Fourth graders continued their exploration of division. I have three different groups working on a variety of activities. One group is working on solving word problems using variables, while another group is practicing partial quotient division, and the last group learned how to do partial quotient division today. One of the great things about having a small group is that it’s easy to hit kids where they are and give them exactly what they need. Each group will work with word problems before we’re done, though the complexity of the word problems will vary according to readiness.
Third grade reading went back to Greek myths where they read about Hera today. They’re mostly pretty grossed out by Zeus marrying his sister, but once they were able to move past that, I can say that their summaries are getting better, though I haven’t told them that. Writing a summary is difficult and requires that students can sort through the main idea and its details. There are still too many details being added to summaries, but there’s a definitely improvement.
Second grade went back to broken calculators. Students are really good at coming up with a single strategy that works, that they then apply over and over. I’m trying to get them to apply a variety of strategies, which is why we’ll spend some additional time on this. Today their goal was to make the numbers 13, 31, and 33 while with the numbers 1 and 3 broken.
This year, Charlottesville City Schools has implemented a new writing curriculum and I love it. From what I’ve seen the students and teachers love it (almost) as much as I do. If you haven’t had your conference yet, ask your child’s teacher about it! I have seen so much growth in their writing! We went back to writing Who Am I, but I made them start over and the difference is amazing. Rather than lists, I have paragraphs from most of them, with detail. I am really super excited by what they’ve written. If a student finished the who am I part, they were asked to write a paragraph describing their favorite place. Next up will be describing a problem they had and its solution. Students will take that and turn it into a story that has all of the major story elements in it.
