Elementary

4th/5th: Week of 12/2

General News What a joy to be back in Gammaland after a lovely Thanksgiving break! Gammas hit the ground running on Monday with tons of energy and excitement! We are on a roll! We have our sweet Apollo on our minds and appreciate all the thoughtfulness and good cheer from Gamma families–thank you! ELA Update On Monday morning many Gammas came into class and went straight for the classroom library to pick out new books! It was very exciting to see them return to their classroom reading lives after break with such vigor and enthusiasm! We talked about how great […]

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Two boys work together at school with SEL.

K/1st: Week of 11/18

Indoor recess shenanigans This Week in Our Big Backyard… We discovered how trees are farms & communities. Trees build relationships with a variety of plants and animals. We learned that trees host other plants such as lichen and mosses. And that a whole host of creatures create and depend on the complex and diverse ecosystems in and around trees. Here in central Texas, mammals such as squirrels, opossums, foxes, deer, need the food and shelter trees provide. Tree frogs can live their entire lives in a tree using water that is caught in the cradle of branches. Reptiles such as

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Kindergarten student inspects object at private school.

2nd/3rd: Week of 11/18

Math Ms. Andrea’s math group began our new math unit! We did heaps of mental math, adding and subtracting two digit numbers by breaking apart the tens and ones in our heads. Then we did even more addition and subtraction by moving in all directions on a 120 chart. We played some exciting rounds of Mystery Number. After we solved them we checked each other’s work, as we do, and had a discussion about the importance of precision, particularly when solving multi-step problems, because one incorrect move will impede the accuracy of your entire answer. We brought out the place

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Second and third graders share Thanksgiving meal at project based school.

4th/5th: Week of 11/18

General News Have a wonderful Thanksgiving break! Don’t forget that Winter Faire is just around the corner–check your email for sign-up/details! ELA Update On Monday and Tuesday we worked on learning the difference between a simile and a metaphor, as well as the author’s purpose for using these literary devices in their writing. We worked through several examples of similes and metaphors and then went hunting in our genre study books for examples. Moving forward after Thanksgiving break we will start focusing on these kinds of literary devices as well as story mapping, character creation, and writing our own fiction

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Fifth grade student works on math problem at screen at micro school in Austin.

K/1st: Week of 11/11

Abundance: when you have so many things to share… This week in Our Big Backyard… TREES! TREES! TREES! We were all about the trees this week! Our Big Backyard at school has some great pecan trees planted in the early 1900s and across the street, we have examples of a native tree called a live oak. These are very different trees, but they still have the same parts. We went outside and sketched side-by-side portraits of each. We noticed these trees were shaped differently, in sizes, and colors. Everything in nature has a purpose – so we pondered, and inferred

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Kindergarten students work outside at part time school.