Homework 20-20-10-10

Aloha All,

Hoping everyone is having a good weekend. 

Our hearts continue to go out to those in and around Lahaina, and to those touched by the tragedy.

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Homework

Homework in 2G.

We'll start homework next week, after Parent Orientation (Tuesday) and Statehood Day (Friday: no school).

We won't have time to go into the ins and outs of how we do homework on Tuesday, so we thought it best to get this out now. Likely we will have time for a few clarifying questions.

Over the past 10 years teaching at HNS and doling out homework to 2G students, we've learned a few things.

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We Can't Make Students Do Homework

We cannot make students do their homework.

Ultimately, homework is an at-home activity quite outside our jurisdiction and sphere of influence.

We know not all parents see homework similarly:

• Some don't believe in any homework, ever

• Some don't require homework on nights their students have baseball, gymnastics or karate, but will require it when no extracurricular activities are scheduled

• Some enjoy a strict homework time and process if, for no other reason, than to get a little down time (which all parents need!)

• Some add homework on top of 2G homework.

When we experimented with no homework, not only did we notice a change in the classroom, but many parents soon requested reinstatement!

We would encourage all parents to support 2G homework, but we leave that decision to you.

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Encouraging self-motivation & independence

The way we do homework in 2G is a little different from S.O.P. (See below!)

2G homework is designed such that students soon learn to do it themselves, run it themselves, and enjoy being independent.

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Homework: Mon - Thu
never over weekends or holidays

While we believe in the value of homework, we do not wish to burden 7 and 8 year olds.

Homework should be manageable, even fun, but not onerous.

• We set homework Mondays through Thursdays.

• We do not assign homework over weekends.

• We do not assign homework over breaks.

And with the Money Card Homework complete, we should be able to stick to all of that!

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2G homework is TIME-BASED, not packet based

It may take a while to "get" time-based-not-packet-based homework, but this fits with much of the time-based work we do in class, so your student will likely not have difficulty with it!

A good image to keep in mind:

• Imagine a 2G class comprised of students with a WIDE RANGE of 100% normally distributed competencies, background knowledge, abilities, skills, experiences

• Some have finished all 7 Harry Potter books, others are still learning to decode unfamiliar words more fluently — all of which is 100% normal in a 2G class: no one is "behind"!

• Some recite their multiplication tables (3G math) at the drop of a hat while others are still counting on their fingers — all of which is 100% normal in a 2G class: no one is "behind"!

It's remarkable what 6 months of rapid brain development — par for the course with 7 and 8 year olds — does for perceived abilities and real competencies!

Now, give everyone the same homework packet and...

• Some are "done" lickety-split

• Some labor for hour upon hour, sometimes not getting it all done

• The student who, at least "right now," has a few more academic skills isn't challenged

• The student who, for "right now," is still mastering the 2G curriculum — as s/he should be! — is burdened and may be put off homework, if not school

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Every student works her/his "learning edge"

As you may have picked up already, in the classroom 2G every student works her/his "learning edge."

• In phonics, students who already "get" Book 3 and 3.5 lessons can speed through them, soon to find themselves challenged more in Book 4, 4.5 and 5.

• Students who may need a bit more time to absorb and practice Book 3 lessons are not pushed faster than they need to go.

• Similarly in math, while we all work the same topic — addition, subtraction, money, time, data and graphs, etc. — if students finish all the relevant sections in Level C (we always start in Level C!), they can go onto the same topic in Level D.

• Students who reach Level E for the same topic find themselves really challenged!

So if your 100% Perfectly Normal 2G child is just rearing to go and wants to go to Harvard or Oxford or Todai (東京大学) or La Sorbonne next year, or the year after at the very latest, we will not hold her/him back!

And if your 100% Perfectly Normal 2G child wants to work at a perfectly normal 2G pace, or, for some topics, needs a little more time to absorb and practice, s/he gets that time!

We carry this "learning edge" idea over to homework.

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Quick summary

So, so far:

• We can't make students do their Mon-Thu homework

• We believe homework can be valuable, especially in developing self-learners and independence

• 2G homework is time-based, NOT packet-based

• As with classwork, students work their personal/individual learning edge with homework

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Homework 20-20-10-10

The numbers in "Homework 20-20-10-10" refer to time increments.

• 20 minutes of math

• 20 minutes of writing

• 10 minutes of independent-level reading

• 10 minutes of 100% independent play — no screen, no adult organized activity time

Most 2G students learn to set a timer — an iPad timer like the one we use in class, or a kitchen timer, etc. — and work their 20-20-10-10 (which needn't be done in that order, altho' independent time is best left to the end!)

Students need time to set up, prepare, etc. and this should be included in their 20-20-10-10 structure.

Put otherwise: 60 minutes of homework is plenty for a 7 or 8 year old!

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Math: 20 minutes

Most commonly, Math (20 minutes) is IXL math.

Students should know their usernames and passwords; if not, there should be a card with that information on it in their homework folders.

Students continue to work from where they left off in class.

In a future communication we'll share how to work with students who may, at home, still not "get it"

Students need not finish a section, nor may they stop when one is finished.

Students work for 20 minutes.

When the timer goes off, the math section of their homework is done.

(Students who love math and want to keep going and going and going are best told, "That's fine. You can do more than 20 minutes AFTER you finish the other parts of homework.")

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Writing: 20 minutes

Mondays and Tuesdays are typically handwriting (20 minutes)

Most 2G students need to work on their handwriting and/or writing stamina.

Very often poor handwriting is the result of weak hand muscles.

The stronger hand muscles are, the better handwriting becomes and the longer students can write.

(After the rough draft stage and final draft of Tree House News, some student said, "My hand hurts!")

Wednesdays and Thursdays typically involve "free writing” (20 minutes).

The beginning of the year may see a little more handwriting (e.g., Mon, Tue, and Wed)

The end of the year may see a little more free writing (e.g., Mon - Thu).

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Reading: 10 minutes

For reading homework, students need to be reading independently.

A child's independent reading level is, almost always, WAY BELOW their reading interest level. ("This is SOOO boring!")

But reading research underscores again and again the importance of "easy" -- i.e., 100% independent level) — texts to develop fluent reading skills.

And students need only read for 10 minutes during homework!!!!

An independent-level text is one your child can read with 95% accuracy without any help.

When a student asks, "Can I read this for homework?" we check for independent reading ability by turning to a random page and asking the child to read it.

If the student is missing words, decoding unknown words super-slowly, etc. we say:

• This is a good personal reading book, but it's not the right book for homework

• You can read that on your own time. 

• Remember, homework reading is only ten minutes! 

• Let's find something you can read all by yourself, even if it's not a book you want to read on your own time.

If there is any pushback during the reading part of Homework 20-20-10-10, it is that books that students can read completely by themselves are almost always "below" their reading interest level.

Again, they need only read the "boring book" for 10 minutes.

We will support this during our library visits. Students can check out:

• 1 homework — independent-level — book for homework reading

• 1 personal book, of any reading level, that they can look at and get help reading either at home or at school

Again: reading research underscores the critical importance of independent-level reading.

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100% Independent Play: 10 minutes

Many parents love this part of homework as it guarantees them 10 minutes of "me" time!

100% independent play does not include:

• any adult organization (e.g., soccer or piano practice, adult-suggested activities, etc.)

• any screens — so no phones, tablets, computers, game stations, etc.

Students are more than welcome to:

• read "anything"

• draw or color

• play in the garden (with parental permission)

• play with a sibling or pet, provided no adult supervision required

• play with Legos

• lie on their backs and stare at the ceiling

• lie on their stomachs and stare at the floor

• etc.

The goal: 100% independent play for 10 minutes.

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Set the structure & watch your student flower!

It's not uncommon to hear parents say, after a time,  "My child comes home, gets out the timer, pulls out her/his homework, and does it all by her/himself!"

This is the goal.

• It's good for your fast-developing child.

• It's good for you!

So if homework is something you believe in and support, our recommendation is to help your student set up the homework structure a.s.a.p. — it's easy to remember, "Homework 20-20-10-10" — and then, once in place, kick back, relax, and watch your child grow!

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"My child does tutoring on Tuesdays & Thursdays"

If your child does tutoring after school — and we are BIG PROPONENTS of tutoring when indicated — s/he does not have to do homework on those nights.

Just let us know when those days are.

Tutoring or homework is plenty for a 7 or 8 year old after school.

Now, if your soon-to-be-a lawyer child does tutoring during school hours — and we are BIG PROPONENTS of tutoring when indicated — that does not get her/him out of homework!

