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October at GAP School
October was full of discovery at GAP. Across every flock, learners dug into our school wide big idea: It Takes a Village. We spent time exploring how plants, soil, forests and people all depend on one another. Many of those threads came together at Community Day, where families got to share in the learning. Here's a look at what each flock has been up to.
Orange Monarchs (K–1) with Emily
Kindergarten ELA
In ELA, kindergarteners have been working on letter formation, writing independently, decoding and reading new words, and building sentences in their writing. Kinders are working hard to strengthen the fine motor skills they need for writing. We practice with pencil grips and use playdough as a hands-on way to form letters. On lined paper, we talk about where each letter sits on the line. Learners are moving from tracing words to writing them on their own! That includes spelling words the way they sound (encoding) as they write.
CVC words (like cat and sun) and sight words have been our main focus. We use the arm tap method to break words into individual sounds and to hear the differences between short vowel sounds.
Each week has a letter of the week, when we dive deep into how the letter is formed and the sound it makes. As we learn to form it, we ask questions like: What shape is this letter? Is it made with straight lines, curved lines, or both? Is it short or tall? To practice its sound, we do warm-ups and group work on encoding, decoding and phonemic awareness, read stories that feature the sound, and are beginning to read weekly messages. In our nature journals, we practice spacing between words and writing complete sentences.
First Grade ELA
First graders have been in a deep review of the spelling patterns we built last year: long and short vowels, magic e, letter blends and digraphs. Each week, learners decode a message that features our letter of the week and reviews these patterns.
During DEAR (Drop Everything and Read) time, learners read BOB Books and other early readers that build fluency with the spelling patterns they know. All of this carries into their writing. Whether practicing sentence structure together or writing on their own, first graders spell words phonetically using the patterns they've learned. They're also working hard to catch letter reversals and form letters correctly.
Math
Kindergarteners and first graders have been learning math together! This month we wrapped up place value, greater than and less than, number sense and number formation.
For kindergarteners, this work built a strong foundation for understanding numbers and their value, and for reading and writing numbers correctly. First graders focused on grouping, counting and bundling, using manipulatives to group sets of ten in the correct place, all the way into the hundreds. Comparing two- and three-digit numbers with greater than and less than was a fun review. And as learners solve problems, we keep practicing writing numbers accurately.
Science
We wrapped up our study of the parts of a plant and what each one does! This month we dove deep into roots, stems, leaves, flowers and fruit, and noticed how much abundance nature provides all around us. Learners made leaf rubbings, propagated their own spider plants and watched the roots sprout, and kept nature journals tracking the lima beans they grew themselves. These hands-on projects brought endless joy! We also watched short videos about flowers, pollinators and fruit, and looked back on our collaborative art project from September, when we used flowers as paintbrushes. Imagining ourselves as pollinators, each learner colored the flower that would be most beautiful to them.
To explore fruit, we teamed up with other flocks to make homemade applesauce for Community Day. Up close, we discovered the star shape hidden inside each apple and drew the seeds in our nature journals.
Silver Sea Lions (2–4) with Elijah, Furn and Sapna
Math
Our Silver learning groups tackled a variety of math concepts this October!
The Snakes continued building their number sense by breaking larger numbers apart and putting them back together, practicing how to read and say numbers, and rounding. They've also started adding, developing reliable strategies for multi-digit addition and using manipulatives to understand regrouping and how addition works in our base-ten system.
The Otters have explored many of the same concepts and are now taking on subtraction with regrouping.
The Hedgealots have been busy with function machines and order of operations while building confidence with multi-step addition and subtraction problems. As the work grows more complex, we'll revisit multiplication and division facts to make sure we have a solid foundation to build on.
All of our groups practice their addition and subtraction facts regularly to build fluency and automaticity. These foundational skills will help learners feel confident as we move toward more complex math!
Science
We got our hands dirty in October as we learned about soil. Our guiding question was: How does life underground support life above ground? As we learned about the colors, textures and makeup of different soils, we made predictions and sharpened our observation skills. Each group collected three types of soil (sand, clay and soil from our garden), added water, shook them up and watched the layers settle. While discussing pollution and runoff, learners used their problem-solving and survival skills to build water filters from natural materials.
In the Silver Sea Lion space, a fallen tree pulled up clay soil with its roots. We collected it and broke it apart to reveal the wonders inside, and under a digital microscope we found unexpected colors and shapes!
