Finishing Strong!

 One of my Orchard colleagues has used the phrase "finish strong" as a motivator for staying focused when there are lots of little pieces to pull together.  You can tell that my bi-weekly blog posts became harder to keep up with towards the end of the year, but I really want to share some of our proudest moments.  SO, here comes a back log of photos from May/June!  Enjoy- and happy summer!

The late spring was a time for...

Working hard and playing hard!  You can see students understanding letters in new ways like long vowels and word families, AND trying out materials in new ways like pictures with cuisinaire rods, seed art, and collaborative pentominos.

We made it through a stretch of rainy days with extra inside play and we had some special outdoor events like Field Day and the time our classe did some weeding ahead of the Spring Fling.

We learned from each other through Candle Days and Big Buddy times too.

In the end, we came together for a picnic, a concert, a butterfly release, and for our final event of unrolling our scrolling calendar.  This is when we got to "walk down memory lane" by looking at the little picture we grew each day this year to remember something from each day.   What a year!

Happy Summer!

Beach Day!

 There was never any doubt we'd make it confidently and joyfully to the end of the school year, BUT the fact that we made it to the beach in the midst of all this rain also feels like an accomplishment!  We had a great time mingling with friends from all classes. Here are some pics from the day.

April Action

 I'm not quite sure about all the reasons why, but things got away from me a bit in April, "blog-wise".  We had all kinds of things going on in the classroom but I'm realizing now, I didn't allow enough time to reflect!  SO... here we go at warp speed so you don't miss out on all the action.  In April we...

...saw a motivational speaker who's messages about anti-bullying and perseverance were enhanced by bike tricks! Here you can see what the children remembered when we returned and how we worked hard to capture those memories in words and pictures.

We also spent time learning about measurement in April.  A favorite activity was working in pairs and trios to measure the length of different tapes on the floor.  Our unit of measure was popsicle sticks!

Sadly, we had to say goodbye to Miss Molly at the end of April and

we have so many wonderful memories of her.  It seems only right that we capture her on the blog.  Best of luck Miss Molly!

It's hard to tell what we are working on in this photo but in anticipation of Earth Day we embarked on a study of Natural Resources and Conservation.  In this picture the children are sorting pictures to show which materials are "person made" and which come directly from the earth. Of course the most important component of a study of natural resources and conservation is the hands-on experience, so we "invested in renewable resources" by planting peas and worked to keep our environment clean by picking up litter around the school yard.  We also planted bean plants for each child to take home!

Back in the classroom April's Literacy focus was vowels, and our big buddies helped us to create paper flowers that displayed word "families".  In the center of each flower was a rime such as -at, -an- ip, or et. And on each petal a consonant was added to form a CVC word.  So, on the "at" flower you might find petals with bat, cat, mat, and sat.

To round out the look at the month I will highlight two more independent times in our day- Quiet Time and Explore.  We "upped our game" by introducing book bins with "just right books" for self selection during our most peaceful 15-20 minutes of the day.

I'm pretty sure the only reason we are able to have these mellow minutes is that the crew knows that Explore time comes next!  Here's a look at independent engineering at its best during Explore time.

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Tech Time

 In recent weeks Chromebooks have been a fixture on our Math Menu.  Our March self portraits were created using the painting tools on the SeeSaw platform, and last week the children worked to "click and drag" the labels and values next to front and back images of the coins.  Of course almost everything is more fun when your joined by your fifth grade buddy. So this week our fifth grade pals helped us explore the Nat Geo Kids site. As the spring progresses we'll continue to find ways to practice and show what we know using the classroom chromebooks.