Elementary

2nd: Week of Dec 8

This week the Betas learned triple digit addition and subtraction with regrouping!! These are among the toughest skills we’ll tackle this year due to the number of steps involved. We’ll continue working to strengthen these skills all year, but having laid a strong foundation feels like quite an accomplishment. Book Clubs are wrapping up for the year! Flat Stanley has finished their first adventure and our Fly Guy girls are poised begin their third (and final) book from the Fly Guy series. Last but not least, our Ready Freddy group will continue with Yikes, Bikes! in the new year. In […]

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Elementary student works on paper at table at school with small classes.

K/1st: Week of Dec 8

What’s Around Me? We traveled North along the Appalachian Trail to meet the First Nation people who blazed it! We explored the Northeast Woodlands Region of the United States. The lands of deciduous forests, rivers, and the Great Lakes are rich with natural resources. It was also the birthplace of one of the world’s oldest democracies. The beautiful book Hiawatha and the Peacemaker guided our discussions this week. It is the story of the Haudenosaunee (People of the Longhouse – they go by the name Iroquois too) comprised of five tribes, Cayuga, Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, and the Seneca, who agreed

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Kindergarteners sit together as teacher speaks at micro school.

K/1st: Week of Dec 1

What’s Around Me? This week, we traveled to the Southeastern region of North America. We learned that the mountains there are ancient and used to be taller than the Himalayas! What happened to them? We had some great ideas…some thought maybe they were so heavy, they sank back into the Earth’s crust! Others thought that animals may have worn them down with their endless climbing on them. And some hit the nail on the head: weathering broke them down, and water and wind carried away the detritus! Alphas knew that when rain falls, gravity makes the water flow downward, so

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Kindergarten student work on math at private school in Austin

3rd/4th: Week of Dec 1

Gammas had a super week! Our tadpoles are growing fast and showing the first signs of legs. One of our caterpillars emerged from its cocoon and on Thursday, we set it free! Observing and learning about nature firsthand in our classroom has been extremely exciting. We are looking forward to our field trip to the LadyBird Johnson Wildflower Center next Thursday! Math Gamma 2’s polished up their long division skills. We focused on remainders and what they represent in real life problems. Sometimes we can ignore the remainder, and other times the remainder calls for adding one more to the

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Elementary teacher shows students butterfly at STEM school in Austin.

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.

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student demonstrates work at project based school.