Update: Earth

Our last Vista musical was a great success! The children were quite enthusiastic about the content of the show (reduce, reuse, and recycle) and have become vigilant with their materials consumption in the classroom. Thanks to all the families for coming out and supporting the children in their efforts as budding thespians!

Rock the World


Reduce-Reuse-Recycle



Hot Down Here - Nice job Charlotte! Only 1st grader to have a solo in the entire musical.

Bridges

Our school district has adopted the math program, Bridges, that Vista 1st and 2nd graders have been piloting this year! We couldn't be happier as Bridges is the most comprehensive program I have used in 20 years of teaching. Our classroom features a combination of whole-group, small-group, and independent activities. Lessons incorporate increasingly complex visual models - seeing, touching, working with manipulatives, and sketching ideas - to create pictures in the mind's eye that helps the children invent, understand, and remember mathematical ideas. By encouraging students to explore, test, and justify their reasoning, the curriculum facilitates the development of mathematical thinking.
Bridges grew out of a project funded by the National Science Foundation to improve the teaching of mathematics. No wonder there is so much science content within each unit (insects, sea creatures, penguins, farm animals)! Students are being exposed to mathematical concepts in a consistent and developmentally appropriate manner. They know concepts about money, time, place value, and computation that wouldn’t have been introduced yet in our past program thanks to the daily calendar routine called Number Corner.
Grade 1 Scope and Sequence
Grade 2 Scope and Sequence
Stay tuned for an update on our current math unit: My Little Farm - focusing on money, place value, and mapping skills.

We LOVE math!!!

Rotational Symmetry

The children came back from vacation and jumped right back into the school routine, picking up right where we left off . . . rotational symmetry! Using 9 x 9 square patterns and 90 degree mirrors they discovered the properties of rotational symmetry by turning each grid to check for new patterns. Once this was done they chose the pattern they liked best, made four copies, and worked to find out how many possible arrangements could be made. This process gave each child an opportunity to see the effects of turning and combining shapes that have varying degrees of rotational symmetry. The end results combined 3 different lessons, addition equations equaling 9, a group chart showing everyone's initial work with 9 block patterns, and their final designs. We LOVE math!!!

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