Beta

2nd: Week of Dec 1

The Betas are working so extremely hard in math! This week we cemented our addition with regrouping skills and introduced subtraction with regrouping!! We even applied our addition strategies to solve problems with 3 or 4 double digit addends! Though our double digit addition/subtraction math unit will formally end next week, these are skills we’ll continue honing all year in order to achieve mastery and automaticity. Book Club is rolling right along! Our clubs are into their second books of the quarter. The Fly Guy girls will soon be beginning their third (and final) book from the Fly Guy series. […]

2nd: Week of Dec 1 Read More »

student demonstrates work at project based school.

2nd: Week of Nov 10

This week in Math we wrapped up our current unit by devoting a day to solving story problems with missing addends. We took our unit test on Tuesday and celebrated Wednesday with a game day. On Thursday we took our pre-test for the next unit, which delves deeper into addition and subtraction by introducing regrouping and working with larger numbers. We finally started Book Club this week!! The Betas are rocking it, per usual. They seem to be really enjoying their books, whether they’re learning about wolves with our first-ever nonfiction book for book club, reading about Tooth Trouble while

2nd: Week of Nov 10 Read More »

Elementary student works at table in well lit room at micro school.

2nd: Week of Nov 3

This week in Math we learned many strategies for solving subtraction problems! Several carry over from our repertoire of addition strategies – such as fact families. We learned how to turn missing addend problems into subtraction problems and use tools like numberlines to help us find the difference between numbers. In phonics this week we learned exceptions to the closed syllable/short vowel rule. Specifically, we learned about word chunks: old, ost, olt, ild and ind. Let me tell you, these kids hit their Thursday dictation out of the park!! I am so proud of them. Our sight words were: both,

2nd: Week of Nov 3 Read More »

Elementary student creates lever at STEM school in Austin.

2nd: Week of Oct 27

This week in Math we focused on strategies that we can use when adding numbers. After reviewing “Friends of 10” and the zero rule, we moved on to doubles and doubles +1. The aim is twofold: for Betas to understand the relationships between numbers in fact families and to develop fact fluency with addition and subtraction facts to 20 so that they don’t have to exhaust their brainpower solving smaller problems. Soon, we’ll learn to solve more complex problems and it will be beneficial for students to be able to draw on their fact knowledge or use mental math. In

2nd: Week of Oct 27 Read More »

Three elementary students pose for halloween picture at school with small class sizes.

2nd: Week of Oct 20

We kicked off our Addition & Subtraction Unit by learning about (and using snap cubes to create models of) fact families! We reviewed the commutative property of addition – it does not matter which addend comes first. We then used our sum to create matching subtraction sentences within the same fact family. On Thursday we worked so hard flipping addition problems to create groups of ten. 10 is such a friendly number to work with that once we formed a group of ten, adding the leftovers to it is easy peasy. In phonics this week we studied possessives. We learned

2nd: Week of Oct 20 Read More »

Two elementary students display math work at STEM school.