I always like to start the year with strengthening our understanding of numbers and patterns in math. I have a large collection of games, dice and other manipulatives to help students demonstrate this concept at a variety of different levels. This is a crucial concept that builds into all aspects of math later on, especially when doing computation with larger numbers. Many of my activities are in game form, so you won't see much "paperwork" done in class on it. I connect your child's homework to whatever skill we practiced that day at the level that they are performing at.
This week we also went on our first field experience to the Tacoma Nature Center. We hiked around Snake Lake, observing nature and making connections between what we see, and who may be living in this natural habitat. If gave the students an opportunity to use observation skills to describe what they see/hear/smell, etc. and draw conclusions based on that information. We have been working on that in our science lessons as we have been describing liquids and solids.
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| AE is using the place value dice to roll an expanded number (100+30+5) to "shrink" it into standard form (135). I have dice that go all the way to 100,000. It's always a class favorite |
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| Using a variety of strategies, the students had to put the 100 chart together. Some used counting to find missing numbers, while others noticed patterns in the 100 chart to put their puzzle together. |
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| Our hike at Snake Lake. Our guide did an outstanding job getting the students to use their senses to observe this natural habitat. |
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| These boys were looking at the fungus on the tree when they noticed a centipede walking around it. |
