Sculpting with scissors and Subtracting Traditionally

I have to admit that the most daunting thing about joining the brilliant Lewis community is Art Night.  I love Art.  I make Art.  I love teaching Art.  But teachers at this school teach some amazing stuff.  Fortunately my class is filled with a bunch of what we now called "creatives" - makers, designers, artists, and crafters.  Give them some materials and some tools and you suddenly have a room full of remarkable experimentation.  Art everywhere.

One of the projects we are preparing for Art Night is cut paper sculptures.  This emerged from student interest in a pop-up book that Dakotah shared.  We looked at some techniques for making three-dimensional figures out of paper.  Because we had already put in so much time learning Origami techniques, the students were able to jump right in.  Here are some of the initial experiments.

            

Third graders have been very diligent in taking their State tests over the past weeks.  Though we won't see the results of the tests any time soon, both Mrs. Zimmerman and I were impressed with how hard the kids worked.

Second graders have been working on adding and subtracting with larger amounts.  We have studied a few different techniques for combining and taking apart larger amounts.  None of these has been the traditional algorithm, aka how most adults were taught in school.  You may have caught wind of so-called Common Core math and how it is wildly new and different and confusing. First off, math teachers have been helping kids learn multiple ways to attach a problem for a long time - this is not something new or invented by the creators of Common Core.  Second, none of it is really confusing if you know that knowledge of multiple strategies is intended to build students' number sense - their grasp of our system of 10's and how amounts can be assembled and disassembled.  Mr. Lauer shared this video with us at a staff meeting earlier and I think it is worth watching again if you are interested in learning a little about why we teach arithmetic the way we do.

We have finally taken a headlong dive into studying the traditional method for adding and subtracting, carrying and borrowing.  This page from Khan Academy has some helpful tutorials if you are interested in doing a little online learning and practicing with your student.