{"id":2029,"date":"2022-12-04T10:37:00","date_gmt":"2022-12-04T17:37:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.hillbrook.us\/voices\/?p=2029"},"modified":"2022-12-12T10:14:50","modified_gmt":"2022-12-12T17:14:50","slug":"curriculum-connections-december-4th","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.hillbrook.us\/voices\/2022\/12\/curriculum-connections-december-4th\/","title":{"rendered":"Curriculum Connections – December 4th"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Welcome to our Curriculum Connections! This is your weekly periscope into classes across campus \u2013 we\u2019ll share new learning, challenges, accomplishments, and commentary from students in Lower and Middle School. Enjoy!<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Thing About “-ing”: Studying Suffixes in Second Grade<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In second grade this week, students\u2019 word work is focusing on suffixes! Second graders practiced recognizing the root word within a word, like \u201cpacked\u201d or \u201clunches\u201d, thought about how suffixes (-es, -ed, -s, -ing) add to the meaning of a word, and then practiced writing words and sentences using these suffixes. In dictation exercises with Director of Learning Support Ann King and their classroom teachers this week, students wrote independently as they listened to a set of sentences read aloud. Students seeking more challenge circled all the suffixes in each sentence, any glued sounds (e.g. \u201c-ong\u201d or \u201c-ank\u201d) they could find, as well as any digraphs (e.g. \u201cck\u201d, \u201cch\u201d, \u201cth\u201d). Across our Lower School, children have structured, systematic reading instruction that covers all elements of the foundational literacy skills. (You can learn more about these foundational skills, and the \u201cReading Rope<\/a>\u201d model that depicts their interaction, in our parent-ed follow-up article on early literacy at Hillbrook). In addition to routines of drilling, reading, making words by combining sound cards, and writing words from dictation, students access the part of the reading rope that connects to comprehension by applying their skills to writing of their own designs. A theme common in students\u2019 free-writing this week was presents\u2014for Hanukkah, Christmas, parents\u2019 and friends\u2019 birthdays, even students\u2019 half-birthdays\u2026 there\u2019s much to celebrate in winter that\u2019s on our second graders\u2019 minds! Here\u2019s what one child told me about her writing on Friday: \u201cI made a list of 250 things I want as presents this year! It took 10 pages because I wrote really small. I cut it down to only 6 things, though, that I really, really want.\u201d When asked how she winnowed the list, she replied, \u201cI thought about what I wanted deepest in my heart, but also that I will actually play with when my friends are busy.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Many Minds Make Math (A)mazing: 6th Grade Tackles Tough Problems in Challenge Groups<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Challenge groups in sixth grade math this year meet weekly as a pull-out to exercise process skills in service of solving more complex problems that take a long time each to solve. These Challenge Groups include students whose pre-assessment data show they\u2019re near mastery of the unit materials in our Illustrative Math<\/em> Curriculum. This week, Associate Head of School Colleen Schilly joined sixth graders in one Challenge Group as they finally solved a juicy problem they had started before Thanksgiving Break. The problem was:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cImagine 100 lockers in a row and 100 people lined up. The first person walks down the row, opening every locker. The second person closes <\/em>every 2nd locker. The 3rd person changes every 3rd locker\u2014if it\u2019s closed, they open it, if it\u2019s open, they close it. The 4th person changes every fourth locker, and so on until the 100th person changes the state of Locker 100. In the end, which locker numbers are open and which are closed?\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Over the course of two sessions, students collaborated to develop, test, and persevere with a number of strategies (drawing models, testing individual scenarios, seeking patterns across a set of lockers, and more) to make progress towards a solution. On Thursday they were overheard engaging in discourse that included:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe have everything we need to solve this problem! All we need is our brains, something to write on, and a pen!\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cDo we actually have evidence of that?\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cEveryone! I had a breakthrough! Let me show you\u2026\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

 \u201cI\u2019m still not following you.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe\u2019re getting closer to solving it because we\u2019re all working together!\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI am not 100% sure about that.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis is so fun. Can we do this every time?\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The group did arrive at the solution and reflected that they were able to do so because of the contributions each individual had provided to the effort. Their work communicated a rich mathematical understanding that illustrates Hillbrook\u2019s commitment to developing the skills and knowledge that enable students to engage in mathematical thinking and problem-solving with precision, flexibility, accuracy, and efficiency, and to apply their thinking to novel problems, while building off each others\u2019 ideas and respectfully critiquing their own and others\u2019 work. Interested in the solution? See if you can solve it by generating rules like they did, e.g. \u201cPrime number lockers will be closed at the end. Lockers with an even number of factors will be\u2026 at the end\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Welcome to our Curriculum Connections! This is your weekly periscope into classes across campus \u2013 we\u2019ll share new learning, challenges, accomplishments, and commentary from students …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","content-type":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[242,134,20,205,92,201],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2029","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-curriculum-connections","category-english","category-lower-school","category-mathematics","category-middle-school","category-the-hillbrook-center-for-teaching-excellence"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.hillbrook.us\/voices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2029","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.hillbrook.us\/voices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.hillbrook.us\/voices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.hillbrook.us\/voices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.hillbrook.us\/voices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2029"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.hillbrook.us\/voices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2029\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2035,"href":"http:\/\/www.hillbrook.us\/voices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2029\/revisions\/2035"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.hillbrook.us\/voices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2029"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.hillbrook.us\/voices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2029"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.hillbrook.us\/voices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2029"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}