Mock Presidential Election

Today our school held a mock election for all students to vote for president (Mitt Romney or Barack Obama).  Students in each grade level brought their ID (scan card) to their precinct (voting location), cast their vote confidentially in a booth, and even received stickers for voting.  We look forward to the results being announced on Election Day tomorrow!

Political Season

All students at our school will be voting in a mock election on Monday.  When you discuss the upcoming election with your student, if you tell them who you are voting for, be sure to discuss why you are choosing that candidate.  What makes this person a good leader for our country?  In social studies, we have talked about how important it is to research, discuss, and make informed decisions before voting and not just making a choice because of what our friends or other people think.

Happy Birthday!

We hope this joyful student has a fun birthday on Sunday!

Subtraction: "Take Away" or "Take It Away!!!"

During a recent conversation with our students, I shared a few secrets.  At the beginning of the year, when we learning how to solve "complicated problems" (multi-step word problems), I told them that when I was in school, I thought math was OK, but it was never my favorite subject (though now I appreciate and understand math much more and *enjoy* the challenge of solving *elementary* math problems).  I also confessed that as a second and third grader, subtraction with regrouping was confusing and difficult for me, especially having to regroup numbers with zeros.  To this day, as an adult, when I need to subtract numbers quickly (Let's be honest...First, I look everywhere around me for things to write with or a calculator!), I often count up from the lower number to find the difference.  Say what?!

Most students are familiar with removal subtraction (take away) situations,

but struggle with comparison subtraction (How many more?  How many less?  Find the difference...).  Over the next couple weeks, we will focus on comparison subtraction problems during Math Workshop.  We will use both "counting up" and "subtracting back" strategies to compare numbers, or tell how far apart they are (their distance from each other/difference).

 Since last month, I have been sneaking these strategies into Calendar Math when we compare the number of days we've been in school to other numbers (How many days since day 9?  How many days until day 50?  100?):

and into an activity we did comparing football scores last week:

and then into other elements of Calendar Math such as when we look at the pictograph we've been making of the weather this month in Jacksonville, FL and Jacksonville, IL: How many more sunny days than partly cloudy days?  Even today, I was talking about how we're approaching the end of the month and will be taking our October Calendar Math assessment and picking new leaders soon: Today is October 23.  How many more days until our test on the 31st?  Comparison problems are everywhere!

Using both of these strategies together also nicely ties in how addition and subtraction are related (they are inverse, or opposite), as we're starting to see while practicing our basic fact families.

First Day of Second Quarter

Just a reminder from our Teachers of Tomorrow (TOTs):

Keep listening, following directions, respecting others, working hard, being responsible, earning good grades, and making good choices every day if applying to be a TOT at the end of the year is a goal you have set for yourself!

Red Ribbon Week

Coincidentally (I love it when that happens!)  our Second Step lesson this morning was Dealing with Peer Pressure.  We had some great discussion about when peer pressure is good (encouraging someone to try harder, make better choices, or do the right thing) and when it is bad (when someone tries to get you to say or do something you know is unsafe, unfair, or hurtful).  We came up with a plan for dealing with peer pressure:

To tie this lesson into Red Ribbon Week, we discussed how most likely, our peers (not strangers) will be the people who try to get us to use drugs or bully others and how difficult it can be to have courage and say no to our friends.  We practiced using assertive "I" statements to let people know what we think or want in a polite, strong way.  This often stops things from getting worse.  For example: "I'm sorry to hear that.  You're my friend, but my answer is still no."

We had a great turnout for Wear Red Day:

Our amazing PTA provided students with red wristbands today so we can express our commitment to stay drug and bully-free.  Students--make sure you wear your bracelet every day this week!

For homework tonight, your student will be creating a red (construction paper) ribbon listing the reasons s/he has for staying drug-free.  I gave a few examples in class today:

I stay drug-free so I can love my family and show my friends I care about them.

I stay drug-free so I can do things I enjoy like running.

I stay drug-free so I can think clearly and do my job.

I stay drug-free so I can feel and look my best.

A Belated Birthday!

I forgot to post this before the weekend, but we hope this great student had a fun birthday on Saturday!