Happy New Year! It sounds like you all had wonderful vacations. Your children certainly appreciated their time and the things they had the chance to do. They were glad for the time outside their routine. They do, however, seem glad to be back in school, and, now that we are at the end of our first week of 2016, are back in the groove.

There is a lot going on in 3E. We are exploring maps, mapping and global geography. We are learning more about magnets and the scientific process. We are working with money in math and applying what we know about multiplying by 5’s and 10’s. On top of that we are reading and researching, writing and creating.

Money and Math

As you can see from the papers in the back of the communication folder, we have been working with money in math. We’ve been totaling amounts and learning how money is written and recorded. Some of the children have developed a strategy of working from largest to smallest and have worked in steps, first totaling bills and then coins, with the final step being putting the two together. These children are most successful. Other children are starting with the smallest unit and working to add on. It is easy to get confused. Others are working to total the amounts as though they are reading a book – top to bottom, left to right. This is a logical strategy, but not always easy to combine and remember. And still others are working to find known groupings to reduce the amount of items to be. Often use of this strategy misses amounts in the final total. Most children know the value of the coins, but are not always able to recognize them on paper.

If you have the opportunity, you may want to ask your child what his or her strategy is for finding the totals. You may want to recommend a more efficient strategy. Please be aware that your advice may or may not be taken. (We’ve talked about this in class too.) If you have a collection of coins and/or bills your child could total, the concrete experience would provide great practice.

Some of the problems the children have worked on this week have really stretched their logical thinking. They had to move between amounts of coins and values of coins. This flexibility in thinking is tricky. As you look at your child’s work you may see a range of understanding. Some of the children were able to juggle this transition, others were almost there and still others, were baffled by what to do to solve the problem. We will keep working with money problems for the next few weeks so the children have a chance to develop their understanding of this duality – 5 nickels = $.25, 17 dimes = $1.70 or 32 quarters = $8.00.

Magnets in Science

We have been exploring magnets and magnetism. The children have all worked with five different experiments. They have worked to answer the question: Can you make a magnet? They have explored how like poles repel and opposite poles attract. They have discovered that magnetic fields can move through liquids and solids. They have tested the strengths of different types of magnets. And they have made magnetic chains. It is great fun to work with magnets and to explore magnets of different strengths. We have learned some can snap together with a pinch. We have learned that some are drawn together so quickly they actually break.

Our next task is to discover how magnetic fields work and influence our daily lives.

Maps and Global Geography

We have been drawing maps of our classroom and exploring the concept of bird’s eye view. It is interesting to see how the children try to take the perspective of someone “velcroed” to our classroom ceiling. Each child’s map shows the things s/he is oriented to in our classroom. A few of the finished maps are on the blog. All maps have titles, symbols, labels, a key, a compass rose and a scale. As we’ve tried to make sure our maps have those elements, we’ve met with varying degrees of success.

Most of the children have moved from researching their continents to their countries. The goal of this project is to gain greater awareness of both the differences and the similarities found in living around our world. One of the great challenges of this project is that resources are either quite simple or quite difficult. There are very few that are just right. The resources we have require the children to do a lot of inferencing. They have to draw logical conclusions based on their experiences. They are, after all, only 8 and 9. It is challenging to understand how living in Congo or Argentina or Scotland is different or the same from living here. Some of the pictures look just like here and some look VERY different. Again, if you have time to sit with your child and explore an atlas or online site about his or her “place in the world”, that would be great. Reading together and stopping to see what is understood or imagined would be something they would appreciate. We are doing thin in the classroom too – but one to seventeen means quite a bit of waiting. There is a site on the eboard – Culture Grams – that the children are aware of. Only some have had the opportunity to explore it you’d find that helpful at home.

As always, when I suggest things to do at home – please follow your child’s lead. If they want nothing to do with it, that is fine. It is likely that choosing one small thing to explore is best. Spending a short amount of time with just one thing will likely leave your child feeling supported, as if home and school are connected and that his or her learning is important. Doing too much may make your child feel discouraged and as though she or he isn’t capable. It is a tricky balance. Thank you for all you do!

Bits and Pieces –

• We have begun Part 2 of Wildwood. We are beginning to see which characters are good and which are bad. This book is a complex fantasy full of amazing words. Talk to your child about the predictions they are making about how the action will unfold.
• Our S.E.L. focus has been on choices for self-control, social decision making and self-monitoring. We read The Three Questions and are hoping the lessons shared their can guide our choices in how we work and learn together.
• We have a challenge with Mr. Caron on Tuesday. Weather permitting it will be outside so children should come prepared.