Decathlon Done!

Ten days of school in the books! Today we enjoyed the last event in our decathlon challenge, a series of ten daily teambuilding activities. This week's Project Block included a dice game, Scattergories, and an addition trick. We finished with a ten-station rotation and celebrated our teamwork over the past two weeks.  We even calculated that there were a total of 6,500 exercises completed throughout the SBLC for Decathlon Day 10!

We also made our first visit to the library and enjoyed some bonus independent reading time. Hooray!

We are building our reading community by discussing wonderful books! Mrs. Forrest is conferencing individually with us to adjust our Independent Books. It's so exciting when we find a great match and we are completely lost in our character's world.

In reading, you as a parent can:
*ask questions about the character's journey
*listen in -- if they are struggling with more than 5 words on a page, encourage them to meet with Mrs. Forrest
*Be curious about them as a reader -- watch as they read -- what makes them tick? Are they still figuring that out? Share what you enjoy as a reader yourself.

As mathematicians, we are exploring place value.  Your students are creating place value charts and noticing patterns to our number system.  We're also practicing how to read and compare big numbers. You can ask your kiddo to read multi-digit numbers around town this weekend.  You also might enjoy a game of Digit Place at home together. 

SBLC scientists have spent the week learning from experts in various fields. We turned to these professionals to help us think about how scientists raise questions and seek answers about the world around them. We traveled to space with Mae Jemison, explored the ocean with Sylvia Earle, questioned things big and small with Albert Einstein, and made BIG discoveries about elephants in Africa with Caitlin O'Connell.

We noticed that all of the scientists we studied questioned how things worked. When they were young scientists like us, they spent time outside observing plants and animals. Getting some fresh air is a great way to stimulate scientific thinking. Some great questions to ask your budding scientist are: 

"What do you observe?"

"Does it remind you of anything?" 

"Do you notice any patterns?"

Thanks for such a wonderful turnout at Back to School Night! We know that was a lot to digest, and we were a bit rushed at the end.

A few highlights to review:
*engage your student by using words that notice and then positively reinforce the effort and strategies that create successful problem solving

*we will support and scaffold -- if you see "withdrawals" or a note in the planner, your child should know/be able to tell you why. If we contact you, it will be about patterns of behavior we have observed. Prior to a note, there will have been many reminders, positive redirections, and opportunities to make good choices

*use "learning habits" instead of the word "homework"

We will be posting other "touchpoints" all year long here in the blog that will help us create consistencies and clear communication, so make sure you "subscribe" via email to make sure you don't miss any postings.

Happy Three-Day Weekend!
Team SBLC