Yes, astute students have tried that nearly every year!  : )

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Hopefully this provides a good introduction to 2G homework.

As noted at the top, we won't have time to go over all these details on Tuesday (Parent Orientation), but we may have time for a few questions.

By all means email questions, thoughts, concerns, this-Starbucks-on-me tokens, and any ideas that might make 2G homework more successful.

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2G '23-'24 • Day 1 • Email 2 Parents

Aloha all,

Day 1 — Success!

At least from Dr. Cat and Ms. Nancy's perspective, today was a marvelous success!

What a great bunch of kids! Love 'em all already!

Photos and a Video

While we cannot promise photos and videos every day, it's always nice to start the year with a few.

You'll find these at:

     • • 🐡 • • Photos: kirtlandpeterson.com/photos
     • • 🦉 • • Video: kirtlandpeterson.com/videos-1

And those links should now be in Dr. Cat's "signature" at the bottom of his emails. 

(If any of these links don't work, let us know and we'll figure out what's not right! Takk!)

Money Cards

Students have started turning in their money cards and they're wonderful!

We meant to take pictures of them, but — of course — students handed them to us as they were lining up for bench!  : )

We'll be starting Money very soon in Math, so the sooner everyone has a card, the better!

Tomorrow: 2G Mentors!

We've been lucky over a good many years now to have former 2G students — students now at Punahou, Mid-Pac, Kamehameha, etc. — come back on non-school days to mentor 2G students.

Those students who do volunteer their time are truly wonderful in the classroom. Needless to say, 2G students love having 2G Mentors!

Tomorrow Taireva and Emily will join us, and likely on Thursday and Friday as well.

In addition to their many other skills and competencies, we know Taireva will bring her calm maturity, and Emily her remarkable artistic skills.

And as this year is the first year with FOUR Station Rotation — it's always been Three — Taireva can help us get the new 4th station (100% Independent) rolling along!

Tomorrow afternoon we will also start World Mythology: we start with classic fairy tales. Emily and Taireva will be helping us read those in small groups!


Mahalo for the mats!

Many thanks for the great mats that have come in!

They really do make our current mats look ratty... hygienic (as they're left in the sun a great deal), but showing their age!

They're so wonderful, we're re-thinking how to use them best.

Again, thanks, and thanks too for opening up some new possibilities.

Until tomorrow!

Onwards!

Dr. Cat & Ms. Nancy

Headphones!

Aloha All!

Tuesday next week fast approaches!

With a large class, instead of the almost decade-old THREE Station Rotation (Phonics, Math, Reading) we will be doing FOUR Station Rotation.

The 4th station will be "independent" work.

Students will need a set of personal headphones for that Independent Rotation.

These needn't be super expensive, but students tend to prefer headphones that cover their ears rather than "headphones" that plug into their ears, so to speak.

Students will keep their headphones in their backpacks, so they can be used at home for homework, etc. (Our cubbies are outside, and so keeping headphones there would not be secure.)

Our iPads are on the "older" side, so a standard 3.5mm (1/8") jack is what we're looking at. 

The 3.5mm (1/8") jack is the smaller one in the photo below; my professional music headphones have the 1/4" (big) jack; the headphones I used for my (old) iPad have the 3.5mm (1/8"; smaller) jack.

No Bluetooth headphones please!

We are working on our schedule as I write. We'll get it out to you ASAP.

And— we do know when PE is!

So, PE is on Mondays and Wednesdays.

Please remember students will need slippers every day, including PE days!

2G class website "under construction" — hence, in the signature below, it's still 2G 2022-2023.

Stay tuned!

A good evening to all!

Dr. Cat & Ms. Nancy

2G '23-'24 • MATH • Money Cards

Aloha all!

Here's hoping this note finds you in fine fickle spirits enjoying the last week of July. Thank goodness it's cooler here than in so many other parts of the (northern hemisphere) world!

If you're stuck for things to do...  : )

One thing we've noticed in 2G over the last few years is a bump in the road when it comes to memorizing basic math facts. This is not an addition/subtraction conceptualization issue, but a memorization one.

First, basic math facts

You will hear us talking about the importance of memorizing the "within 20 addition and subtraction facts."

It used to be thought that knowing one's "within 10" addition/subtraction facts was fine. More recent research strongly suggests that is insufficient, that "within 20" facts are needed.

• Within 20 addition facts are those that have a sum up to 20: 11 + 3 = 14, 12 + 7 = 19, 3 + 4 = 7, 9 + 9 = 18, etc.

• Within 20 subtraction facts are those that start with a number 20 or less: 16 - 8 = 8, 10 - 6 = 4, 19 - 13 = 6, 15 - 9 = 6, etc.

Second, why is memorization important?

With concerns over "math anxiety" and soulless memorization, many math teachers have worried less about "learning facts" and focused more on understanding basic math concepts.

That said, not knowing within 20 facts can increase anxiety and frustration when it comes to learning more advanced procedures such as 2- and 3-digit addition and subtraction.

Not knowing basic facts increases the amount of cognitive work a student must do, making, say, solving 5 problems exhausting.

Consider:

   672

+ 159

2G students will struggle with the process for a while: in the ones place, 2 + 9 = 11, but the biggest number that can go in any place is 9, so — what do I do? As 11 is one 10 and one 1, that one 10 belongs in the tens place, etc...

Then in the tens place the student must remember to include that additional 10 when adding 7 (tens) + 5 (tens), so not 7 + 5 = 12, but 1 + 7 + 5 = 13. And again, 9 is the biggest number that can go in the tens place, so the 3 (tens) stays in the tens place while the 1 (hundred) is carried to the hundreds place.

A lot to remember.

Not so easy for an adult (me) to write out clearly (for you). I may not have been successful!

So a real challenge for 6, 7, and 8 year olds.

And if students don't know their basic within 20 math facts, in addition to trying to keep in mind the process noted above, each and every time a basic math procedure is required (e.g., 2 + 9 = 11, 1 + 7 + 5 = 13) they must make those calculations too.

All of that takes a lot of cognitive energy.

A student may make it through one, maybe two problems, but doing 5 problems?

However, if a student has memorized her/his basic facts, simple addition like 9 + 2 = 11 and 1 + 7 + 5 = 13 require no/little mental energy. The student "just knows" the sums.

Within 20 facts are particularly important with 2- and 3-digit subtraction:

  956

- 288

I'm not going to go through the process -- it's exhausting! — but you'll appreciate the very first basic subtraction a student must do (if s/he's resisted the temptation to "subtract up": 8 - 6 = 2) is 16 - 8.

Again, if every time a student must calculate that within 20 fact — in the ones place, again in the tens place, in the hundreds place (if it's a 4-digit subtraction) math quickly becomes laborious, exhausting, etc.

So memorizing within 20 addition/subtraction facts is super important.

And we'd like to try something "new" this year to facilitate learning within 20 math facts.

Money! Money! Money!

Every 2G student loves our money unit.

Money!

In 2G we use real coins (and dollar bills), and this adds to the excitement. (And in 10 years, no one has stolen a penny!)

In the past, we've tended to do money towards the end of the year, after students have mastered 3-digit subtraction/addition.

This year we're going to move money very early in the year.

Touching 10 pennies and exchanging them for 1 dime makes the whole "ten ones equals one ten" concept easier to see/feel/understand.

Likewise, 10 dimes makes a dollar (100 cents) is easier to "get" than "10 tens is 1 hundred, 20 tens is 2 hundreds," etc.

We feel confident this is a good experiment to run!

Homework: Money cards

Our money unit starts with each student creating her/his own "money card" at home.

Here's an example:

(Other examples are in the photograph above this one.)

Just the process of creating a coin card is an amazing learning experience in and of itself.

Should you choose to include a half dollar and dollar coin, you will likely need to go to a bank to get them. A thrilling outing for a 2Ger!

Also — watch out! — when students discover that quarters now depict all 50 states and territories and monuments they may get the collecting bug.

So if you can, please have your student bring her/his coin card to school on Day 1!

(If you're traveling, moving, training a new puppy, welcoming a new baby, worry not: you get a two week extension!)

Have fun with this!

Parents from previous classes report creating coin cards is both fun and eye-opening!

Consider a small allowance for your child

For those of us with a little gray in our hair — or a lot — it's shocking to introduce money to students only to discover many, if not most, have never handled money before.

These days credit cards, purchasing something on Amazon, using PayPal (or Venmo, or...) makes financial transactions invisible, and rather magical.

Invisibility and magic do not help with learning math!

When I was a lad...

