Math - Today we worked on Counting Collections. Students worked in pairs or trios to first estimate the number of kidney beans in their cup, then decide how to group the beans to most efficiently count them. Some chose 2s since that's easy to count by, but were quickly overwhelmed when counting the groups --- it was hard to keep track of which groups had already been counted as there were more than 100 beans in the cup. Most partnerships chose 5s or 10s, and a couple tried groups of 20. Tonight, students are asked to explain Counting Collections to a parent, and try their own at home --- they have a copy of the sheet in their agenda/planner. Some ideas for objects: Legos, Hot Wheels, Shopkins --- something you have a lot of. Something from your kitchen would also work, like a bag of elbow macaroni. DON'T GO OUT AND BUY SOMETHING! Just use something you have around the house.
Blue, White, Khaki - Great job, families, on the Keppel uniform! We're almost there! Remember, black does not count for navy blue, and gray does not count for khaki. Please try to avoid pictures/writing on clothing --- but any Keppel shirt of any color is perfect!
Heat Wave - We're forecast to have triple digits for the rest of the week. We're drinking lots of water and (necessarily) going to the bathroom more. This makes it even more important to "start out on empty" --- please remind your child to use the toilet just before leaving the house in the morning. Thanks!
Hurricane Harvey - Just as we followed and learned about the partial solar eclipse the first week of school, we are now following and learning about Hurricane Harvey. I subscribe to a service called Newsela, which takes articles from the press and (with permission) rewrites them to various reading levels. Usually the lowest reading level available is third grade, making it a great resource for our class. Tonight, part of your child's homework is to share the article about Hurricane Harvey and discuss what they know about hurricanes (we learned a bit about hurricanes on Friday in advance of the storm making landfall).