To prepare for Community Day, we learned John Denver's, "Garden Song," baked spicebush cookies with autumn olive jam to share, and made a collaborative art piece of life underground using pokeberry paint we made ourselves. We're excited to keep building our skills, take on new challenges, and see where our explorations take us in November!
A Whole-Flock Project
All of the Silvers worked together on a giant 3D diorama showing everything that went into making our spicebush and autumn olive thumbprint cookies. Learners created everything from the spicebush and autumn olive plants to the farms, animals and other resources behind each ingredient. Along the way, they investigated the math behind each ingredient by solving number problems, and some learners even wrote their own multi-step word problems! We loved bringing math and science together in such a hands-on way, and we're so proud of the finished product.
Emerald Eddys (5–7) with Max and Melissa
Math
In October, we continued exploring number relationships as we dove deeper into proper fractions, mixed numbers and improper fractions. Learners explored equivalence, addition, subtraction, multiplication and division while building a deeper understanding of how fractions work and relate to one another. Throughout the unit, we emphasized visual models, patterns and multiple strategies, not just memorized procedures. The unit culminated in learners creating visual fraction puzzles with geometric tiles.
As the month closed, we built on that fraction knowledge to move into ratios, rates, proportions, percentages and decimals. In one recent challenge, learners investigated different mixtures and had to figure out how to compare them fairly, even when the total amounts were different. They used proportional reasoning, equivalent fractions and percentages, then explained why their solutions made mathematical sense.
Along the way, learners are strengthening their understanding of place value, especially how whole numbers, tenths and hundredths relate, and exploring part-to-part and part-to-whole relationships. They're discovering that fractions, decimals, percentages and ratios are different ways to represent and compare the same quantities.
Our math thinking tasks grow in complexity, encouraging learners to collaborate, test ideas, revise strategies, and persevere when a solution isn't immediately clear. Instead of learning concepts in isolation, learners are connecting them, building on what they know, and developing the flexibility to approach hard problems in many ways.
Science
In science, we continued exploring the forest around us, deepening both our understanding of ecological relationships and our connection to the land where we learn. We wrapped up our ecosystems unit with a "Build a Tree" workshop, which invited families into our learning at October's Community Day.
Throughout the unit, we returned to our schoolwide theme, It Takes a Village. Learners discovered that a thriving forest, much like a thriving human community, depends on the connected roles and relationships of its members. From the trees learners adopted and studied to the organisms that depend on them, we explored how energy flows through ecosystems, how matter cycles through the environment, and how living things rely on one another.
To close the unit, the Emerald Eddys spent three days playing Ecologies, a card game that models food chains, food webs and healthy biomes. Then we took our learning a step further by asking how accurately the game represents real ecosystems. Where does it capture the complex relationships found in nature, and where does it simplify or misrepresent them? This reflection challenged learners to think critically about models: they help us understand complex systems, but they also have limits.
Looking for a holiday gift idea for your Emerald? Ecologies is a fun game the whole family can enjoy while exploring the ecology concepts we've been investigating at school.
English
October in English was all about GAP Press, our learner-run newsroom. Connecting to It Takes a Village, learners set out to tell the stories of the people and places that make GAP a community. Every learner took on a reporting assignment, and the range was wonderful: a cover story on Exploration, a profile of our educators, a guided tour of campus, an original story about a day at GAP, a classifieds section built from community submissions, and pieces where learners collected and analyzed data to report what they found.
Behind every article was real reporting. Learners planned interview questions, listened closely, and asked thoughtful follow-ups. They organized their notes and ideas with graphic organizers, drafted, and revised their work for a real audience. Like any newsroom, we practiced giving and receiving feedback, and learners are building the habit of editing their own work before it goes to print.
This work builds the skills the Virginia English Standards of Learning call for in grades 5–7:
Communication: preparing for and conducting interviews, listening actively, and asking questions to clarify and learn more
Research: gathering information from people and data, organizing it, and drawing conclusions
Writing: planning, drafting, revising and editing narrative and informational pieces for a specific audience and purpose
Media literacy: exploring how news is created, and how writers shape a story for their readers
To close the quarter, learners reflected on their growth with our "Proud / Hard / Real Reporter" routine, then wrote reflection pieces about a skill they're building, from perseverance to breaking big projects into manageable steps.
Up next: GAP Press goes audio! In November, learners will begin producing a podcast series connected to our next big idea: Makers & Mountains: Exploring the Blue Ridge. Episodes will blend local history, the science behind it, and the creativity that came from it. Families, don't be surprised if a reporter asks to interview you!
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