Back in the day, my parents gave me an allowance: 25¢ + pennies representing my age. So when I was 8 I got 25 + 8 = 33¢ each week.

As I was required to save up for the toys I wanted to buy, counting the money I had was an almost daily exercise, an exercise no one needed to motivate me to do.

Thus — if this fits with your family's values — we would encourage you to start an allowance for your student.

This allowance needn't be large — economists find 25¢ fies for adults can have a powerful effect on behavior! — but it should be real, tangible, as in coins your child can handle (and count, over and over again).

Allowances "on paper" are no different from abstract addition and subtraction problems "on paper" and thus lack "reality" for a young student.

Again, if this fits with your family's values, have your child save up for things s/he may wish to purchase.

When a parent buys something for a child, the child learns  no math: I want that toy, I've now got that toy.

But if a child must figure out the price, then save up, in addition to some natural impulse control development, s/he has the opportunity to do a lot of self-motivated adding and subtracting.

And when I was a parent of young children...

While on vacation, my wife and I grew tired of our 4 boys constantly asking us for drinks, souvenirs, etc.

It took years, but we finally hit upon the solution: while on vacation, each boy would get, say $20/day with which he was to purchase his own drinks, souvenirs, etc.

And OMG!

We suddenly had 4 accountants and bargain hunters on our hands. "I'm not spending $2.50 on a Coke. Water is free!" and "I think I can get that stuffie cheaper somewhere else."

As they also had to make their own exchanges at the cash register (what an antiquated term!), they learned a great deal about adding, subtracting, making change, etc.

So, if it fits with your family's values, consider an allowance for your child. 

You might consider, too, having your child handle her/his own money when on vacation — and you will enjoy the vacation so much more, believe me!

The COVID Effect

It's an unfortunate fact we'll save for another time, but Western-influenced math programs are consistently inferior to Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Indian, Singaporian, etc. math programs.

If and when we have Korean exchange students, it is striking how their math competencies outstrip ours.

Again, we can discuss the (fascinating) reasons for this at another time. (What does "twelve" mean? In Japanese, the translation of twelve is "ten, two" — one ten, two ones. No wonder Japanese children "get" the base-10 system faster than English-speaking students!)

In addition to unhelpful cultural traditions, we've all lived through COVID.

I will confess to thinking, "HNS students won't suffer academically! We were only Zooming for one quarter! We were in person for almost all the time!"

Yet...

The COVID Effect didn't just touch classroom time. It touched everything.

And while I can't prove declining math skills are due to COVID — tho' research has found declining math abilities on the US mainland — there is something here.

Which means, math bumps ahead. Maybe many.

That said, rest assured, we're on it to the best that we can be.

We Will Need Your Help

Truth be told, we can't do this alone.

We will need your help.

Please get involved making the coin cards with your student. It really is a lot of fun.

Here's hoping allowances and vacation money fits lots of 2G families' ways of doing things.

And, if you can, make math a part of daily conversation.

Adults don't think they "use math all the time" but that's because it's so habituated — you've memorized your facts and math processes! — that it's automatic.

Just remember, it's not automatic — yet — for your student.

Math isn't just adding and subtracting. Math includes time (elapsed time is always a challenge!), speed, distance, probability, patterns, etc.

Reflect on when you use math, then share that aloud with your student, explaining every step.

And if you're up for it, you can do math homework with your students. We'll discuss the how tos later, but it's only 25 minutes a night, Monday through Thursday. If you can manage it, even occasionally, it's a true gift.

Have fun!

And may this year be the best math year 2G has ever had!

Warmest aloha,

Dr. Cat & Ms. Nancy

One Ten Equals Ten Ones, Nine is the Biggest Number That Can Go in a Place, and Other Mysteries Solved!

Aloha All,

We are developing quite the 2G Math Community. Come the end of a 3-Station Rotation round, the mathematicians rarely want to stop!

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That said, some of the concepts we deal with are tricky.

They are also crucially important. As Hung-His Wu (an elementary math scholar) puts it, it is “foundational” as in it is the FOUNDATION of our math system.

Please enjoy a quick video to catch you up on what we’re currently working on in math. Enjoy too the photos that follow.

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2G Math (email)

A quick (overdue) note on 2G Math.

It seems easy for adults — after all, we've been dealing with pennies, dimes, and dollars for a good many years now — but really "getting" our Base-10 math foundation is not easy for a young person.

• One "one" is one, but one "ten" is ten.

• How many tens in 20? Twenty? No, 20 tens is 200. Oh.

• There are ten ones in ten, so how many tens in 100? How many ones in 100?

The educational "trick" with young minds is:

In the beginning (K3, PreK, K, 1G, 2G) Math begins with things, physical stuff that children can touch and manipulate.

That's where our 10-blocks come in:

• Ones are little cubes

• Tens are "sticks" (the size of 10 ones)

• Hundreds are squares (you can line 10 ten sticks on top of a hundreds square)

• Thousands are weighty cubes

We also use number lines, Rekenreks (you'll see these come out next week), and fingers!

As I tell every 2G class, I once had a 2G student who could count on his fingers faster than 90% of students could retrieve a memorized answer from long-term memory.

Finger-counting is GOOD!

Students should be encouraged to use their fingers until they don't need to anymore! Tools are good! It's what makes us human!

The other day we ran a marvelous exercise.

2G students entered the classroom, clipboard, pencil and answer sheet in hand.

They had to go to each of the ten stations -- not in any particular order -- note the question number, then jot down what number was represented by the 10-blocks.

We are happy to report: 2G did great!

Young students need a lot of reminding, practice, using, and seeing familiar concepts in new ways.

So don't forget, you have a Base-10 system in your pockets, wallets, purses: money!

• Pennies are "ones"

• Dimes are "tens"

• Dollars are "hundred"

Have fun talking about, playing games with, challenging each other -- let your student challenge you! -- with Base-10 concepts.

If your child is scratching her/his head, let her/him manipulate the coins (or straws, or toothpicks). "Touch it" comes first!

Students also need a lot of practice with counting up, counting down, what comes before, what comes after... when counting by 1s, 2s, 5s and 10s.

Young students are just fine if they "stick" with one operation: Counting by 1s, what comes after 5, 17, 78, 106?

The problem comes when they must make the cognitive switches required to tackle the following:

• Counting by 2s, what comes before 18?

• Counting by 5s, what comes after 75?

• Counting by 1s, what comes before 90?

• Counting by 10s, what comes after 60?

• Counting by 10s, what comes after 110?

• Counting by 2s, what comes before 15?

While waiting in line -- say outside Art, or while waiting for a few folks to return from the loo -- we play the above "game."

It's a great one anytime you're waiting around, or stuck in traffic without anything to chat about! : )

Housekeeping/News (email)

Aloha All,

Some housekeeping and news.

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• HOMEWORK 20-20-10-10

Homework (Mon-Thu) is always 20 min math, 20 min writing, 10 minutes reading, 10 minutes give-the-adults-a-break 100% independent play.

Sometimes the content of those time frames changes a tad.

Math is the same tonight.

Writing — students are to "free write" about "Beauty and the Beast."

They know they are writing a "rough draft" and are not to ask you "how do I spell ____________" but, rather, to sound the word out for themselves and make their own best letter selections to represent the sounds they hear.

This skill is what young children need to develop if they are to read and write well in the years ahead.

Students have a few photos from the B&B film we watched, so if they're completely stuck you might point to a photo and say, "Who is that?" When they tell you say something like, "What a great sentence. WRITE IT DOWN!"  :)

Reading — reading is "free reading" at home.

Ideally students are reading a book they can actually read vs. a book they're just looking at the pictures in.

That said, any book is good and better than no book!

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• STUFF FOR PARENTS

We are trying to put homework facing "up" (on the same side as the homework folder snap)...

... and "stuff" for parents facing out the back, like this:

Anything with a BIG star is for you!

Tree House News stories that look complete are for you!

Phonics and handwriting pages are for you!

As are any documents the school wants sent home.

And tonight you'll find....

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• LIBRARY CARD APPLICATIONS

11 students have applications in their homework folder which you may or may not need.

We have 1 card from one student in our "library bag."

If your child has a card AND you would like us to hold it for the school year, please send it in tomorrow.

If your child has a card and you'd rather hold onto it and send it in with him/her every Friday that is AOK, just educate your student re. how not to lose the card! (Yes, that has happened, many times!)

IF YOU NEED A CARD — NO MONEY IS REQUIRED!

Your student can get a card tomorrow IF s/he brings in the application form filled out and signed by you.


(If you need to replace a card, there is a $5 fee.)

