Wednesday, October 10, 2018

First Grade Math News

Dear Families,
Parent teacher conferences are right around the corner.  Some teachers on Harmony already started!  Traditionally, teachers at ABS only meet with their own homeroom kids and families.  This means that if your child is in Ms. Crowley's or Mrs Benoit's homerooms, you never really have a chance to check in with me about math.  Of course, the teachers keep each other informed and updated and we work together to create a positive and encouraging learning environment here on Harmony, but you, as a parent, might not have the opportunity to meet with me personally.
I wanted to share some quick notes about what your child is working on in my first grade classroom.  I also wanted to let you know that if you are concerned about your child's math learning, or simply want to learn more about what we do, please do not hesitate to reach out to me via email, or check out my classroom blog, which is linked below (and also on the school web-site).  Checking the site and the blog will help you stay in touch with the math learning.

So far, first grade mathematicians have worked on ways in which we can create a classroom community of learners of mathematics. First grade mathematicians have also learned how we share math thinking in partnerships, how the habits of mind dispositions and private reasoning time influence our math understanding. Moreover, first grade mathematicians are also learning to become flexible thinkers. We practice showing a "growth mindset" in math class and strive to persevere and challenge ourselves to improve our mathematical understanding. First grade mathematicians have also learned that numbers can be organized in many different ways; one way is into decades. We practice the repeating sequence 0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9 to discover how this familiar number sequence helps us solve a variety of problems. The students are also learning about partners to ten, ten and more and how to use math tools to show their thinking. Lastly, the students are also exploring story problems, showing their mathematical understanding by using math tools, drawing representations and having a matching equation/number sentence.

I hope you have seen some of your child's math work come home already.  If you desire more math for home, please don't forget my wiki, which has multiple math sites and games linked to it.  
We started using Bedtime Math as well in our classroom.  Bedtime Math was integrated as a component to the library reading challenge this past summer.  It is an amazing math site that encourages children to see math in everyday life and situations.  It also encourages parental involvement and discussion and hopefully will spark more enthusiasm for math in your child.  The site has an amazing collection of books as well that can be purchased.  I already got some for my youngest child at home and share some with the kids at school!

Again, please stay connected and involved in your child's math learning.  Let me know if you have any concerns or questions.

Happy Math!

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