Hello, Second and Third Grade Families,

Last week, we concluded our cookie story and continued to practice addition and subtraction with place value. The children enjoyed playing a game called “Bank,” where they used place value blocks to turn in groups of ones for tens, tens for hundreds, and hundreds for thousands. Watching them each have their eureka moments as they became more confident regrouping was a joy. All of the children are feeling confident in their abilities to add and subtract larger digits without regrouping. They are slowly strengthening their understanding of numbers so they will become more fluent in regrouping problems.

On Tuesday afternoon, the children were delighted to see a group of river otters swimming in the pond. They again saw the otters on Wednesday morning as they returned from the morning circle. Of course, the children wanted to learn all about river otters, so we focused our nature books on their habitat and diet on Thursday afternoon.

The children discovered their beautiful pumpkin houses had become food for groups of ants and chipmunks. Each child took a turn smashing their own house. The Second Graders then brought the pumpkins to the farm for compost.

This week, we will shift our focus away from place value and onto multiplication and division facts. We will work our way through some of the “trickier” tables, such as the 7s, 8s, and 12s, as well as review the tables the children already feel confident in. This will be the final week of this Math Block before we move into our next reading block.

Announcements and reminders:

With the return of warmer weather comes the unfortunate return of mosquitos. Please check that your child has bug spray every morning.
Please send your child dressed in layers.
Lantern Walk will be held on November 6th at 6:00 p.m. We look forward to seeing you all there!

Warm regards,

Meredith