A Day At The Farm

Our trip to the vegetable farm at South Village needed a post of its own.  Have a look at us: meeting Farmer Forest, taste testing from the raised beds, finding a four leaf clover, hanging out in a teepee, and teaching Farmer Forest how we "Popseeko"!

Getting Down to Business

It's hard to believe that this crew has only been together for 17 days of school!  In looking through the photos that I took over the week I am struck by the focus that the children are bringing to their work. Below you will get a look at our second session of Readers Workshop in which I modeled for the class how great readers begin on the cover and don't just look at every page in a book- they LOOK AND THINK...they ask themselves "what might this say"?  After the children tried their hand at this, I partnered them up and and they had a chance to show and tell a friend something they learned from their book. We had a room full of teachers for sure!

In addition to giving their all at Reader's Workshop, the children did a super job working together to line up the letters of the alphabet with several different materials.  We've been talking about all letters having a sound and two ways to write them- uppercase and lowercase.  

We are so fortunate to have fifth grade friends model this kind of focus for us each week at Buddy Time.  Here you can see our big buddies assisting in making a book about colors on the farm.

The Great Outdoors

This past week we took advantage of the wonderful weather and had some fun in the forest.  We are so fortunate at Orchard to have several wooded acres to explore throughout the seasons.  Over the year the children will notice seasonal changes as we walk on trails, observe, and make use of the stump circle- an outdoor learning space in a clearing.  This first visit was all explore- and unfortunately a bit of mosquito swatting.  Have a look at us walking through the South Garden, stopping to pick raspberries and exploring the woods.

New Choices, New Friendships

Each day after Quiet Time our class enjoys Explore Time- a chance to make connections and play.  It really is a nice way to ease into our afternoon- we eat lunch, we relax, we play and then we head out to Specials.  Below you can have a look at a variety of choices the children are making.  By allowing the children to have choice time I'm able to learn more about their preferences and comfort level with different peers and materials.  Often times there will be a "stop by" station"- a teacher led activity (such as painting book boxes this week) that all the children cycle through.

Welcome to a New School Year

Welcome families and friends to another year in Kindergarten.  The first week of school may be short on days but not on opportunities to explore new people, places and activities around Orchard School.  In keeping with the Responsive Classroom philosophy of setting the tone for a year of cooperative learning in the first weeks of school, we spent time in guided discovery of materials, playing together in flexible groups and establishing classroom routines. Take a look... below you can catch a glimpse of many hands on a floor puzzle, relaxing with books at quiet time, careful work with glue and beans, cooperative block building, creating tree collages and playing at the dollhouse.  What a positive start to the year!