Monday, May 16

 Hi parents,

We had a nice Monday!

In the morning, the students wrote in their journals. We once again revisited the fairy tale themed apporach to writing, and I challenged the class to use a cliche ending for their journal writing ("and I lived happily ever after", etc.) We talked about how when we're writing stories, it's better to have a boring, predictable ending, than to have no ending at all. And often, we can use phrases like "happily ever after" or "once upon a time" as place holders until we replace them with something better in the editing phase.

We visited the library, as we do every Monday, and had a picnic outside. The Grade 2 students learned how to use the Stamp Game. It is a material that functions basically the same way as the golden beads, but is a bit more abstract as it uses 'stamps' to represent '1s', '10's', and '100's' instead of the actual corresponding quantities of beads. 

The Stamp Game is somewhat deceptively named, as it only a 'game' by Montessori standards which were established about 100 years ago, and so it is only slightly more fun than playing with a calculator. 

The Stamp Game

In the afternoon, we continued to work on our Peace Train art. We read the first chapter of The Secrets of Droon, and talked about onomatopeia words. We also practiced spelling.

Have a nice night!

Zac