How to deal with big numbers?

First a big thank you to all of you who made it to parent nights over the last two weeks. I hope many of your questions were answered and you got a first glimpse of what this school year will look like.

Students are involved in so many learning activities already! I want to share what 3rd grade worked on when I visited yesterday. Students are learning about numbers up to 1000 and had brought bigger amounts of objects to class. They worked on sorting these objects in a way that would make estimating and counting easier. Here are a few models students came up with.

At the end of class students visited the stations to compare the various approaches. There is actually not one right way to do this activity and students engaged in discussions about why they chose a certain approach.
This activity is a good example for how we do math here at GSP. We believe that all students can be successful if we offer them a variety of entryways into a topic and allow them to experiment. 
Happy learning!

Welcome back!

Dear GSP families,
I was excited to see so many of you today! What an exciting day! For many of us it started with a big bang in the middle of the night when the thunderstorm rolled through, but students seemed bright awake and ready for school this morning.
As I said to first grade families this morning - we have hopes for our children that are valid no matter what grade they enter:
We want them to be successful, ready to face the challenges ahead of them and make lasting friendships.
I am super excited about the start of the school year and feel like we are well equipped to make this a successful year for all of us! Successful changes do not happen over night, they take time, willingness to try things differently and involve the whole GSP community, but we are ready! 
Welcome back everybody!