Week 3- CCSS Across Grade-Levels

Today I had a very interesting conversation with my BTSA mentor. While we were discussing what I would be doing for my inquiry project she mentioned that she had been studying the Common Core State Standards for years in order to learn how to best teach them. This seemed so shocking for me, since at my school it seems like the conversation about the CCSS has only begun now that we have begun implementation. As a result there has not been much discussion about the progression of the standards as we are all still trying to figure out what our own grade level standards mean and how they look like during instruction. My conversation with my mentor and reading the article about cross-grade level meetings made me realize how behind we are and how we can possibly begin to implement similar cross-grade-level meetings in my school.

Looking at the standards for my grade level there seems to be such a big leap in what students are expected to do between second and third grade. For example, in operations and algebraic thinking in second grade they are learning to add and subtract within 100 and do mental math within 20 and be able to tell if a number is even and odd. Then in third grade they need to know how to multiply and divide within 100 and all of the properties associated with multiplication. However it also seems that in the three grade levels there is a section where they have a large amount of growth and I can see definitely see how the skills build on each other.