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Our Work as Learners

We've shown not only emotional agility, but flexibility this week! A short week, picture day, counselor visits...we've had quite a few schedule changes. Students and teachers alike are grateful too, that we had a few days at the end of the week to get out and enjoy the cooler temperatures!



On Friday, we enjoyed our first Breakfast and the Paper. It's a unique way to build community by eating together and reading. We know that it creates a warm memory too.





SBLC readers have been investing into Salva and Nya's lives. We've been surprised by the difficulties they have endured/faced...and that has caused us to have a new awareness of how others' experiences are so different than ours. We've practiced pausing in different ways to consider the text more deeply. That may mean jotting a note or or sketching an image. We are training ourselves to think past surface level understanding. Readers don't merely consume text, they absorb it and allow themselves to be changed by it.

In writing, we have continued to build our stamina to compose for longer periods of time. We are also using our editing skills to go back and check work (in every subject) for accuracy.

Our nonfiction study continues with a better understanding of The Branches of Government. Our last look is at Congress. It's fascinating to discover how detailed the Founding Fathers were in designing a government so different than the monarchy in England. We also looked at the written structure of the article and were excited to make the connection between it and our expository writing! Seeing our reading from a writer's eye helps us better understand how information is presented to us, and helps us understand the article itself better!

As mathematicians, we have been working on a deeper understanding of multiplication. Through number talks and other strategies, students are connecting our previous rectangle investigations to other visual representations. It's been exciting to see students developing their own strategies for fact mastery from the multiples of 2 to the multiples of 4. We're also comparing with strategies from The Best of Times by Greg Tang. It's a helpful resource whether you're building number sense and connecting multiplication to addition or building fluency with multiplication/division facts.

Science and math were integrated this week as we studied mass. We know that mass is the amount of matter in an object and that it's different from weight. The triple beam balances were helpful tools as we first estimated, then carefully measured. Our work culminated in an opportunity to convert grams to milligrams. This led to big place value discussions and gratitude for multiplication in action!

Enjoy the weekend!
Jen and Jewellyn





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