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• 2G SINGERS

Wow. 2G can SING!

We sang our "R.E.S.P.E.C.T." song this morning and the lungs, diaphragms and vocal cords were working nicely!

Then 2G wanted to sing some more.

So we learned (or remembered) "Michael Row Your Boat Ashore."

A few times through and 2G asked to sing it "alone," accompanied by the guitar. (Dr. Cat was not allowed to sing!)

And 2G was awesome!

So much so that at the end of the day we made a video of 2G singing MRBAshore with only the guitar accompaniment! 

Stay tuned for that video!

Dr. Cat will be providing music for chapels, and it would seem 2G is determined to lead the singing!

• ADVERTISEMENT:  The HNSingers -- a children's singing group -- can always use more voices! 2G students would be welcome.

The HNSingers sing on the 2nd Sunday of every month, Holy Nativity Church's "Family Service."

The next Family Service is Sunday, 09.11.22.

You do not need to be a member of the church or come to any services in between Family Services!

We meet at 8 am in the 2G classroom to go over music, and the service is at 9 am.It's a lot of fun.

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• NEW 2G JOB: PHOTOGRAPHER

Today "Photographer" was added to our job list.

Gameela used Dr. Cat's "sport" -- "indestructible" — camera today and took some fun photographs.

We'll see who the Bucket of Randomness chooses tomorrow.

As soon as we have a decent number of photographs, we'll publish them!

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• TOMORROW IS TREE HOUSE NEW FRIDAY (& LIBRARY) DAY

We will do our best to have all THNews stories completed here.

This is almost always the case anyways. It just takes a few weeks to "get" the process and the timing requirements of each stage of the process.

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• PARENT-TEACHER CONFERENCES: 09.16.22

Looking ahead to Parent-Teacher Conferences —

I believe they are on Friday, September 16th. (If I'm wrong, someone will correct me!)

We'll have a SignUpGenius sign-up "sheet" available before then.

Dr. Cat is planning to hold these in person, in the 2G classroom.

Zooming is awesome, but enough's enough!   : )

He looks forward to shaking your hands and sitting down with you!

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Homework Starts Tomorrow! (email)

2G Homework starts tomorrow!

As we do things a little differently in 2G, just be aware... homework might be different from what you imagine.

WEEK 1

Relax.

Homework will get off to a bumpy start. That's OK and to be expected!

Homework never has to be "perfect."

We can talk more about homework on Tuesday during the Parent Orientation Zoom.

NO "PACKETS"

In 2G there are no packets.

There are no "packets to be completed"

Anything stapled together is more than likely NOT a packet.

We feel packets are unfair.

Students that have already mastered what's in the packet, complete the packet in 14 nanoseconds.

Students who haven't mastered what's in the packer — yet — might spend hours on it.

Hence: packets aren't fair.

Also: a packet that some students can "do in the car ride home" means that homework never becomes a habit.

MAKING HOMEWORK FAIR TO ALL STUDENTS

Concept 1: the 2G normal distribution curve

The normal distribution curve of 2G knowledge / competencies / etc. is broad.

Student A is still learning to match letters with sounds? NORMAL in 2G!

Student B has read the first three Harry Potter books? NORMAL in 2G!

Concept 2: you cannot predict the future from 2G academic performance

Revisiting students A and B above...

By 4G or 6G or high school or college, Student B may be out-performing Student A.

Student A's and student B's academic performance in 2G bears almost no correlation with future academic performance.

So you can relax: your student is exactly where s/he should be right now.

Concept 3: Working your "learning edge"

If each students works her/his "learning edge," then ALL students will be working equally "hard" for homework

Your student will be working at what s/he needs to be working on, which may or may not be exactly the same thing another student is working on.

In our IXL.com math "skill practice"—

• Student C might be working Level C / Section A (counting and number patterns) / A.2

• Student D might be working Level C / Section A (counting and number patterns) / A.17

• Student E might be working Level D / Section A (counting and number patterns ) / A.1

Notice: everyone is working the same topic — "Counting & Number Patterns" — but each student may be at a different place in the progression

Notice: Students C, D and E will all be working equally hard at their "learning edges."

Concept 4: Work time, not "finishing something"

With 2G homework, students work each subject for a set period of time.

When the timer goes off, they're done!

They DO NOT have to have finished a packet or a level or a section.

If they worked (seriously) for the set period of time, they're done!

Hence, Student C who is still mastering basic "counting and number patterns" will be working hard for a set period of time, at her/his "learning edge."

Students D and E will also be working hard:

Level C / A.17 is harder than Level C / A.2Level D / A.1 is harder than Level C / A.17

Concept 5: Homework 20 — 20 — 10 — 10

We refer to homework in 2G as "Homework 20-20-10-10"

• 20 minutes of Math

• 20 minutes of Writing

• 10 minutes of Reading

• 10 minutes of independent play (no screens, no organized activities, no parent involvement or direction)

Students work each subject for the set amount of time — and we do recommend a highly-visible timer to help students monitor "how much time is left"

When the timer goes off after the set period of time, wherever that student has reached is exactly where s/he should be! S/he's done!

Note: please include "getting ready" and "setting up" as part of the 20/20/10/10 time periods.

Concept 6: Homework can be satisfying, homework will become habit

We have homework Mondays through Thursdays.

We never have homework on Friday, over the weekend, over holidays, or over breaks.

Most 2G students find the predictability and ritual of homework satisfying, if not fun.

Most 2G parents enjoy watching their student become remarkably independent, remarkably quickly with Homework 20-20-10-10.

MATH (20 minutes)

Math is typically 20 minutes of IXL.com math

Students also use this to practice skills in class, so they should know how to sign on.

They will be continuing from where they left off earlier in the day (or the day before).

Username: firstnameHNS253 — first name + HNS + 253 no spaces — e.g. bobhns253, sallyhns253

Password: students' birthdates (three 2-digit numbers) — e.g., for a child born February 3rd, 2014, her/his password would be 020314

Don't forget that 1, 2, 3, 4... 9 will be 0,02,03, 04... 09.

WRITING (20 minutes)

Typically, Monday and Tuesday writing homework will be handwriting.

This is to build hand strength and comfort with "writing for 20 minutes"

You may hear a lot of complaints in the beginning; this will fall away as hand strength improves.

Wednesday and Thursday writing homework will typically involve some sort of "free writing"

Be patient: it takes a while before young students can "sit down and immediately start writing"!

You will find your student's writing homework in her/his clear, colorful homework folder

READING (10 minutes)

You will find your student's reading homework in her/his clear, colorful homework folder

INDEPENDENT PLAY (10 minutes)

This is your 10 minutes of "me time"! : )

Students are to be "100% independent" for 10 minutes

No screens, no organized activities (soccer, music practice), no adult involvement.

2G students: play with blocks, draw, read or look at picture books, play in the garden (with your permission), play with a pet or sibling, play with Legos, etc.

Many past 2G parents have loved this 10 minutes of 100% independent play.

First and foremost, it give parents a wee breather.

Second, once students "get" the joys of independent play, they do it more! (More "me time" for you!)

TAKE HOMEWORK ON THE ROAD

If you end of traveling when we HNS is in session, 2G homework is very portable:

• Math (20 min) — IXL.com is accessible through laptops, tablets, smartphones, car computer screens!

• Writing (20 min) — in a writing journal (or on available paper): keep a journal of your travels

• Reading (10 min) — take a book or two with you, or find one during your travels, and read

• Independent play (10 min) — yes, it can be done on holiday! ("Go play with your cousins!")

RELAX!

2G homework will not roll out without a hitch week 1!

2G homework need never be "perfectly executed each and every evening"

The goals are—

• to have homework be expected — every evening Monday through Thursday

• for students to not "fight" homework (in 2G and forever more)

• for homework to be fair to all students, wherever they may be academically

• to develop academic independence

• for students to experience deep satisfaction watching their reading, writing and math competencies grow

If it takes a while for your student to settle into the 20-20-10-10 idea and rhythm, that's fine.

So if you ever get a meltdown, you might want to "call it a night" — that's always OK with us!

If academics — in the classroom and with homework — is satisfying, even joyful, students will dive in.

When academics becomes onerous, burdensome, certain failure — that's when we lose students!

BLAME IT ON DR. CAT

Over the years, many 2G parents have found it helpful to say, "Well, I wish you didn't have to do X or Y, but Dr. Cat says we must."

This is your get Out of Jail Free card!

Feel free to blame me for...

