September 2026 at GAP School!

Orange Monarchs with Emily

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

September was a month full of fun, friendship, curiosity, and learning! 

In math, we have been mainly focusing on place value and number formation. When we write numbers, we discuss the way they are formed. Are they made of curved lines? Are they made of straight lines? Are they made of both? Rhymes help us remember their formation! For example: "around the tree, around the tree, that's how we write the number three!" and "the bee goes down and around the hive, go back up and make a five!" Writing numbers on lined paper gives us the practice we need to form them with accuracy. Using playdough to sculpt out the numbers gives learners a sensory experience that helps them to remember the shape. When exploring place value, we break apart numbers using base ten blocks. Here, we practice writing and reading two and three digit numbers. 

In ELA, we are focused on phonics! In kindergarten, we are building skills in letter identification and sound production. As we build reading skills, we are practicing sounding out CVC words! Here we isolate each sound by tapping out the phoneme. While writing we also use the Synergy Release Method (SRM) tapping skill. Here we say the word and tap out each individual phoneme. After one phoneme is produced, we write down the grapheme (the letter/letters) associated with the sound. First graders are also using this practice as they review from last year. We have reviewed: CVC words, CVCe words, blends and digraphs. In our book club, we are studying a non-fiction book titled Humungus Fungus. Here, we are exploring the parts of a book/nonfiction text features, like front cover, back cover, title, illustrations, photographs, authors job, illustrators job, title page, table of contents, headings, and captions. 

In science class we are farmers! We are exploring the parts of a plant and their individual functions. So far we have discussed the roots, stem, and leaves. One of our favorite facts we have learned is that the longest leaf is eighty feet long! That's pretty incredible! To explore this fact, we used a tape measure to measure the length of eighty feet and we ran that distance; it was a blast! Other ways we are exploring parts of a plant are by growing lima beans and propagating spider plants. Our lima beans are growing in our class space, "The Chrysalis". Each learner has their own bean in a grow bag hanging from a rope on our class boundary. This space provides sunlight and warmth in order for the bean to sprout. In the bag there is a wet paper towel to provide the seed with water (crucial for growing roots). We've been tracking their progress by checking in on them daily and by nature journaling their growth!   

Silver Sea Lions with Furn, Elijah, and Sapna

The Silver Sea Lions embraced September with open minds, excitement, and readiness. After spending a few weeks setting expectations, we can already see how the Silvers show their understanding of our schedule.

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

This month in science we foraged for spicebush. We crushed spicebush leaves to smell their fragrance, collected the berries to make a spice that we can bake with, and broke off dead twigs to make tea in celebration of our resources. After three weeks of foraging and identifying plants, we transitioned into learning about our big idea “It Takes a Village” with thinking routines. We went further underground, by learning about worms and their contribution to our ecosystem as decomposers. We talked about how nothing in nature goes to waste, inspiring us to make a backyard compost. Lots of the learners brought in such valuable knowledge from home about composting, so shout out to y’all! We are encouraging them to start composting any food scraps from snack and lunch! This past week, we have learned about plant parts and planted some radish, beets, and lettuce in our school garden. With dedication and care, we hope to harvest our plants before Thanksgiving!

We’ve been spending a lot of time building our number sense in math this month! We kicked off our month talking about our personal relationships with math. We reflected on how math makes us feel, and wrote affirmations like “I am curious about math” and “I know I don’t have to be fast to be good at math” as our first warm up! We also learned routines for using binders and notebooks, and emphasized that organization is important to be successful in our math work.

Content wise, the Silvers have been investigating the Base 10 number system. Why is it called Base 10? How do we use the system? Why do we use the system? We started by identifying not only what each place is, but what the place really means, and how having limited symbols makes place value so important! Silvers have been working with numbers in standard, expanded, and word form, as well as representing these numbers with manipulatives. All learners have been introduced to numbers up through the billions. We are also comparing and ordering these big numbers by identifying the value of their digits. On top of our warm ups, lessons, and practice time, we’ve had a host of activities to get the learners math minds revving, such as the fan favorites "Place Value War" and "Whip Out Whiteboards". Some of our groups have begun rounding and decomposing numbers, a concept we will continue into October! Building a solid foundation in our concept of Base 10 has been fun and exciting as we all refresh ourselves and get ready for new content.

Emerald Eddys with Max and Melissa

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

The Emerald Eddys had a very productive September! Mother Nature gave us some high temperatures to navigate, and your learners persevered. Hot days, brain-bending mathematical tasks, planning a school newspaper, and sweaty sit spots with newly “adopted” trees were all part of our first full month of the school year.

