Monday, December 12

 Hi parents,

We had a pretty great day today. In the morning, we met with our buddies and started working on our AARCS Dog & and Cat Treat charity project. Some students helped with mixing ingredients, while others worked on posters to promote the fundraiser. 

When we got back to class, we talked about the -able suffix, and brainstormed examples of words that contain it. The class practiced their spelling words.

We did a very open-ended journal writing task today in which the students brainstormed a wide variety of topics to write about as an alternative to writing about their weekends.

In the afternoon, we did Daily LA and gym, and then learned the "Noodles and Bowls" multiplication strategy. We are officially starting to learn multiplication! The students already seem to have a pretty good handle on it - I'm wondering if being in Grade 2/3 split classes helped expose them to a lot of the concepts, even though they weren't explicitly learning it? 

Anyway - "Noodles and Bowls" is the most basic, reliable multiplication strategy I know of. Basically, you take an equation like ' 3 x 4 = ', draw three circles (bowls), then put four tallies (noodles) in each one, then count them all up. While not the most efficient approach to multiplying, it does create a very clear visual of the process, and helps students to understand what multiplication really is.

Over the course of the week we'll be introducing other strategies like skip-counting, repeated addition, and drawing arrays. Any practice you do at home will undoubtedly be helpful too. Learning times-tables is a good way to practice too, as long as students still understand the processes behind those tables.

The Winter Concert is on Thursday, at 6pm. If you need extra tickets, please email the office. If you will not be able to make it to the concert, please let me know and consider sending your tickets back for another family to use. :)

Have a nice night!

Zac