20 minutes of Math and not 10 minutes10 minutes of "go away and do something by yourself!"the whole nasty business of homework!

the fact "I could do 1G homework in 4 minutes — this is going to take me an hour!!!!!"the fact my friends don't have ANY homework!

"I can't do this is the car!""I can't do this at breakfast"

Seriously.

It works.

"I wish you didn't have to do this but, Dr. Cat says we must. Me too."

Happy to take the blame!

Aloha 2022-2023 2G Parents & Students (email)

Tuesday, August 9th is but five days away!

Hope you're enjoying the scrag ends of summer and planning a joyous weekend — beach, hiking, delicious food, a fun movie, and lots of sleep!

A few updates:

(1) Ms. C

First, as a few unplanned staffing changes were needed this week, I will now be ably assisted by Ms. Liz Cunningham.

As Ms. Cunningham has been at HNS far, far longer than I — and in many more grades than I — I've little doubt she'll be sharing far deeper wisdom with 2G than I could ever muster up!

(She also loves the white terns as much as I do, so watch out if we get another chick on campus! The students will be dragging the two of us back to class after recesses!)

As Ms. Cunningham will be learning the 2G ropes, at least in the early weeks you may get a quicker reply from me than from her.

Re. communications:

• Feel free to email me at any time of day or night — I will respond if able

• Urgent matters ("I'm running late to bench!") or emergencies — texting is always best (# is always at the bottom of my emails)

• Phone calls: a last resort -- I get so many "spam" calls these days, I just don't pick up; callers who really know me will leave a message (which gets texted to me) or contact me by email or text

Feel free, if you'd like, to send a "Hello, this is X" text to me so I can log you in my phone's contact list. 

This is helpful when things get busy in class: I can glance at my texts and see your name, rather than a number. And should you call from that number, I'll know it's not a spam call.

(2) Schedule

The 2G schedule — thanks to the hard work of Ms. Jenna Keiburtz of 1G fame — is very similar to last year's schedule.

Please find attached a "first draft" of our internal-to-2G schedule. 

(The truth is, sometimes things don't quite gel the way you anticipate and some jigging is required. That said, it's unlikely to change dramatically so it's solid for near-term planning purposes!)

(I've yet to update the daily schedule on the website. Will be getting to that shortly.)

And while I've got you, a little "walk through" of the schedule....

(3) Schedule Walk-Through

We start every day with Morning Circle which typically begins with some math, followed by a Geography story and a round of "I'm Going to the Moon" (to have fun checking that story details were heard and remembered).

Thanks to Ms. Bridgewater — our principal, and ages ago also a flexible 6G teacher open to schedule changes — all of 2G's tough academic work is scheduled for the morning, when young minds are freshest.

In 2G, 3-Station Rotation is (almost always) Phonics, Reading and Math. It is our fervent desire that each 2G student gets at least 25 minutes of each every day.

One of our 2G maxim's:

A joy in Reading, Writing & Math—

not a bad foundation for the 21st century

And we believe it!  : )

If you've poked about the website, you'll notice the 2G class is divided into 3 smaller groups (Red, Rust and Purple).

Students begin at a different station each day. 

Students rotate through all three stations every day.

Over the years we've found that 6, 7 and 8 year olds can work hard — focus, concentrate, do their best — for about 25 minutes at a stretch. 

After 25 minutes even casual, untrained observers will note 2G students tuning out. Big time!

So we schedule "brain breaks" here and there. (In some Scandinavian countries, a 15 minute break every hour is required by law, and that's not just for the youngest students).

Before lunch we have a whole-class instruction period. Typically this is...

• A mini-lesson (math or phonics) targeting an issue that is common amongst most students

• "Daily Dictation" (altho' we don't do it daily... but the alliteration is nice!)

• Math — quiz, games, introduction of new topics

• Tree House News (Fridays)

Tree House News is 2G's newsletter. We figure you'd far rather hear from your own student re. what's going on each week that from us!

Click the Tree House News link at the bottom to see what a typical THN issue looks like.

(Worry not, we will keep you informed of anything students might not share via emails... like this one!)

Sharing is a 2G activity Dr. Cat used to dread and not schedule, but through COVID has come to recognize as thoroughly worthwhile!

The sharing schedule is on the CLASS page of the website. (Dr. C and Ms. C are sharing on the 9th, Ava and Aubrey on the 10th...)

Once we're in the flow of things, we leave it to students to figure out when they are sharing — and remember it.

(As there are 13 students in 2G and 2 students share each day, "forgetting" your sharing means you'll wait a little more than a week to have another chance!)

Specialty classes come after lunch.

(4) P.E.

Please note that PE is on Mondays & Wednesdays (and not on the days I previously alluded to).

If students wish to wear lace-up PE shoes, it is our deep desire that they know how to tie their own laces. (This is a great skill to learn at home!   : )

A big ask: ankle socks or smaller? 

When students bring tight tube socks that run all the way up to their knees — socks they cannot put on (or sometimes take off!) themselves — this, plus the time it takes to lace up shoes... well... it can take inordinate amounts of time!

Again: please wear slippers every day, even on PE days.

Again: we do not wear shoes in the classroom or on the rugs in our out-of-doors classroom. (Yes, I lived in Japan a few years back!)

(5) Music

While we don't at present have a music teacher, Dr. Cat has a guitar -- more than one, actually -- and LOVES to sing with students.

So 2G students will not go music-less.

And — hee, hee, hee— we may use any temporarily-free class time for... work! (There's always something!)

(6) Imaginative play

If COVID taught us anything, it's the importance of children being with other children for significant periods of time day in and day out.

How else do you learn the "rules" of how to play together, or resolve issues without adult help, etc.?

High on the list of important interpersonal experiences is imaginative play. Imaginative play is brain food par excellence.

So week's end with playful brain feeding!

(7) Pick-up time

The 2G pick-up time at bench is 2:40 - 2:50.

I hope that answers any questions that might have been forming in the 2G parent/student universe, and anticipated a few follow on questions.

Feel free to get back to me with questions, concerns, suggestions, complaints, croissants and coffee.

A good evening to all,

Cat (to parents)

Dr. Cat (to students)

Aloha 2G Parents (email)

Aloha All,

We hope you and yours had a wonderful summer!

We are truly excited about the coming school year!

Our apologies for the lack pre-school-year communications — we usually over-, rather than under-, communicate — but Dr. Cat returned from his Iceland hiking trek with a bad case of COVID.Hence: a bump in our back-to-school road!He's now bouncing back, so more communications will follow soon!

Crucial information for the first day/week?

Slippers! Even on PE days. 

In 2G, we don't wear shoes in the classroom or on the carpets in our outdoor classroom.

Lace-up shoes don't work: way (way, way) too time-consuming.

So slippers every day!(If our schedule is the same as last year, PE will be on Wednesdays and Fridays. We'll let you know if that changes.)

Pencils, erasers, etc. -- supplied!

Much time and energy is saved by sharing pencils, erasers, colored pencils, rulers, etc., etc.

We also supply binders and notebooks.

So— no need to worry about school supplies!

Please, please, please: (almost) always communicate with both Erin and Dr. Cat (simultaneously).

Dr. Cat & Erin are a super tight team. We work as co-equal teachers.

Often it's super-important we're both singing from the same songbook

.We just hate balls getting dropped and things falling through the cracks.

So if you can — please, please, please — texts and emails to both of us!

That's it for now

!If you have questions, don't hesitate: email us!

As you may know, we have a class website which students use every day for our schedule.Dr. Cat hasn't had a chance yet to dive in and update it for the 2022-2023 school year, but if you don't mind that, by all means take a poke around to get a better sense of 2G!

Soon the site will be full of photos and videos of your students!

(Links above, in Navigation Bar).

Again, we hope everyone had a wonderful summer break, ideally COVID-free!Again, we eagerly anticipated a fabulous 2022-2023 school year.

Again, if you have any questions, concerns, thoughts, suggestions, complaints, coffee — just send them our way!

Warmest aloha,

Cat & Erin

On Impulses & Impulsiveness

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With Parent-Teacher Conferences fast approaching, we anticipate both casual and serious questions such as, “How’s my child doing?” — even though the first PT Conference is really more for you to share with us things you feel we need to know to better teach your child.

Our answer will likely be something like, “Your child is a delightful, happy, 100% developmentally normal impulsive 2Ger.”

So a quick word about impulses and impulsiveness seems in order!

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Can adults really understand impulsiveness?

Adults, who for the most part control their impulses, sometimes find it hard to empathize with the child who doesn’t. Adults forget what life was like before their frontal lobes kicked in and their neurons got their thick myelin sheathes (thus massively speeding up brain messaging and self control).

