Which Coins do you need?

Hello Families!

Another busy, fun week.  Our new song is a tricky one, but also catchy.  The kids are up for the challenge. The animal project is beginning and many students have listed lots of descriptive words for their settings.  We have also continued the research of bees and the mystery aquatic creatures.

If any of you parents are available during the morning time, I would love some extra volunteers to help with our animal project.  The students are doing lots of research and we could use some support in reading the text, in a book or website, figuring out if it answers the questions we have and then taking notes in our own words.  This is a big, exciting project and if you think you can help, please email me!

To give the students as authentic experience as possible, I used some items I had bought for the class to set up a "store".  First we brainstormed about what we know about the coins we use in America.  The question of what coins work together to make a dollar made us realize there are so many possibilities.  The students decided that they'd like to keep calculating and showing their knowledge with this.  This work would make excellent homework! What ways can you think to make a dollar using coins?

Next the students were paired and I gave them each a quantity of money.  Their first task was to identify how much money they had. Then the pair could decide what purchase to make.  Some items cost more money than the partners had, so they had to team up with another student pair.  The groups had to figure out what amount they'd need and which coins were their change.  A few even were able to make a further purchase using combining their change with others'.  We checked in after the experience and the students felt it was exciting because it felt real.  This makes me want to suggest to you families to see if there are real life experiences you can offer your child about money, it's use and making change.

We continue to explore other ways to convey information.  We used a Venn diagram to show the similarities and differences between the two types of paint we use.  The students are able to be specific and can explain small nuances in these two media.  As the students go about doing many varieties of research projects, they are realizing that it is very important to collect and organize information.  This is also important when deciding how to share the info and convey it to others.

More soon!  Thank you so much for reading the blog with your child each week!  Have a lovely weekend, Jennifer