Read to your children

Did you know children who are read to make successful adults?
Did you know children who are read to develop better logical thinking skills?
Did you know children who are read to are more empathetic people?

Three great reasons why you should still be reading to your child.  Even though they are good readers themselves it is still super important you have that bedtime routine or lap time together daily.  

Our goal as writers is to make sure our writing is interesting to our audience.  We looked at robot writing and how boring it is.  "I like snow."  "I like candy."  "I like dogs."  So, we are working on giving a fact.  "I can swim." and adding a detail to the fact.  "I can swim and I go to Thornhill Pool and swim 1km twice a week."  We are trying to get our reader to feel that they are sharing something personal with the writer and it is not just a list of facts.  BORING.  We had an excellent writing time this afternoon and began writing with a fact followed by a detail.

Sticker math started today.  Hooray!

Sticker math is essentially a sticker to place in our math workbooks that is a problem to solve.  Problem solving prepares children for real life and develops logical and abstract thinking. The key to sticker math is explaining your thinking.  It is important that children are able to explain how they know.  I often ask children, "Why do you think that?" and "Does you answer make sense?"  Sticker math will come home for home work if it is not finished in the classroom.  If you start to see a lot of sticker math coming home please ask your child if they are getting started right away on math and sticking with the problem without giving up.