The Lower Grades finished out our Qualities of Numbers block this past week. During this block, we explored the values of the numbers one through twelve through Grimm’s fairy tales, drawing, using gems and writing many addition sentences. The students’ ability to create addition equations blossomed by the end of the block! The students who are already adding and subtracting, used dice and larger numbers to practice and develop their skills and also showed great progress! We finished up this week focusing on place value to the hundreds place (and a quick visit to the thousands place too). Using beads, pipe cleaners, number flips and a bell, the students built numbers to 100 and back to zero one by one. This is an activity that let them see clearly the concept of grouping and re-grouping in the ones, tens and hundred place values.

We are again moving into a language block and will be spending the next two weeks working with word families (i.e. “at”- cat, mat, sat or “ai” rain, paint, train) and writing sentences incorporating these words. We will also be settling into our new space, The Dome. The classroom and supplies were moved in Friday (thank you Elexa for your help and use of your van!). It should be a great space for us and lets us stay a little more settled (no more cleaning up the entire room on Fridays 😉). Please remember, send your child with slippers with rubber soles, rainboots and raingear. They will benefit having boots with them daily. We will be in and out of the building at various times during the day. Boots will help them transition on the wet days easily and comfortably. The Lower Grades has their own boot bin to make storing them easier. We are also using the shed net to the dome for hanging backpacks and coats. It should all work out nicely.

Warmly,

Ki Melissa