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each day it's not always that easy.  Title addresses this by focusing on the positive just as you do at home.  We praise students and reward them when appropriate.  When mistakes are made they are not the focus.  We correct and move on.  No child wants to linger on the negative and it's much more fun to make the correction and get the next skill right! 
• We earn chips and shop.  Sylvan Learning Center experiences great success with this strategy.  Intrinsic motivation is a place to start.  Extrinsic will follow.  It is a hit with the kids.  Each child earns chips for lessons done well.  There are no handouts.  You must earn your way to the store. Our Groton children are motivated but it is always more fun when you can look forward to a shopping trip at the "store" on Friday. 
• In Title I Math, Kindergarten finished learning patterns with shapes and colors.  They are learning to find patterns in the world around them. Left and Right is the next skill we are trying to master.
• First grade is working finding math partners for seven, eight, nine, ten and reviewing counting by tens.
• Second grade has begun to review addition and subtraction with fact families, Math Mountains and partners.  They have been exploring math problems and writing them in their math journals.
• Third grade is working on story problems and numbers in expanded, word and standard form. We have begun to do some adding and subtracting with money to show regrouping.
• Fourth grade has completed rounding numbers in the thousands and millions and estimating sums and differences. They are adding and subtracting 4 digit numbers. They are practicing some mental math to help speed things up for the future.
• Fifth grade is rounding whole numbers and decimals. Problem solving is a very important skill in Math. The next chapter will be expressions and variables.
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• Guidance - Ashley Seeklander
• Greetings Groton! My name is Ashley Seeklander and I am the K-8 school counselor. I am super excited to be starting my 1st year at Groton and my 5th year as a school counselor. Every other week I am in the classrooms K-8 for classroom guidance. We focus on one of the six Character pillars each month: Trustworthiness, Respect, Responsibility, Fairness, Caring, and Citizenship. September's pillar was Responsibility and in October we will be focusing on Respect. By the end of the year all our students will be "professionals" at knowing the six pillars and what makes each pillar so important.
• One special event that is coming up is National Bullying Prevention month in Oc

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