“When I was 5 years old, my mother always told me that happiness was the key to life. When I went to school, they asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I wrote down ‘happy’. They told me I didn’t understand the assignment, and I told them they didn’t understand life.”
― John Lennon
Dear Community,
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One of the great benefits of our learning environment here at TKG is that children have the opportunity to learn in multi-age groups, where the opportunity to be the expert and the novice is always shifting through the interaction with a diverse group of peers. As we watch children in our classrooms, we take note of their cognitive, social-emotional, and physical developmental level. At the December parent meeting, we offered Yardsticks as a resource for understanding the developmental milestones at each age level. We know it is not a linear process across the board either within or between children so we take the information as a touch point and then look at the human in front of us. We think about developmental levels in order to help us match them with learning experiences that will most greatly benefit them. At the December parent meeting, we also talked about the zone of proximal development. The zone of proximal development (ZPD) is the space beyond what a student can do on their own and future knowledge.
![]() So this week, for both classrooms, we enhanced our schedules that are already filled with opportunities for connection and creativity, play and pondering, to now include daily opportunities to meet in small, differentiated groups to focus on math. We thought about the school as a whole unit, widening even farther the value of a mixed-aged setting by having students mix from the upstairs and downstairs. Both classrooms now have a common time, from 12-12:30 where each teacher has a small number of students, grouped in order to best match their zone of proximal development. This is how we zoned this week:
Michelle worked with D, L, J, and T making clocks. Applying their understanding of clocks, skip counting by 5s, and fine motor skills they created their own clocks and are beginning to understand that the hour hand is read first, and then minutes. Yvette and Elle worked with M, A, H, S, and A(T on Thursday) using the 100s chart and open number line to quickly jump 10 more, 10 less, 1 more, 1 less. This foundational understanding supported them in solving two digit addition problems and word problems. Lena worked with M, B and T on number sense of numbers into the millions by playing a modified version of the card game War where you play 3 cards at a time. Jacks are worth 100, Queen’s 1000, Kings 10,0000, Aces 100,000 and Jokers 1 million. This group also worked on division. Hopefully, in the description of the experiences your child/children had this week during this differentiated math time, it is clear that skills-based does not have to mean boring or tedious, just focused and intentional. For the time being, the groups will stay the same while each teacher and each child settles into the new schedule and students can have an opportunity to dive into concepts like addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. In addition to these skill building opportunities, this week was full of rich project-based experiences. Some highlights:
As one of our parents posted on Facebook this week, we do real-life learning here! Looking forward to sharing more of it here in this space. LV and family are bringing community snack this week!
Love,
Lena & Michelle
CHANNELS OF COMMUNICATION
Lena Garcia, School Builder/7 to 9 Classroom Michelle Goldbach-Johnson, Founding Teacher/5 to 7 Classroom Yvette Fenton, Co-Teacher, 5 to 7 Classroom Elle Schwarz, Co-Teacher, 7 to 9 Classroom Dawn Smith, Co-Teacher, 5 to 7 Classroom Saundi Williams, 5 to 7 Room Parent Erin Levin, 7 to 9 Room Parent Shutterfly Info Site: photos, contact information, announcements Follow us on Facebook/Twitter/Instagram/Pintrest/Youtube |
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Resource Of The Week – Whole Child & FamilyGetting Your Child Out the Door In the Morning Now that we’re back in school, you must be settling in to the routine – and it is still challenging right?! Here are some timely reminders: Wouldn’t it be amazing if all parents could have flextime, so there’s more time in the morning for small humans to have a more humane start to their day? But that’s not possible for many families. So what’s the answer? Re-frame your idea of the morning routine. What if your main job was to connect emotionally? That way, your child would have a genuinely “full cup.” Not only would he be more ready to cooperate with you, he’d be more able to rise to the developmental challenges of his day. How? 1. Get everyone to bed as early as possible. Read all the details at AhaParenting! |