Monday, October 5

 Hi parents,

We had an awesome Monday today! 

In the morning, we did typical Monday activities. The students wrote about their weekends, learned this week's spelling words, and reviewed our words from last week. We went for a "Nature Walk" around the block nearest to the school, and the students were respectful and safe the entire time. We saw a family of deer in somebody's front yard! We watched them eat for a few minutes. We talked about how you can often tell if a deer is male or female based on whether or not it has antlers.

I wish I had taken a picture today!

We watched a Canada Crew video about the significance of Railroads and Trains in Canada. We also watched two videos about the first Thanksgiving in America. The story of the first Canadian Thanksgiving is very similar to America's, but it's much harder to find resources about, so I stepped in a few times to explain how Canada's story is different.

In the afternoon, we did a Number Spotlight on 17. I think the class is starting to grasp the idea of 'teen numbers' being a group of ten and some extra ones. It's really helpful for kids to build this understanding because it helps them establish 10 as a "friendly number". That in turn will make it easier for them to solve mental math problems, among other things.

If you are looking for a simple, yet effective way to help your child develop their early math skills, I recommend challenging your child to say the number sequence up to 20, and write down each number as they go. Even doing this once each night for a week will make a huge difference. When it comes to math, practice really does make perfect, and there is no way to become comfortable with numbers without spending lots of time working with them. :)

Have a nice night!

Zac

The "Fall Page" from Last Week. Some students are still working on this.