Friday, September 18

 Hi parents,

Today Room 3 was taught by Ms. Suzee as a guest teacher, as I was doing literacy / numeracy assessment stuff in the library. The students met with their buddies and helped them with patterns outside, using chalk on the compound. They had a lot of work time to finish up their short stories and other work from earlier in the week. They also worked on some 'math mystery' problems, which are fun, algebra-type problems in which pictures are used to represent numbers. We didn't do this exact problem today but we did do similar ones.

I've found the literacy and numeracy screener assessments to be really interesting and informative. If there's one thing I could suggest to parents, its that a little bit of math practice every day goes a long way. Addition, Subtraction, Multiplication, and Division Flashcards are a great way to build confidence and fact fluency. This is the kind of thing that is difficult for me to consistently teach at school, as it works best as a 1-on-1 activity, but even just five minutes a day at home can make a huge difference. In class we will use the Montessori materials to make sure students have a deeper understanding of math concepts, but regular, repeated practice is important too. 

Stay tuned for next week's spelling words, and have a nice night!

Zac