That’s the odd thing about brain development. Once the brain grows and reconfigures, we can no longer (really) recall what it was like to inhabit a less-developed brain.

So try this.

Think back to the last time you were in a heated argument with a significant other or close family member — be honest, we’ve all been there — and four nanoseconds after you said something that really hurt the other person you instantly DEEPLY REGRETTED opening your mouth.

Be honest! (I know I’ve done this… um… more than once or twice…. : )

Put yourself back in that moment.

That’s what it’s like to BE your impulse (to be in the grips of your impulse) rather than HAVE your impulse (when you can feel it, but choose not to act on it).

You just said what you said.

At the time of saying it your control mechanisms were offline — perhaps you watched yourself, horrified, perhaps you “instantly” saw what you’d done (past tense) — and you were “not yourself.”

As adults, we are thankful these moments are few and far between, but for a young child, the press of impulses is constant. When her/his frontal lobes are fully populated with neurons and fully operational s/he will be (far) better able to control her/himself.

Before then, impulse control will follow the level of frontal-lobe development.

You can’t make brain cells grow and connect any faster than DNA prescribes!

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Sadly, there are a lot of impulsive adults around

Sadly, many adult models seem to celebrate impulsiveness.

Sadly, too, news coverage just loves to trot out examples of adult impulsive behavior — it grabs eyeballs and draws advertising dollars — rewarding those who go wild and act crazy, show off and zing others with fab soundbytes.

I once spoke to a police officer about why the police pull over speeders, but not the far more dangerous aggressive swerving-in-and-out drivers who are everywhere these days. “They’re hard to catch, the speeders are easy.” At least this officer was honest.

The airline industry is dealing with boatloads — har, har— of out of control passengers these days.

So—

So our children are getting plenty of messages that letting rip is just fine, regardless of what mum and dad say.

All of this only makes our job helping young people learn to master their impulses harder.

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Oh yes — running with wolves FEELS SO GOOD!

Another empathy reflection exercise.

Think back to a time when you were 100% in the right, the other person was clearly, 100% negligently in the wrong, and the right thing to do was let ‘em have it with both barrels. Bam! Bam!

Felt good, didn’t it?

Righteous anger is… a natural high.

Here’s the thing to take from this: your child doesn’t feel bad when s/he’s run by her/his impulses. In fact, it might just feel mighty fine and be its own reward!

On the other hand, the early days of reigning in your impulsive horses, even when you’ve got a good million or so new front-lobe neurons online, isn’t that much fun.

So—

Impulse control will rarely appear in a young student overnight.

Impulse control is a long process, extending well into young adulthood.

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Confession

As a young person, before I started in British boarding schools at the age of 10, I was an impulsive terror.

• My cousin recently sent me this. I was very impulsive at this age…

My parents threatened me with Juvenile Detention. (I’d visited a Juvenile Detention site to sing with my Sunday school so… had a very real sense of what they were threatening!)

Happily, my British school masters* put me to rights quick as lightening!

Anyways, I was far worse than any of my four boys, and far worse than 99.7% of the students I’ve ever taught.

Part of me well recalls the joys — and it was such fun — of running with my impulses (until I was caught and suffered the consequences).

A bigger part of me is eternally grateful that I learned “to hold my horses” as my mother would have put it. I don’t think I’d have done well in prison, juvenile or adult!

* Yes, very “colonial” language but… we did call our teachers “masters” and to do otherwise would be to distort history!

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2G impulses

Today was a day of Typical Impulsiveness, one that required a whole-class meeting to address.

Truth be told, Dr. Cat was feeling like a piece of bread floating down a stream with dozens of minnows — or were they guppies? — nibbling away. Peck, peck, peck. (If minnows/guppies peck!!)

2G students—

• Called out for help — or to make comments — without raising their hands, or even thinking of raising their hands

• If I was helping a student, students who wanted help right now would barge in and start talking at me (even when I asked them not to!)

• If I was helping a student and a small line had formed of those also needing help right now the line would slip out of Just Right for Learning Gear and flow towards Too Hot!

• Students “forgot” what they were to do if finished, but waiting for math help or their next phonics lesson (Answer: read, write, draw or do a doodle card) and played around instead

• Etc., etc.

Running on concrete was popular today too.

A student or two “forgot” about safely descending the stairs so they might mess around a bit.

One student, despite numerous requests not too, just couldn’t keep bumping and pawing the plexiglass dividers in the classroom…

All of which is 100% normal and to be expected!

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BEING your impulses vs. HAVING your impulses

Hopefully the discussion above is helpful in feeling the difference between BEING my impulses (and perhaps having very little say in whether the impulses run you) and HAVING my impulses (when you can feel the impulse to do something — throw a rock, punch a kid in the nose, shout out an answer, push to the front of the line — but choose not to).

The transition from BEING my impulses to HAVING my impulses is one of the major developmental tasks of the 6, 7, 8 year old, a.k.a. the 2Ger.

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In conclusion

To expect a 6, 7, 8 year old to be in full command of her/his horses (i.e., impulses) is developmentally unrealistic: 6, 7, 8 year olds are impulsive, as they should be.

(And so were you when you were 6, 7, an 8 — and you turned out just fine!)

• Our (joint) task: to help our children/students begin to get a little distance between their in-the-process-of-becoming “new, more mature selves” and their impulses, then strengthening the divide between impulse and their new, more mature self.

• Our (joint) goal: to get our students to the point where they can CHOOSE their actions under the pressure of strong impulses.

Of course, this isn’t the end of development…

Just wait for the teenage years when young people ARE their relationships and don’t yet HAVE their relationships. (That’s why teenagers — and way too many adults — have such difficulty with peer pressure.)

But… that’s a different story set in the distant future…

…for you

…been there, done that — four times over!

🤪

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Solving: y + 6 = 13 or (worse) 13 = y + 6

A shallow understanding of math is relatively easy to attain. I memorize, for example:

7 + 6 = 13

A shallow understanding may be quickly revealed when a student is asked to solve:

y + 6 = 13

Or, (far) worse:

13 = y + 6

“I don’t get it.”

Many students who breeze through

• 4 + 7 = x,

• 3 + 9 = y

• 11 + 12 = z

… balk at:

• a + 7 = 11

• 12 = b + 9

• 23 = 12 + c

In addition to concrete manipulative like fingers, dots on scrap paper, number lines, Rekenreks, 10-base block, tokens and money, FACT FAMILIES can help students see the relationships between the 3 numbers that make up the family.

Consider the Fact Family comprised of 3, 4 and 7.

Notice that the largest number goes in the apex of the triangle. (It doesn’t matter where the two smaller numbers go.)

• Addition sentences for fact families END with the largest number

• Subtraction sentence for fact families START with the largest number

While the two bullet points above are obvious to adults, they really take some thinking through for a young mathematician still more concrete than abstract in her/his thinking.

If you’re up for a fun math talk with your student, discuss this with some concrete objects on hand, wondering why this is, wondering if it’s true for all (2G-level) addition/subtraction sentences—and why.

Notice that every fact family has 4 related equations or number sentences:

• 2 addition sentences/equations (3 + 4 = 7 and 4 + 3 = 7)

• 2 subtraction sentences/equations (7 - 4 = 3 and 7 - 3 = 4)

Now, once a student “gets” fact families, s/he will start to see how useful they are. S/he can see

y + 4 = 7

as—

y + 4 = 7 is in the same fact family as 7 - 4 = y — and I can do 7 - 4 — it’s 3!

Grappling with fact families help young mathematicians develop a much more robust appreciation of how numbers in an addition or subtraction sentence — whether we know all the values, or only two out of three — relate to one another.

A real revelation: if I have the 3 numbers of a fact family, I can create the 4 equations without doing any math!

Fact families are quite wonderful, and have uses aplenty!

And, yes, one can have multiplication/division fact families such as 3, 4, 12 (3 x 4 = 12, 4 3 = 12, 12 ÷ 3 = 4, 12 ÷ 4 = 3). But that can wait until 3G and beyond!

Science Begins with Observation

Science begins with observation.

If we don’t see what’s going on around us, questions about how things work or why things are the way they are never arise. Lazy eyes lead to dull scientific minds.

If we don’t notice changes, outliers, novelties our scientific curiosity is taken out at the knees. Imagine running a complex, granular experiment and… missing important data that’s right there for the grasping.

We are lucky at HNS: there is so much to observe without even trying!

Nothing quite inspires a long-term interest in looking around than a white tern chick popping up in one of our kukui-nut trees.

