Elementary

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.

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.