Hello everyone! We have been working on learning how to tell time the last few weeks, and I wanted to update you on what I have noticed, along with some ideas on how to support students at home. There seems to be an incredibly wide range of knowledge on how the clock works. Some students already fully understand how to tell time to the minute, whereas others are still learning about the hour hand. This is normal, and to be expected for our set up. I would like to recommend that you give your student a short assessment at home, and begin building on their clock knowledge. Our end goal is that 1st graders should be able to tell time to the half hour, and 2nd graders should be able to tell time to 5 minutes, along with understanding am and pm. Here is are some short assessments that you can give your child to learn more about how much they understand about the clock: If you have been following along with the Georgia State Unit, you have probably already done several time lessons. If not, here is a link to the Georgia State Unit, and I would recommend doing these lessons: 1st Grade- It’s Time (Parts 1,2,3) Time for Bed 2nd Grade- Building a Number Line Clock Missed Bedtime Other ideas for building students understanding of the clock: Get the child an analog watch Do this to one of your clocks at home: Have the student keep a schedule during homeschooling, and refer to the clock in order to stay on schedule.
The more practice students get, the more the clock starts to make sense to them! Good luck, and please reach out if you need more resources! Robin Hello Everyone! I wanted to take a minute to talk about one of the most common math questions that I get from 2nd grade parents: How do I help support students when they are learning about subtraction with regrouping. Subtraction with regrouping (for instance 72-35= or 241-98=) is one of the more difficult types of problems that students in this age group work on. It can be extremely difficult to watch students struggle with this problem type, and it can be very tempting to teach them the stacking way (traditional algorithm) of solving this problem type. The problem is, when you show them the stacking way at a young age, they often struggle to build a conceptual understanding of what is happening when you solve a subtraction with regrouping problem. I want to strongly encourage you to hold off on teaching them the stacking trick for solving subtraction problems, and instead let them solve the problems using their own strategies. This may look like the student using base ten blocks, drawing pictures, or breaking the numbers apart. I completely understand that it can look very inefficient, and it can be difficult for them to get an accurate answer using these methods. Even though it can look cumbersome, the work that they are doing is helping them build a deeper conceptual understanding of what is happening with the numbers in this type of problem. Providing students with base ten blocks is one of the best supports you can offer, as it shows them how to build groups of 10 and also break apart 10’s into ones. They are a great investment to make if your student is working on this problem type. You can also print out these paper versions: I want to offer this chapter from one of Van de Walle’s books, as a helpful resource. He does a much more eloquent job of making the argument against traditional algorithms, and for invented strategies. He also walks you through the different strategies that students will use in place of the traditional algorithms and why these are important. Please give it a read, especially if this is something you are struggling with at home. I am always happy to talk math with any parent, so please just reach out if you are feeling stuck :)
Welcome Back! I am so happy to be back in the classroom with your kids! We have had a nice week getting back into the swing of things and are going to dive into the Rock Opera Project today (Thursday/ Friday) I wanted to take a minute to talk about the project and give you some ideas on how to extend the project at home. First, I uploaded the project document onto the “Projects” tab on this website, so if you didn’t get a chance to read it when I sent it out last week, please take a minute to read it now. In a lot of ways, this is going to be a big project. We will be tackling a lot of content around transportation and its effect on the city of Los Angles, along with music and performance content to support the creation of a Rock Opera. I am excited to dive into these rich areas with your kids! There are numerous opportunities for field trips that would be great extensions to this project. One of the room parents is working on organizing a group field trip to the Natural History Museum to see the exhibit “Becoming LA.” I am hoping to get as many families to go as possible, as this looks like a great overview of the history of Los Angeles. I wanted to give you a list of other possible field trip ideas in case you are looking to add some adventures to your home learning this semester! Union Station LAX A metro station/ a ride on the metro Traveltown railroad museum in Griffith Park Maritime Museum Museum of Flying Santa Monica Airport Autry Museum Space X? Grammy Museum Any concert/ performance (would be neat to try and interview the performers!) Open mic night (a lot of coffee shops have these on week nights) Music stores (go in and ask if your student can count the different types of instruments/ graph them when you get home) One parent had the interesting idea of challenging her kid to try as many modes of transportation as possible! There are so many ways to build on this project! You could choose to extend the music and performance aspect of the project, or the LA and transportation aspect, whichever sounds fun and inspiring! This week in class we are going to start discussing “what is a song?” I want to build up their music vocabulary, so we will begin talking about rhythm, harmony, melody, lyrics, and dynamics. We will also start gathering questions that we have about Los Angeles transportation, and start an exploration of all of the different modes of transportation. Please let me know if you go on a particularly awesome field trip, so I can get the info out to other parents! Announcements: Monday, January 18th- Martin Luther King Day, No school, homeschool or enrichement Monday, January 25th- 2nd Semester Enrichement starts Thursday/ Friday January 28th, 29th- Pizza and Spirit Day |
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February 2017
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