Watching chicks get fed and watching them learn to fly is thrilling!

Right now, we are watching a pair of white terns (manu-o-ku) checking out the kukui-nut tree closest to Kalanianaole Highway. As they are often there during 2G’s brain break, our fingers are crossed that they will select the tree as a nesting spot.

This is the same tree Ibuki hatched in in February. Before that, many other chicks have launched from this very tree!

How do we know when the terns are in? We have to watch the skies, listen for their less-than-melodious calls, and scan kukui-nut-tree perches every chance we get.

We also must learn to differentiate the on-ground and in-flight differences between white tern, cattle egret and white pigeons! Close observation is key. And— it doesn’t take long to see the difference in wing beats, flight patterns, and even body shapes at distance.

Meanwhile…

2G was enraptured when it was pointed out to them that a squawking myna bird hopping after a slightly larger myna bird on the green was, in fact, a chick/fledgling shouting “Feed me! I’m HUNGRY!” to it’s mum. Watch long enough and you are rewarded with an insect delivered to a waiting mouth!

2G was all eyes and is now ever on the lookout for the hungry baby.

Observation was key: the fledgling myna was not, on first inspection, dramatically different in size or coloration than the parent. However, on closer inspection is was clear much of its size was “fluff,” unlike the silent parent it was making a racket, and it clearly had no idea how to feed itself, mum’s endless modeling notwithstanding!

Meanwhile 2.0…

Over the past few years, the occasional and very skittish waxbill visitors to the HNS green have grown to a much bolder flock of about 30-35 birds.

These small finches — 4 inches long — are most often up to their avian shoulders in grass, so if you don’t look carefully, you can pass as many as 35 birds and not notice! The trick: look for their red beaks. Too much going on will startle them and then, like a swarm of dragonflies, they disappear!

Meanwhile 3.0…

Photographs from last year indicate our kolea (Pacific plover) was still on campus in early May.

Kolea migrate to Alaska each summer. That’s a 3,000 mile trek each way! (While back-country backpacking in Alaska, my wife and I heard the characteristic call of the kolea, and later saw them!)

Just the other day, one 2G student said they’d seen one of the kolea that hangs out near their house. The next day my wife reported seeing a wintering-in-Hawai’i kolea in Manoa, and that day after that I saw one on the UH Manoa campus as I was exiting H-1.

It seems early for the kolea to be back, but… they’re back!

2G is on high alert of the HNS kolea to return!

And now for something completely different…

A few 2G students spotted s pair of Java Fiches the other day.

At times, they nest in the roof of Glover Hall (music room). They also nest in the large (yet to be identified) tree over the lower-playground . Of late, however, they’ve been scarce.

Needless to say, we have Zebra and Ring-necked (spotted) doves, and… pigeons (no photograph needed)…

… and our very smart, very canny, trash-can diving Red-Crested Cardinals.

We have also seen — usually, and on two separate occasions — great frigatebirds flying high over the campus. (Dr. Cat thought they were tropic birds at first!)

Of course what always grabs the attention of a budding young paleontologist is the notion that birds are descended from dinosaurs!

To observation!

Interesting Sentences, Fire Drill Practice & More!

So many 2G days are just full, full, full!

We even had a white tern checking out the back kukui-nut tree today, much to the excitement of 2G!

INTERESTING SENTENCES

During Morning Circle, we began to have fun with making our sentences “more interesting.” Silly and unrealistic interesting sentences are always welcome!

Writing should be FUN in 2G!

Students practiced “making sentences more interesting” for homework tonight.

FIRE DRILL PRACTICE

Tomorrow we will have our first fire-drill practice of the 2021-2022 school year.

In 2G, this means we may have to get some of our students down from the tree house in a safe manner. We achieve this by practicing!

As the alarm bell is just outside the tree house, we de-sensitize with our classroom bell. Before the video clip below, 2G stilled their bodies and silenced their minds for 2 minutes, then Dr. Cat walked amongst students ringing the bell loudly. Student practiced knowing the bell would be loud and not over-reacting.

We are ready!

PHOTOS FROM YESTERDAY

Please find in the PHOTOS section

• a few shots from the school-photo shoot

• a few shots rescued from 2G’s energetic recess (most were trashed!)

Photos from today — P.E. and Music — will be available soon!

"Teaching the Brain to Read" — PDF

It seems the free-download link for Teaching the Brain to Read (PDF) by Duncan Milne no longer works, although Amazon will sell you the very slim “book” for $75!

Back in the day when the author made the book freely available I copped a copy and am happy to share!

For those interested in following up some of yesterday’s reading and writing thoughts, Milne’s book is available via my Dropbox:

Teaching the Brain to Read LINK

You can ignore Dropbox’s desire for you to sign up. Click on the X (see red arrow below).

Then you should get the option to download the PDF (see green arrow below).

‘Tis a fascinating read!

And most enjoyable!

When the phonics comes marching home...

Very soon, on the PARENTS side of your student’s homework folder, you will find phonics work coming home.

Today’s blog post is a brief guide to what you will find — and a key to deciphering it!

WRITING IS HARD

When it comes to the verbal aspects of language arts — speaking, listening, understanding — most every human being acquires the necessary skills to communicate. The brain is pre-wired for this.

The brain is not pre-wired for reading and writing.

Reading presents a challenge for many, and most newspapers and magazine write to a 6G level, such is the general reading level in the US.

Writing is one step harder. Many adults who read well find writing a chore. If adults find writing difficult, so much more so will young children just learning to write.

It’s important that we — teachers and parents alike — make writing a pleasurable, joyful experience for students. If we don’t, they’ll do everything they can to write as little as is humanly possible.

PARENT-TEACHER ORIENTATION: REVIEW

At the Parent-Teacher Orientation, we looked at the BILLIONS of new synapses your student is creating as s/he builds her/his brain’s reading/writing module. Before COVID, if you looked at writing samples in the windows of K on up to 6G, you could SEE the growth of this module.

K and 2G students can’t write like 6G student — yet. (They will soon enough!)

Whenever an adult looks at — and “judges” — a young person’s writing, it’s helpful to remember the writer in question is working at the growing edge of her/his reading/writing brain module construction. We cannot ask a child to do something s/he is not yet brain-wired to do!

It’s also helpful to bear in mind the developmental order of reading/writing competencies.

Phonemic awareness is key.

If a child cannot hear and manipulate the 44 sounds in the English language — a phoneme is a basic sound unit — s/he will struggle learning to read and write. Thus, sound comes first, correct spelling way, way later.

The child who hears /chruk/ and not “truck” will likely have an easy time learning to hear the difference between /ch/ and /t/.

The child who cannot tell you the three sounds — sounds not letter names — in a word like “cat” or “kit” — or trick — may need extra help learning to hear phonemes correctly.

Thus, if your child spells “school” s-k-u-l CELEBRATE! S/he has not only heard the four sounds in “school” and ordered them correctly, but has made perfectly good letter selections to represent those sounds. SCH is a non-phonetic way of getting the /sk/ sound, and two Os giving you the /ew/ sound is something that children learn over time with repeated exposure.

“The use of invented spelling by emergent writers leads to longer stories, better vocabulary, and more complex grammar structures.”

—Teaching the Brain to Read, Duncan Milne, Ph.D. (2005)

When we see invented spelling — provided it demonstrates accurate phoneme awareness — we make sure the student knows s/he has “good ears!” The child who can hear the four sounds in the word “school” will learn to spell it correctly more quickly than the child who cannot break the word down into its component sounds.

5 SENTENCES

At the end of every phonics lesson, students choose 5 words from the lesson with which to write 5 sentences.

Should you look at the last page of a lesson sent home and lurking in the PARENTS pocket of the homework folder, it might look something like this:

As an adult with decades of reading/writing experience under your belt, you may be quick to notice all sorts of issues.

Were we to mark up these sentences with a red pen and show the new write all the “mistakes” s/he’d made, we might find our young writer writing as little as possible. This is a good strategy if the experience of being repeatedly “wrong about everything” is something you’d like to avoid.

What we do is point out everything that is great in these sentences.

• You thought up 5 sentences! (This is far from easy in the beginning — 5 sentences at the end of EVERY lesson!)

• Nice handwriting! (Also not easy, especially when the writing muscles are still strengthening)

• You have good ears! Spelling “kitten” k-i-t-i-n tell me you are hearing all the sounds in the word and selecting appropriate letters to represent those sounds

• You remembered to capitalize the first letter in all your sentences!

• You started each sentence next to the number (1) through (5)

• And more

Do we ignore what’s not yet standard English and standard writing practice? No.

