Beta

2nd/3rd: Week of 11/11

Math – Ms. Andrea’s math group wrapped up Unit 3 by reviewing subtraction strategies and solving story problems with an unknown number at the beginning. Unit 4, More Addition and Subtraction, starts Monday! We will be doing LOTS of vertical math with regrouping! Ms. Kelly’s math group jumped into our new unit- Multiplication and Division! We began with a discussion about what multiplication actually is. It’s repeated addition! When we see the equation 3×5 we can read it as “3 groups of 5” or 5+5+5. This week the kids modeled how to read a multiplication equation and write it as […]

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Second grade student reads and writes at GT school in Austin.

2nd/3rd: Week of 11/4

Math – This week was chock-full of practicing math facts and playing math games, with a sprinkling of logic puzzles. The first year Betas learned to use a number line to help them subtract and reviewed subtraction strategies. The second year Betas did a great job of working together and supporting one another. Reading – Our book clubs are making progress, and not just in terms of page numbers! Groups are learning what it means to read together (much patience is built here), and to respectfully disagree with each other when discussing content. Book club really is a foundational piece

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Second grade student focuses on math cards at private school in Austin.

2nd/3rd: Week of 10/28

Halloween Thank you all for making our spooky day so yummy and special! Math Ms. Andrea’s math group applied 3 strategies to solve triple addend problems: choose any two, make and 10, and make a double. These Betas have it down! We had a discussion about the = symbol, & its meaning. We also learned a new game using a die to roll for each addend and 10 frames to fill up to determine our sum. We reviewed our addition strategies like doubles, near doubles, counting on, zero facts, and making a 10. We’ve learned so many tricks to help

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Two second grade students read together at GT school.

2nd/3rd: Week of 10/21

Math Ms. Andrea’s math group launched our 3rd unit – devoted entirely to addition and subtraction. For the rest of the year we’ll delve into adding and subtracting with larger numbers, learning strategies and utilizing regrouping skills. This week we focused on fact families, aka number bonds. Given a number (example: 13) we came up with 2 additional numbers to create a fact family (example: 7, 20): 13+7=20. We also learned a new name for our sum: Big Daddy. Subtraction sentences always start with our Big Daddy: 20-7=13 or 20-13=7, for the example above. We got comfortable detailing many fact

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Second grader works on writing at micro school in Austin.

2nd/3rd: Week of 9/30

Math – Ms. Andrea’s math group practiced skip counting by 100s (forwards, backwards and mentally),, compared SO many numbers! We used our <, > & = symbols, and practiced reading inequality sentences. . We built numbers in the hundreds and thousands using place value blocks and played a riveting game of I Have, Who Has matching place value block cards to cards with the same number written in standard form. Next we learned a new game in which we compared two numbers written in expanded form. Everyone agreed that it’s easier to compare numbers when they’re stretched out because you

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Second grade student holds reading cards at GT school in Austin.