When We Grow Up

Our current Expedition is Financial Literacy.
We are learning about earning, spending, saving, and donating.
As we learn about earning, it's fun for us to think about what we want to be when we grow up and how much money we think we will make.  

Below is a 30 Hands presentation that includes each crew member's future job and salary!  This would be fun to look at with your child.

My Valentines

Every year I look forward to watching the crew pass out Valentines.  So precious! Check out the mustaches at the bottom!

Practicing being Math-ish

In a past post I wrote about teaching my children about being "math-ish".  This is highly important for them as they learn how to work out story problems.  I encourage them only to use tools and give it a go...not worrying about the "right answer" as much as at the process.

So I presented with this problem to work out.  I wanted them to be able to draw a picture and to be able to show their thinking.  

Wow.  I was impressed and so I decided to bump it up to something a bit more difficult.
I told them we were off to the animal shelter.  Inside were 10 cages and 2 dogs in each cage...how many dirty paws now?

Pretty awesome, don't you agree! 
This shows how we are becoming mathematicians who can figure out real life problems!  It was a thrilling lesson for me as their teacher!  

Creating a CO flag with our buddies

Learning Targets: 
1.  I can make eye contact and speak with an inside voice while communicating with my preschool buddy.
2.  I can problem solve and "go with the flow" with my crew mate while working with our preschooler.
3. I can teach the meaning of the colors on the CO flag.

World Class Outcome:  I can learn to be a good citizen in my classroom, school, and community.  

My heart just soars each time we go over to work with our preschool buddies.  It is such a precious time for my crew  as they learn to be patient teachers.  They amaze me with the way they show care, flexibility, and love. The preschool teachers tell us how much this means to them and to their children.

Patriotic Symbols

What are symbols? What does it mean to be patriotic?  What is a citizen?  What is citizenship?

These are just some of the questions that we are discussing in our 3 week study of Patriotic Symbols.  First graders LOVE learning about these symbols and we are having rich discussions about our country, it's birth, and the symbols that make us proud to be an American!

 Here are the standards and outcomes that we are meeting in this study: 
1.  Evaluate the roles, rights, and responsibilities of citizenship
2. Symbols, songs, holidays, traditions, places, and people help to provide identity for the community and nation.

 3.  Identify famous Americans from the past who have shown courageous leadership

 I hope you will take the time to discuss our daily learning about these symbols and important historical leaders.  The children were fascinated to learn about our 13 colonies and the changes in the flag from then till now.  

Ask your children to share some fun facts about these books!

Math-ish

I love books....they inspire me in amazing ways. 
If you read this book you most likely would not think about math at all...but I connected with it in a way that I felt could help me reach my budding 1st grade mathematicians.  Let me share my thoughts with you.

This book's main character, a small boy named Ramon, loves to draw.  He did his best for someone his age. He loved the process of creating.

And then the bad thing happened. Ramon's older brother laughed at his attempts and Ramon's love for drawing changed. 

Ramon decides to quit. But then the lovely thing happens.  His little sister takes him to her room where she has put up all of the drawings that he had thrown away.  She tells him that they are all very close to what he hoped that they would look like. They are "ish".

And Ramon's heart soars.  He sees them in a new light. He sees that his attempts were good enough. They were indeed "close" to perfect. He decides that he will continue to persevere. 

So you are thinking...what has this to do with math?
Well, I'll tell you.  I am working very hard to develop mathematicians.  Children who understand how numbers work and who realize that there are many ways to solve math problems. And that attempts and the struggles in getting there are just as important as the right answer.

I am calling it being "math-ish".  And the kids seemed to love this.  I read the book to them yesterday and today while solving number stories we practiced getting there any way we could and on our own timing.  I hope this will help all of my students stress less about getting the "right answer" in math.  
Persevering through problem solving and trying more than one way is what builds success in anything in life.  Let me know your thoughts about this post!

China Fieldwork 2014

Pacific Ocean Market: Learning about foods that are the same and different to what we see or eat in our daily lives.

 Kingsland Restaurant:  Trying out our chopsticks and being adventurous in trying new foods!