Dear Parents, 

I wanted to share some information with you regarding math fluency. You may remember growing up taking timed drills in math. The concept of math fluency has evolved so much over the years. 

According to Jenny Bay-Williams, a leading teacher educator in mathematics at UofL, math fluency is about "empowering students to approach problems thoughtfully, choose strategies wisely, and communicate their reasoning clearly." If you are wondering what that looks like at your child grade level, please check out these fluency standards. Your child's teacher has the best insight for how they are progressing towards these expectations. 

If you are looking for ideas to help develop your child's math fluency progress, the Kentucky Center for Mathematics created a site for parent resources. They have engaging resources for family games and online games. I hope this is a helpful resource for you!

Kind Regards,

Lisa

• Brown School has an on-site food pantry. Please contact me if you are ever in need. I am happy to help!

• Our mobile dental team from Big Smiles Dental Company will be here on March 17. If you have not signed up your student yet and would like to, click here to register.  This will save you from missing a day of work and your student missing school!

• Connor Academy is a great opportunity for our 4th-grade boys! LINK HERE

Elementary Basketball- Basketball season has started. If you have not paid for this season's fees, please pay ASAP. Also, please pay attention to the official JCPS Basketball Schedule.

Elementary Soccer- If you are interested in having your child play soccer for Brown Elementary this year, please fill out the form below. 

• We plan to have an advanced team and two developmental teams. 

• This is for grades 3-5 only. 

• Tryouts will be on Monday, March 2nd, with an alternative rain delay date of Wednesday, March 4th.

• The season starts on March 21st. 

Brown Elementary Soccer Interest Form

For the month of February, we will be busy not only surviving all the snow and NTI days, but also working with numbers in the teens in Unit 6 of Math, discovering how living things depend on trees in our EL Module 3, and solidifying the short vowel sounds in VC and CVC words in Skills Block. 

The Kindergarten class will also participate in the Black History program and parade toward the end of the month, and enjoy the wax museum with our Moonbeams.

Jenna & Cheri

Firefly Newsletter LINK

ELA:

During Unit 2 of Module 3, students engage in a variety of experiences as they answer the unit guiding question, “How do birds use their body parts to survive?” Throughout the unit, students read, write, talk, draw, experiment, and sing about two key bird body parts: feathers and beaks. 

Math:

Unit 4 develops students’ understanding of the structure of base-ten numbers, allowing them to see that the two digits of a two-digit number represent how many tens and ones there are.  Students interpret and use multiple representations of two-digit numbers: connecting cubes, base-ten diagrams, words, drawings, and expressions.   Later in the unit, students use the value of the digits to compare two-digit numbers and learn to use comparison symbols (<, >) to record their comparisons. 

Eriauna & Lauren

Dear 2nd Grade Families,

Our students are busy researching plants and pollinators for their PBL project for March 21. They are very engaged in learning how plants and pollinators work together to survive. We are super excited to incorporate the Glowforge from the Ursa lab in our project.

We are working on Unit 6 in math, where students are learning that shapes can be partitioned into 2, 3, or 4 equal pieces called halves, thirds, and fourths or quarters, respectively. Using the information about halves, fourths, and quarters, students learn about telling time and counting money.

Thanks for reading,

Ms. Mayra & Ms. Susan

Literacy:  EL Module 3: Exploring Literary Classics

What can we learn from reading literary classics? In this module, students consider the answer to this question through a case study of Peter Pan by J.M. Barrie. In Unit 2, students make connections between reading Peter Pan and Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens. In the first half of the unit, they continue to examine character traits of many different characters and look at each character's point of view. In the second half of the unit, students use strategies to find the meanings of unfamiliar words and compare and contrast paired texts.

Math: IM Unit 4: Relating Multiplication to Division

In this section, students revisit situations involving the questions “how many in each group?” and “how many groups?” in order to start multiplying larger numbers. They also use diagrams, drawings, and models to visualize how the algorithms help them solve problems.  Students see that models and expressions can represent different situations and use this understanding to solve two-step word problems.

Andrew and Samantha

In Math, students will generate geometric and numerical patterns that follow a given rule. Then, they will use their knowledge of multiplication, place value, and area of rectangles to multiply one-digit numbers and numbers up to four digits, and to multiply pairs of two-digit numbers. 

In ELA and Social Studies, students continue to explore colonial perspectives on the Revolutionary War with a focus on a family divided by their perspectives. Students analyze the thoughts, feelings, and actions of characters with a focus on the differing Loyalist and Patriot views within the family to write a descriptive paragraph describing the character in detail. Finally, they will apply what they have learned about the American Revolution and colonial perspectives on the war to create broadsides persuading someone to be a Patriot or a Loyalist.

In Science, students will continue exploring energy and how it's related to motion. 

They will investigate how energy is transferred when objects collide. Then use evidence to construct an explanation of the relationship between the speed of an object and the energy of that object. Students will explore energy transfer through waves that result in sound and motion. They use their new found knowledge to develop models to represent how energy moves from place to place in waves.

Christie & Jamie