Welcome to Week Two!

Monday, August 31, 2009



We are off to a great start at Highland. Teachers and students are here working hard already on state standards. Most notable to me is that in almost every classroom we start the year studying place value in math. You can truly see the progression of this skill from one grade level to the next. In kindergarten students are learning to identify just single digit numbers, and then in the next two grades they move to ones, tens, hundreds, and thousands places. By the time they get to sixth grade students need to name numbers to the billions and trillions places! How many of us can even visualize how big those number are and the amount they represent!!



Place value is a very abstract concept once we get past counting our fingers and toes (these make one to one correspondence possible), so it takes a great deal of concentration to help students understand such large numbers. My suggestion to parents, and teachers, is to make learning this concept fun. Try putting larger numbers in perspective by playing number games, and having fun with numbers. As a teacher, I always read, "How Much is a Million," even to kindergartners, because it just gets children thinking about big numbers. I found a great website to visit with kids to help them visualize large numbers--try it out: http://www.emints.org/ethemes/resources/S00001120.shtml


I hope all parents had an opportunity to attend Back to School Night last Thursday to meet the teacher and hear about expectations for the year. If you were not able to attend it is critical that you schedule an appointment with the teacher immediately. We have very high expectations for students and we need parents to support us in making sure all children are successful.



During these high heat days (why are the first few weeks of school always the hottest?!) please know that we take steps to keep children cool. Once the temperature goes over 100 degrees we call off all recesses and outdoor play, per district policy. Teachers have games and activities students can use for indoor play. Students are encouraged to drink lots of water, and some teachers allow water bottles on desks. This can sometimes be a distraction at some grade levels, so check with your child's teacher to see if water bottles are allowed. Regardless, many rooms have drinking fountains inside and there are many drinking fountains around campus.



Don't forget that every Thursday is an early release day, so school is out for students in PM K-6th grade at 2:05. AM Ks are out at 12:05 on Thursdays.



Hope you have a great week!



--Ms. Boucher