In mathematics, we began the month with an assessment to help us understand learners’ prior knowledge and identify areas for growth. From there, we jumped into exploring number relationships.

Using Building Thinking Classrooms as our inspiration, learners worked collaboratively through a progression of small-group thinking tasks. We explored factors and factor relationships, prime and composite numbers, prime factorization, greatest common factor, and least common multiple.

We then used this work as a foundation for exploring fractions. Rather than relying on a single method, learners are developing multiple ways to understand and compare fractions. They have been placing fractions on number lines, visualizing them with diagrams, converting them to decimals, and finding common denominators.

Our fraction work will continue into October as we explore increasingly complex number relationships and deepen our understanding of not just how different strategies work, but why they work.

With our Big Idea, “It Takes a Village,” learners are exploring how information is communicated throughout a community. With that in mind, welcome to the GAP Press!

This year, much of our ELA work will take the form of a newsroom team reporting on our school community. Our first-quarter project is a GAP newspaper that will be available at our first Community Day on Saturday, October 24.

Every learner has been assigned a “beat” and is collaborating with classmates to create a finished newspaper. learners are navigating deadlines, conducting interviews with peers and educators, drafting and revising articles, and exploring both the possibilities and constraints of newspaper formatting. The GAP Press has even created a classifieds section that families can contribute to with your own classified ads!

It has been exciting to see the level of productivity and enthusiasm the learners have as they take ownership of their beats and work toward a shared final product.

Our September science work has also embraced the idea of a village—but we are asking learners to think beyond a village made up only of people. How are we connected to the living community around us?

Every Emerald has “adopted” a tree in our woods that they will visit throughout the year to observe, collect data on, and notice seasonal changes. As learners build relationships with their individual trees, we are using two big questions to guide our inquiry: How is life connected in this village? How does my tree’s village work? These questions are leading us into a deeper understanding of ecological systems. We are exploring levels of organization within ecosystems, from individual organisms to populations and ecosystems. We are also investigating trophic levels—including producers, consumers, and decomposers—and examining how energy flows through an ecosystem while matter cycles through it. Along the way, we are connecting these ideas to photosynthesis, food chains, the water cycle, and the carbon cycle.

Most importantly, we are taking time to build relationships with the specific ecology right outside our doors. By getting to know one tree and its community deeply, learners are beginning to see a much bigger picture: a forest is a village of interconnected living and nonliving parts, and each member has a role to play in the larger system.

September gave us a strong start, and we are excited to see where these questions, projects, and relationships take us in October!

SEL with Janelle

This month the Orange Monarchs continued to grow their mindfulness and respect skills. We listened to books about respect and actively reflected on how we demonstrate this to ourselves and each other, daily. We have adopted Ryan the respectful dog to our space and he loves to spend time listening to the learners reflections and spend time with the learner who shows the most respect during SEL every day. We are also practicing mindfulness through sit spots in nature. This is simply a time to sit, practice being still, silent, and separate from each other while enjoying or observing nature. The Orange Monarchs are successfully at 5 minute long sit spots. We'll add another minute next week and practice this each week. We hope they are proud of the amazing work they are putting into being their best selves. 

The Silver Sea Lions have been working on team work, creating regulation stations for their learning areas and diving into understanding their brains so that they can have a strong connection with how and when to appropriately use the regulation stations (formerly called calm corners). These spaces have been renamed because: 

1.They are typically not corners

 2.They are a space to regulate their bodies and return to being active participants in their learning vs. calm places to hang out for extended periods of time.

At this time, your learner should be able to reflect on the brain and may be trying to pronounce the complicated but important parts that help us to learn and play daily. So far they have explored the hippocampus, the amygdala, the cerebrum, the cerebellum, and the prefrontal cortex. This topic has sparked a lot of conversation and curiosity among the learners. Please reach out if you’d like the specific links we’ve been using for use at home.

The Emerald Eddys have been learning about their brains all month. Initially our learning was focused on the ability of the learners to best understand and utilize the regulation station in their classroom spaces. But, more recently we’ve moved along to applying this information to ourselves and ways we can best support ourselves in a variety of situations. We have covered the parts of the brain and how they support us during learning, socializing, and play. We have discussed the flipped lid concept and lizard brain in relation to being able to experience emotions and recognize why they are happening. We are beginning to identify ways and build toolboxes for self regulation after a flipped lid or lizard brain moment. Please reach out and/or watch for a post on the GAP Village for specific links if you’re interested in supporting your learner with this or are curious about exploring it as a family. 

The more we understand our bodies and what they need to stay regulated the more we can advocate for ourselves and build ourselves up for success.