Elementary

K/1st: Week of 10/28

This week in Our Big Backyard… We Alphas knew that Austin-soil depends on our native grasses and forbs to build it up, as well as to HOLD ON TO IT with its long root systems to prevent it from eroding. We knew that grasses produce seeds – and so do forbs – and in fact – that’s one of their big purpose in life – to reproduce! We remembered that when we went and collected the Lindheimer Muhly grass seed, the grass grew up and out like a fountain, with the seeds at the top. That’s because when it’s ready […]

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display of kindergarten curriculum on board at project based school.

2nd/3rd: Week of 10/28

Halloween Thank you all for making our spooky day so yummy and special! Math Ms. Andrea’s math group applied 3 strategies to solve triple addend problems: choose any two, make and 10, and make a double. These Betas have it down! We had a discussion about the = symbol, & its meaning. We also learned a new game using a die to roll for each addend and 10 frames to fill up to determine our sum. We reviewed our addition strategies like doubles, near doubles, counting on, zero facts, and making a 10. We’ve learned so many tricks to help

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Two second grade students read together at GT school.

4th/5th: Week of 10/28

General News ELA Update This week in ELA was a blast! The enthusiasm they have shown for the new genre study has surprised and delighted their ELA teacher! Gamma’s were impressed with the reorganization of the classroom library and it piqued their interest anew for self-selecting books. We heard a lot of casual conversation in the mornings discussing books! On Monday we went over the new homework and found out who will be in our book clubs for this first round of books and they self-selected books from the library. Ms. Ansley told them it is a-okay to “judge a

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Two fourth grade students work on geography at private school in Austin.

K/1st: Week of 10/21

This week in Our Big Backyard… We began with the Blackland Prairie imagining the sea of native grasses that grew in this area we now know as Austin. We took a look at how tall the grass stood from 3’-10’…taller than most of us (we measured). But what was astounding is that their roots reach down 10 or more feet (we measure that too!) to create an amazing interweaving of roots. We learned that grasses and their roots were and are what keeps the soil in place. Native grasses created soil so rich it was black and full of minerals,

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Kindergarten student displays what she found outdoors at STEM school in Austin.

2nd/3rd: Week of 10/21

Math Ms. Andrea’s math group launched our 3rd unit – devoted entirely to addition and subtraction. For the rest of the year we’ll delve into adding and subtracting with larger numbers, learning strategies and utilizing regrouping skills. This week we focused on fact families, aka number bonds. Given a number (example: 13) we came up with 2 additional numbers to create a fact family (example: 7, 20): 13+7=20. We also learned a new name for our sum: Big Daddy. Subtraction sentences always start with our Big Daddy: 20-7=13 or 20-13=7, for the example above. We got comfortable detailing many fact

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Second grader works on writing at micro school in Austin.