Celebrate!

The week before the break was marked by much excitement for the many reasons to celebrate. We had so much fun sharing in our first Candle Day of the year- learning about Hanukkah and playing the driedel game! A popular Explore time activity last week was creating highly decorated fairy and animal homes- thinking about keeping those little creatures warm on the Winter Solstice! In the days before our Winter Workshop we found some time to practice mindful movement with one of our favorite websites- Cosmic Kids.  And finally, Friday came! Have a look at us creating glitter calming jars, picture frames, bookmarks and snacking too at our Winter Workshop.  (Sorry no pictures of creating sachets or bird feeders but many thanks to parent helpers!)

December rushes by in a blink!

It struck me at the very beginning of last week that I missed blogging the weekend before! Apologies for the lag but I will pick up right where we left off.   Below you will see a glimpse of the students in the midst of "step 3" of our story writing process (use pictures and words to give your story a beginning, middle and end).  I hope you can get a sense of the concentration and perseverance that the children brought to this process.  Other important events from the week of 12/11-12/15 included our first session with Ms. Courcelle (tech integration specialist) and the chromebooks!  We've been working on our skills with the track pad- clicking and dragging!  (Some of the games we use to practice are linking to this blog on the right hand side- you can check them out).  Lastly you will see Mr. White reading a great non-fiction book about birds flying south that extended our learning about hibernation, migration and adaptation.  Check out the evented spelling on the white board behind him.

Full Speed Ahead!

I opened this week's newsletter by saying what a productive week we'd had and I think this blog post will give you a good sense of it.  I'll start with some photos of our Math learning this week- you can see Ms. Emily's lesson about seeing equations on a 10 frame. "How may on the top row plus how many on the bottom, equals how many all together?"

Later in the week we played the card game Compare which tied in to seeing quantities on the 10 frame and did some Domino Math as a way of creating and checking addition equations.

In Literacy this week we began to think about creating our own stories.  We've been so inspired by reading "old favorites"! Take a look at our process poster and then you will see us doing step 1- brainstorming in writer's notebooks and 2- telling stories in a storyteller's voice.  As children told their stories, their classmates gave them feedback as to which story idea would be the best one to pursue writing.

And to all this learning in the classroom- lets add some amazing experiences in Farm to School- making a squash soup with curry and coconut milk, and using the parachute in PE!  Remember the article we shared in the beginning of the year about allowing for your child to have down time after school?  It's much needed!

Wondrous Words

This week a great deal of our learning centered around our current unit in Reader's Workshop: "Old Favorites".  I began the unit by reading an old favorite that I knew would be a bit less familiar to the kids but it really drives the idea of "knowing a book by heart" home- Mrs. Wishy Washy. Ms. Jane's next two lessons in which she read The Carrot Seed and Harry the Dirty Dog, linked back to the idea of looking at words and pictures as you read while also emphasizing sounding like the characters and being able to identify the beginning, middle and end of a story so you can retell it to a friend. I'm sure you saw the Mrs. Wishy Washy strip come home in folders and below you can see us dramatizing The Carrot Seed with popcicle stick puppets and one student's work about Harry the Dirty Dog.

The class has been doing a great job with independent literacy choices when their "have to's" are finished.  Below you can see a student proudly recording the words she made out of magnet letters

On Thursday we started a new literacy routine of making mail.  Sending a letter is an authentic reason to write and receiving a piece of mail feels like getting a present!  Below you can see two friends reading their mail to one another.

On Friday we were lucky enough to be read to by a student/athlete from SBHS.  He was a great role model and inspired our class to keep working hard on reading!

It's important to know that our class plays as hard as they work! And here's a look at the happiness brought by the first snowfall. Snow angels and snow butterflies???

Integrated Learning

Our Long Ago and Today unit has come to an end and I want to share a look at how this theme enabled us to have hands-on learning experience across many aspects of the curriculum.  In the pictures below you can see how the children were able to make the story of The Ox Cart Man come to life through dramatic play.  In Math, everyone learned to weave a simple over under pattern with paper and then many children put their new skill to the test by weaving a tiny "blanket".  With the thoughtful help of many parents, our sharing time this month also furthered our understanding- check out the class drawing with charcoal that was brought in as a classmate's share.  And lastly, our big buddies got in on the action by helping us to put together a lift-the-flap scene with facts about the first Thanksgiving.

So Much to Share

After looking through the last few postings I made a mental note to try to photograph different types of learning- not just table work.  The truth is, I think it's easiest for me to assume the role of photographer when the class is working at their table spots!  However, with this week being one of Ms. Jane's two leadership weeks, I was able to take a different perspective.  Below you can have a look at:  Ms. Jane instructing the class in how to draw some 3D shapes, how to retell the story of the first Thanksgiving with the beads on a bracelet symbolizing parts of the story, a Farm to School session about root veggies, and meeting the quilt square challenge after reading the book Sam Johnson and the Blue Ribbon Quilt.

Long Ago and Today

As you know we've been learning about differences between long ago and today and a major inspiration for our learning is the book The Ox Cart Man by Donald Hall.  If you've never read it I suggest you check it out.  The illustrations by Barbara Cooney (in her American folk art style) are lovely and equally informative is the Reading Rainbow presentation of the book which takes the viewer to a living museum in Old Sturbridge Village, Massachusetts to see what life was like in the mid 1800's.  I showed the episode to the children last week and they really enjoyed it.  

In class last week EVERYONE had a chance to make a candle- just like in the book. We've also been enjoying sewing samplers at quiet time and making model Ox Carts with help from our big buddies.  Below you can see us sewing, writing lists of what the Ox Cart man made or grew to sell at the market, AND making the items on the list out of modeling clay to load into our carts.  It's been interesting hearing the children comment, unsolicited, about how sewing is relaxing and makes them feel calm.  I think dipping candles had a similar effect. 

  

Apologies for no pictures of the candle or butter making!