But we use what we see diagnostically. Where does this writer need 1 or 2 pointers? (We do not want to overwhelm a young writer with 27 pointers, giving her/him the sense that “everything is wrong.”)

We also separate what needs to be practiced from the sentences.

OF ROUGH DRAFTS & FINAL DRAFTS

We consider the 5 sentences students write at the end of each phonics lessons as a “rough draft.” Students are to “do the best you can by yourself — we can make it perfect later.”

As my mother taught me, “Writers WRITE!” We can always make it perfect later — which is exactly what professional writers do!

We make it “perfect” with our “final-draft corrections,” which students receive a day or two after writing their sentences.

A final-draft correction for Book 3, Lesson 2 might start off like this:

Chances are when student Cat turned in his 5 sentences, he wasn’t producing true sentences, but sentence fragments like “Look sky” or “Bird fly home.” We read through the final draft corrections so the student understands the idea — and it looks like handwriting practice (which it is!) rather than an admonition that s/he “still doesn’t know what a sentence is!”

The (1) relates to the students first sentence. Student Cat’s parents, looking through his final draft correction, would rightly guess that there son had forgotten to capitalize!

The could, also, rightly conclude that student Cat’s first sentence was something like, “My dog is big.”

It looks as if student Cat is also forgetting to “put something at the end of every sentence.”

Sentences are “gently corrected.” Ofttimes students will say, “I wrote that!” with a big smile on their faces. “Yes you did!”

We keep track of student’s final draft feedback. This allows us to track progress, and to reinforce certain things.

While we do have some ready-made “macros” for common issues — capitalization, punctuation — every final draft correction is tailored to individual students and the sentences they are writing “now.”

As your student’s time in 2G progresses, you may notice that her/his feedback progresses from handwriting practice and reinforcement of key phonetic lessons to something like the “macro” below.

Once students can easily generate 5 sentences — I like cubs. I like cubes. I like tubes. I like caps. I like capes. — we challenge them to add “fun words” to make their sentences more interesting.

Be prepared for some silly sentences — and some big smiles from your young writer!

AND NEVER FORGET—

Math: Base-10 Redux & Using Manipulatives

Morning Circle and our Whole-Class Instruction today focused on the base-10 foundation of math.

Most students are comfortable with the notion of the different places — ones, tens, hundreds, thousands — and intrigued by the idea that each step to the left results in a place ten times larger.

That said, many students still scratch their heads about what number “two tens and two ones” might be (22). Similar head scratching comes when considering the answer to, “In the number 54, how many tens are then, and how many ones?”

And— we’re getting there!

We did dive a bit into money today. Students were fascinated at the the relationship between pennies, dimes and dollars, each being 10 times larger than the one preceding.

A good number of students quickly saw that:

• Four dimes (tens) and three pennies (ones) = 43¢

• One dollar (hundred), five dimes and three pennies = $1.53 or 153¢

Many students also met their first Rekenrek today.

Quicker than many classes, students caught onto the role of 10s in the Rekenrek’s construction:

• Each rod contains 10 beads (5 white, 5 red)

• The large Rekenrek has 10 rods holding a total of 100 beads

Students were excited to learn that while we only have two 100-bead Rekenreks in the class, every student has immediate access to a “Two tens” — 20-bead — Rekenrek.

The introduction of Rekenreks led directly to the high desirability of using “manipulative” in math.

We’re never quite sure where 2G students get the idea that the correct answers to math questions should magically appear in their minds after a moment of silence/stillness, but it’s been a common trait of all 2G classes!

Fingers are a handy manipulative!

Paulo, a student from my first 2G class, was a finger-calculating king, often out-performing even good memorizers through deft use of his fingers. I tell every new 2G class about Paulo and demonstrate just how fast one can calculate using your fingers.

• With addition: start with the biggest number and count up using fingers

• With subtraction, count down using fingers

Please encourage your student to use her/his fingers!

Young children need a tactile sense of math. In many instances, math is about things!

Rekenreks are wonderful manipulatives.

Today, not only did students quickly appreciate the ideas encapsulated within the Rekenrek’s construction, but they demonstrated they could SEE the numbers instead of counting every bead.

• No need to count the bead on a road with all beads used! It’s 10!

• I can count all-beads-used rods by 10s

• If five of the red (or white) beads are used to show a number less than 10, I don’t need to count the red (or white) beads — there are 5 of them!

• I can count by 10s, add 5 if all of the red (or white) beads are used, then just count the 1-4 beads left over!

• 10 - 20 - 30 - 40 - 45 - 46 - 47 - 48!

We will be doing a lot more work with Rekenreks, for the rest of the year!

Number lines are divine!

The following questions required students to mentally shift from counting by 2s to counting by 5s to counting by 10s — and to shift from skip-counting up (by 2s, 5s, 10s) up and down.

This can be quite a challenge for adults, not to mention 2G students!

Number lines are incredibly helpful with these types of problems.

Indeed, students who are lost (when hoping the answer magically materializes in their minds) immediately SEE the answers when a number line is used.

In addition to our big number line, we have a nice stash of meter (100 cm) rules that students can use as a handy-dandy number line at their work spot.

With the 10s often prominent—

— student find it easy to quickly “navigate” the number line to help answer the counting by 2s/5s/10s before and after questions.

Helping your student with math at home?

Should you end up helping your child with math challenges at home, if you can, make the problem as tactile and visual as possible.

The math-concept-comprehension progression is:

• tactile (manipulative)

• visual

• abstract

While we adults have had many years — many decades — of manipulating abstract math ideas in our heads, much of what we take for granted is new for students.

The “problem” adults have when teaching young children is

(a) forgetting that we once could not manipulate math problems abstracting, and

(b) trying to see math problems from a young child’s pre-abstract-concept perspective

That said, “rediscovering” that perspective can be a lot of fun!

Enjoy!

Can You Crack the Code?

Base-Ten Number System

All modern number systems are “base ten.” Each place — ones, tens, hundreds, thousands — is ten times larger than the place to the right.

Were our 2G students native Japanese speakers, the names of the numbers would “say” the base-ten nature of the system.

• 32 — sanjūni — “three tens & two”

• 97 — kyūjūnana — “nine tens & seven”

• 445 — 四百四十五 — “four hundreds four tens & five”

In Japanese 11, 12 and 13 are:

• jū ichi — “ten & one”

• jū ni — “ten & two”

• jū san — “ten & three”

English names for numbers don’t always help with “getting” the base ten structure of the number systems. We’ve sometimes thought we would try a year never using the standard English names for numbers, but the English translation of the Japanse

• Today is August one ten and seven

• Please turn to page seven tens and six

• This round will be a bit shorter than others, it will be about two tens and 2 ones minutes long

Some educational researchers hypothesize that Japanese school children are ahead of their US counterparts largely due to the Japanese students early understanding of how numbers are put together.

While young students can often count by 10s — 10, 20, 30, 40… — the idea than “four tens IS 40” or that the number 13 — with a 1 in the tens place, a 3 in the ones place — MEANS “1 ten and 3 ones” — take a while to grasp. The idea that 1 ten = 10 ones can really be confusing!

One way we work with this is to play with a “code” based on our base-ten blocks. You’ll see it at the very top.

• each dot (like a ones cube) = 1 one

• each line (like a tens block) = 1 ten

• each square (like a hundreds block) = 100

Here’s today’s challenge, with answers following!

And here’s the answers. How did you do? : )

You’ll see tonight’s (hand)writing homework reinforces this.

When we get to money, lightbulbs start going off—

• 1 penny = 1¢ = 1 one

• 1 dime = 1 ten = 10¢ = 10 ones

• 1 dollar = 10 tens = 100¢ = 100 ones

Onwards!

See You Tomorrow!

Aloha 2G Students & Families!

Tomorrow is Day 1 of the 2021-2022 school year!

Below find a short video about what to do when you arrive at 2G!

You may hang your backpack up on any hook outside the classroom (and choose different hooks each day!).

Line your slippers up neatly beneath your backpack. From time to time Ms. Sakiko drops by for a “Japanese Elementary School Neatness Check” — and we fail when our slippers are in the walkway! : )

Go to bed early tonight! Sleep is super important for growing brains!

Warmest aloha,

Dr. Cat & Ms. Erin

Last Day, Water Play PHOTOS

• Mahalo to Ms. Hoi and Ms. Wilks for letting 2G enjoy the Osco Field water slide!

Great fun was had by all!

• LO-rez photos (email, posting) here

• HI-rez photos (printing) here