Comments+Week+of+April+4

Minutes from last week's meeting: We revised our overarching goal: //Students will take a self-confident approach to learning by being an active participant in their own learning in order to contribute to the// //entire learning community.// In examining the standards to create developmental story, it was noted that the meat of place value falls in the primary grades. K,1,2 has a huge job of nailing place value in order to lay that solid foundation. The critical componant is to model, model, model. Use of manipulatives is crucial. The key factor is can it transfer to the abstract for deep understanding rather than shallow knowledge. Need for repitition reminds me of a Thinking Math quote about the ideas be shown in every possible way. Becky - you use that quote all the time. (Whitehall, I think).

Our new series moves rapidly through place value. Teachers find that there is not nearly enough repitition to cement learning. //I apologize for the lateness of these notes - issues getting on wiki.// //Diane L//

Here are minutes from today's meeting, April 6 As always, please comment with any thoughts.



Great summaries Diane and Becky. I'm tired again from just reading them. I wrote up on the board today "What is 90 tens less than 2,900" and a handful of my students said I was giving them a trick question because there weren't any tens in 2,900. AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH...and I though that was an easy one! The other students after (literally) picking me up off of the floor, gave a beautiful explanation about how many tens were, in fact, in 2,900. Work to do...how many hours 'til FCAT?! (HA HA)
 * ) Heather

I had a similar experience today in Kindergarten when one of my students had five blocks and I had them add five more. He started from the first number 1,2,3,etc. I think the more experience we give them the faster their light bulb will turn on or my famous saying the elevator has not reached the top floor. Reviewing the Singapore books, they review constantly, maybe review is the wrong word. Maybe reinforce, redirect, revise what the meaning of 10 objects are. I loved the many types of manipulative they used, especially stamps. Count on and remember it is all about the ten!!!!!! Suzanne