Ashby Christian is a Reading Specialist and all-around amazing (and inspiring) reading teacher and she will join us every Thursday for an hour. We will be assuming your kids are reading at home, but we want to support your work and help you ensure solid progress across the year.
During these reading "check-ins" on Thursday mornings, Ashby will conduct a brief mini-lesson and/or confer individually with each child…
Read MoreGretchen Cion joins us as our Writing Specialist every Thursday for an hour. Mrs. Cion lives (and writes) in Houston so she'll be joining us via Google Hangouts. We are fortunate to have her collaboration, as she is someone who has an incredible gift for engaging every type of writer and helping each child reach to a high level. We are hoping that next week Mrs. Cion will tell us even more about the screenplay she has just started writing…
Read MoreOur first science unit will traverse some interesting terrain, as we will be investigating a series of questions related to using our resources wisely. Along the way, we will meet interesting scientists (including kids who have made meaningful contributions) and talk about how scientists think and interact with the world. We'll discuss energy, renewable v. non-renewable resources, Earth's systems, our impact on the Earth's systems, and we'll work through a design challenge in which we design windmills that can lift pennies. The design challenge process will introduce us to prototyping and iterating -- ideas that we will revisit often…
Read MoreThe first step in our math program is to build what we call "Number Reasoning." In order to do this, we will go back through major concepts and rebuild them so that the kids have a much deeper understanding that will promote stronger reasoning and "number sense." Additionally, the deeper conceptual understanding will build a connection between arithmetic and algebra, providing a strong foundation for algebraic thinking…
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