Thank you everyone! Mrs. Nagi will finish her placement next week, working Wednesday and Thursday with us means her 75 hours are complete and she will go back to her courses. Please join me in wishing her all the best as she continues her studies!
We wrapped up our 3D solids unit this week and are working on some simple addition. Your children brought home a number book this week which illustrates their fine motor progress as well as some basic numeracy skills. We have to understand quantity and be able to accurately count and represent numbers before we can progress to adding. Using manipulatives (coins, counters, blocks, pencils, fingers, anything the children can concretely hold to count) is always the way to begin until memory and ever increasing numeracy understanding takes over. Children are asked to explain their thinking in math, by using pictures, numbers and words so providing the correct answer is of course necessary but being able to explain how they arrived at that answer is equally as important. In class we hear things like ..." I know 5+1=6 because it's just one more and six comes after five" or "I know 50+50=100 because it's half so the two parts are equal" while someone else explains the same equation by saying "I know 5+5=10 so it's just the same with zeros on!" Both answers show good understanding of numeracy and sound reasoning not simply memorized answers and this is what we are looking for. Workers today, in all kinds of industries, need to be able to generalize and apply concepts, extrapolate thinking rather than simply memorize to be successful. The world changes too fast to teach all the answers these days, we embrace the learning process and teach risk taking and problem solving at all ages and stages! Try asking your child next time you are doing number work..."how did you know"...it's a great conversation starter!
Our week looks like this:
Monday - Reading Buddies AM
Tuesday - Mailbags, Day 4 LIB/IT, gym
Wednesday - Sharing Assembly 9:00, Day 5 LIB/IT AM, Mystery Reader PM
Thursday - Mailbags
Friday - No school, Good Friday
In the coming weeks we will be spending some time looking at the seasonal changes we're starting to see in our world and what nature is up to in the spring. We have the long weekend to enjoy Easter, Passover or whatever celebration is special to you and your family - in my house that means a whole lot of ham and scalloped potatoes to prepare and hopefully sunny weather to hike with the dogs in.
After the long weekend, Ms. Mcgee is hosting a "Mabel's Fables" book fair in the library. The format is quite dofferent than the Scholastic book fairs so be on the lookout for a more detailed email concerning how it will work. I don't have our assigned visit days yet but will let you know as soon as I do and library borrowing will probably be suspended for that week meaning we can return the old books but not take new ones.
Have a great week and happy holidays however you celebrate!
Ms.I.
