Wednesday, October 16

Hi parents,

We had a great day today! The whole class earned tons of 'dojo points'. If every day was like today, they would all be dojo rich, and I'd be making many more trips to the dollar store.

In the morning, the students had Music, and then we did quiet reading, some math lessons, and Gym. We had a lot of work period time too, which is where the students really shone. It was amazing - I quickly went over the work period choices, sent the kids to work, and within one minute, everyone in the class was quietly working!

In the afternoon, we had Daily 5, and then we had a class discussion about board games. I showed the students some examples of 'classic' board games, and we talked about the similarities and differences between a variety of popular board games. The students noticed that most games involved dice, spinners, or some other way of deciding how far you move each turn. Some games, like Monopoly and Life, involved fake money, while other games, like Trouble, just involve jumping on other players pieces and ruining their nights.

The students wrote in their journals about their own favourite board games, card games, and video games.

Board Game Project!
The reason we're talking so much about games is that we're about to embark on our first big project of the year, in which the students will be creating their own Board Games! Playing (and inventing) board games is an excellent way to help children practice counting, and often even adding, if the game has two or more dice. I will also be challenging the students to incorporate other math / reading elements to their games. This could be as simple as saying "if you land on this special space, you have to solve a math problem from this stack of math cards." Or something like that.

If you could talk with your child tonight about what ideas they may have for a board game, that would be great! We'll be talking about it tomorrow in class, as the students start to plan out their games, but going into the discussion with a few ideas would definitely be helpful. I know Grade 1/2 students are incredibly creative, and I want to make sure their creativity shines through with this project!

Have a nice night,

Zac


Think Jumanji, but Math-ier