December 1, 2018 | Primary 1

Manipulating triangles from the triangle box.

As we approach the holiday season it is quite easy to be swept up in the hustle and bustle of activities, and to lose touch with the quiet routine of daily life. In the classroom, we keep routine sacred. It not only gives us the guidelines for conducting a productive day, it brings a sense of security to our students because they know what to expect.

They also understand their role in this process. Independence and movement in the classroom depends directly on the ability of our students to work respectfully with the materials, and then return the work purposefully to its proper place.

Building with the brown stairs and the pink tower.

When students forget or ignore this part of the routine, we gently and clearly remind them of this process to ensure materials are ready for other friends to use.

Working with the knobless cylinder box.

The underlying expectation in our classroom is everything has its place and materials need to be ready for other children to use them. This readiness allows the whole room to function in an organic way as the children are able to reproduce lessons they were given by a teacher.

In the repetition of the lesson, they move from the initial understanding of the concepts to a mastery level of utilizing the materials.

Thank you to all our parents who chaperoned the kindergarten field trip to Red Rock Canyon. It is one of our most anticipated field trips and we appreciate all the enthusiasm from parents to help us make it successful. A wonderful natural playground in our Las Vegas backyard, we encourage you to visit Red Rock Canyon as a family.