Elementary

2nd/3rd: Week of Sept 25

Math This week, Ms. Andrea’s math group practiced skip counting, compared LOTS of numbers, and practiced breaking #’s down into expanded form and putting them back together in standard form. We also played a Teacher vs Students version of Place Value War, 5 In A Row, and a lively fishing game with our hungry alligators (really the greater than & less than symbols). Ms. Kelly’s math group spent the majority of the week reviewing everything they have learned over the last six weeks. They went on a place value review math hunt , finding and answering questions around the room […]

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Student creates paper mache ant at small private school in Austin.

4th/5th: Week of Sept 25

General News Don’t forget to sign-up for parent conferences on Monday, October 16th. To prepare, we’d love to have you answer a quick survey to let us know what Gamma topics you’d most like to focus on during the conference. (We will be doing a LOT of talking that day and want to be sure we stay focused on your most valued topics!) Reading/Writing Update At the beginning of the week we spent time learning the important art of getting and giving feedback as writers. We talked about the essence of creating a positive feedback culture in the classroom and

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Students learn about chemistry by mixing chemicals in hands on progressive micro school.

K/1st: Week of Sept 18

What’s Inside Alphas THIS WEEK! Our Travel Buddy visits shared a wealth of knowledge of how to care for our circulatory systems… “Shhh…Nobody move a muscle!” This is how our unit on our Muscular systems started…but some of our involuntary muscles were moving anyway – without us even thinking about it. Jumping off of the information we learned about our circulatory system we talked about our busiest muscle – our hearts. We worked on feeling for our pulse in our neck or our wrists to count the beats per minute. We had our own PE circuit workout session with stations

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First grader displays science project at progressive micro school.

2nd/3rd: Sept 18

Math – This week, Ms. Andrea’s math group worked hard writing, reading, ordering and comparing numbers in the hundreds & thousands. We learned two new games and embraced a small group cooperative challenge that required us to sort and compare digits. Ms. Kelly’s math group loves being the teacher! Every day we warm up our math brains with a math challenge that the kids take ownership over, writing and talking through what they are doing on the board while the other kids watch or assist. Then we are ready to jump into the work! This week we practiced rounding numbers

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2nd grader stands proudly beside diorama he created at project based school.

4th/5th: Week of Sept 18

General News The week flew by again! The hands-on labs make theme so exciting, and we are seeing much cooperation and flexibility from the Gammas. During unstructured times (like lunch and recess) we’re working on helping Gammas practice ways to handle interpersonal conflict for small issues using strategies we discuss during morning meetings. Gammas have been very responsive to this work and have kept a growth mindset and collaborative spirit! Reading/Writing Update This week we created and anchor chart together to get a solid understanding of the key components of a biography and to make sure we have something to

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Fourth and fifth grade students made these dog bandanas for a charity project.