Wednesday, December 14

 Hi parents,

We had a pretty great day today. The students have been awesome with dealing with the unpredictable daily schedules. The concert rehearsals have interrupted the usual flow of our day, but it's definitely been worth it - they're sounding fantastic!

Today the class wrote in their journals about feeling nervous. They had the option to either write about a time they personally experienced feeling nervous, or about why people feel nervous in general, in paragraph form.

We had a math lesson on the Montessori Bead Chain material. You have probably noticed the bead chains if you've ever been in a Montessori classroom. They're very colourful and hang in a large cabinet. The bead chains are used mostly for skip-counting, which means they can also be helpful when learning multiplication! 

We talked about how skip-counting is another great strategy for multiplication. If you're looking for some introductory, confidence-booster multiplication problems to try at home, try anything involving 2's, 5's, or 10's. Most students are pretty confident counting by these numbers, so even a problem like 8 x 10 can be solved pretty easily. This is a great way to help students realize that a lot of multiplication can actually be done mentally, and they can save themselves time. 8 x 10 is very tedious to solve using noodles and bowls.

In the afternoon, we did two rounds of Daily LA. We also started working on a new classroom math game, called Dungeon Dice. It's like a beginner version of Dungeons and Dragons, but with student-created monsters, and even more opportunities for addition and multiplication practice.

The Winter Concert, and our AARCS fundraiser, are both tomorrow! Remember to bring $3 if you'd like to buy dog or cat treats. :)

Have a nice night,

Zac