Dear Parents- It's adventure day week here in J3T and that means lots of excitement in the children. As a reminder, on Wednesday, we will leave at 8:30 a.m. sharp, so it is important that everyone is here by 8:20 for prep time. Please remember to send the children to school in their sport's day shirts with sunblock applied, and wearing long, light-weight trousers to help protect against ticks. We are stressing the importance of a nutritious lunch/snack for the day. I will take many pictures, and look forward to sharing stories about our exciting day! In addition to great adventures, we also have great learning happening in the classroom! Here is a snapshot of what's on in J3T. MATH: We are continuing to develop an understanding of the concept of division. The children are making many wonderful and exciting connections. For instance, on Friday they noticed the similarity in the obelus, the symbol used for short division, and the vinculum, (meaning to bond) the line used in fractions. This led to some "AHA!" moments for some children about the relationship between the numerator and denominator in fractions, and what they represent. I was also amazed by some of the questions that came up, such as: "Why would they use the vinculum in subtraction, too? Is it all just the same symbol flipped around to tell you to do different bondings with numbers?" This week, the children are working to understand the relationships between fact families in multiplication and division. Because I know that children will grasp a concept when they get to build an understanding in a wide range of ways, today we worked a bit on "story building," in addition to practicing the skills. To build a story around division (and to take away the mystery) we talked about the developmental stages of understanding math, and how these stages are tied to the way the brain grows. I shared that as young children, they needed concrete examples to build an understanding of representing number and counting, and then they could move to representing number abstractly with symbols, moving to adding, which is a shortcut for counting. Then they could subtract, which was a way of undoing what they did when they added. We talked about how multiplication is a shortcut for adding (and therefore a shortcut for counting), and division is a way to "undo" the work done when multiplying. I love the moments when the children finally "get it," and today we had many "OH MY GOSH! THAT IS SO COOL!" and "I Get it!" and "WOW! I love knowing why you teach things a certain way!" They had a lot of fun then with the fact families between multiplication and division. Parents, you may find this article exciting, I know I did when I read it! LITERACY: We are continuing our creative writing pieces, now with a focus on paragraphing and writing with dialogue. If you read aloud with your child, pointing out the way dialogue is written and paragraphs are formed will help to build an understanding of these challenging tasks. SOCIAL EMOTIONAL LEARNING: To continue with last week's lesson on mindset, this week the children will practice more strategies for "flipping the script," finding ways to neutralize any teasing comments from others in an effective way so that we do not take someone else's teasing to heart. On another note, some of the the children are going through the developmental stages that tweens go through. For the children, this could mean new (first) crushes, developing bodies that for some leads to a new clumsiness and changes in body chemistry. The kids have been talking about body changes, and I can tell that they have some questions. Today I overheard: "SMELL MY PITS! They smell differently!" I share this as a heads up that if your child hasn't shared any of this with you, it might be on their minds! It is a good time to also talk about hygiene practices for the changing body. The American Girls' Series has a great book for girls called The Care and Keeping of You that helps to facilitate these conversations, and for boys, The Boy's Bodies Book is said to be the boy's version of the American Girls' Series. Dates to Remember:
That's it from me! Have a great week- Sincerely, Ms. Erin M. Threlfall
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SnapshotsA peek at life inside of J3T , curated by Ms. Erin M. Threlfall Archives
June 2016
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