I'm So Fancy...You Don't Even Know

 Friday we celebrated filling our Apple Core Chart with a "Fancy Day".  What went into this celebration, you might ask?  Well, the fun began from the moment the children arrived with some special decorations and this morning message.

Some children chose to dress up and everyone got into wearing beaded jewels that were handed out in the morning.

Lunch time was super special- we dined by candle light in the classroom, raised cups of apple juice to say "cheers", and danced by a roaring fire on the screen afterward.

The Kidz Bop version of "I'm So Fancy" was a great theme song for the day.

And we're already on our way to our next 100 apple cores!

Story Telling and Engineering

 The children in Room 28 often choose to build during Explore time, but this week we partnered up to build bridges for the Three Billy Goats Gruff during Literacy!  Have a look at the connector straw structure that was built big enough for the children to get inside AND the partner groups re-enacting the old favorite story, The Three Billy Goats Gruff.

Busy Like Bees...who code!

 Last week Ms. Finn led the children in a series of sessions with Bee Bots- programable "robots" that provide an introduction to coding.  Our elementary Tech Integration Specialist, Kristen Courcelle, has created clear grids as well as a double sided mat that has letters on one side and numbers and math symbols on the other.  Over the course of the week partners programed their bees to walk a path that spelled snap words, touched a series of numbers, walked in a planned path, and even drew a picture!  This last task was accomplished with the help of a "bee jacket" that allows it to hold a marker that it pushes and pulls.  Some "techno" looking marker designs probably came home in folders last week.

These sessions were the perfect precursor to the Friday's Library lesson which focused on the annual school event- Hour of Code.

Here are some photos of the children doing a similar activity on chromebooks in the Library.

Wrapping Up and Moving Forward

 Frequent readers of the blog know that we've been deep in a Social Studies unit about "long ago and today".  November's sharing theme has been a big part of this.  In this picture you can see a classmate sharing a traditional Vietnamese dress that was commonly worn over 200 years ago. The opportunity to learn from one another is tremendous!

A favorite book from this unit was The Little House by Virginia Lee Burton.  I had mentioned this in a newsletter and wanted to show what the children's artwork and writing looks like in the hallway outside our classroom.

Also in the hallway outside our room is our mural that summarizes the book From Path to Highway by Gail Gibbons.  It shows how the Boston Post Road started as a foot path and became a four lane highway.  We told the story in shapes!

This week the children created their own sentence making challenge. When their Literacy jobs were finished the children used white boards to show how they could put snap words together to make sentences.  Here are a couple-

In the picture above you can see a classmate playing this week's Math Game.  It's a "one person game" in which you try to get the numbers 11-20 in the correct positions in your set up by flipping and exchanging.  The next level is to try it while "racing a friend" with their cards.  We're really getting a handle on the teens!

Unrelated to numbers but definitely a fun moment in our week was getting to see ObiWanKenSnoBi!  We were the first class out there!

We ended our week with a wonderful activity for Flexible Friday led by Miss Finn.  After reading No Turkey for Thanksgiving by Jacqueline Jules we created a class quilt that shows the variety of Thanksgiving family traditions that stem from the families in our class.  

Back In Time Part 2

 Week number two for learning about life in this area about 200 years ago and our class has become very adept at some useful crafts.  Just like the family members in Ox-Cart Man, we ALL made candles!

Many of the classmates have found weaving to be a relaxing quiet time activity.  And look at the fruits of their labor...

Of course learning in our own time continues too and here you can see us building teen numbers using popsicle sticks as tally marks.  All that work with "fiveness" earlier in the fall gets put to excellent use as we are now beginning to recognize and count with GROUPS of 5!

Stay tuned for one more installment from our Long Ago Learning in the week to come!

Back In Time

Kwai Nidoba!  That means "hello friend" in the language of the Abenaki people who are native to this land we call Vermont. Readers of the weekly newsletter will recall that in Room 28 we are transporting ourselves back in time to learn what life was like in our area about 200 years ago. The children know this was before cars, electricity, and computers and when most everything was grown or made by hand.  Donald Hall's Book Ox Cart Man is our "touchstone text" for this unit as we learn about children's daily lives on family farms. This includes trying our hand at several practical crafts that would have been done by children at the time. Here you can see us learning through play by reenacting a familiar scene in Ox Cart Man with props.

Here you can see us trying out some embroidery stitching on cloth samples.

Of course even as we "travel back" we are moving forward with reading and math skills.  Other activities this week included "letter centers" that focused on matching uppercase and lower case and working on letter sounds

Below you can see us taking in some new knowledge in a time tested way.  Ms. Finn guided the children in making 2D and 3D shapes out of clay.

Week in Review

 As you know I typically update the blog on Sunday's and many posts have a theme or center around one or two learning experiences from the week.  This time, as I looked over the photos, I felt like a "week-in-review" picture style would sum things up best.  From snap words and poetry journals to math learning and Stuffie Day, the children were busy and engaged!

Have a look at children practicing new words on white boards:

Here is a look at children illustrating this week's poem in poetry journals.

Ms. Finn made our learning about teen numbers visual by showing us what teens look like on Double 10 Frames!

Stuffie Day was SO much fun!  We helped our furry friends to use their Core Values and we dressed them up in clothes and hand made add-ons.

On Friday we channeled our learning about bats into a craft in which we made bats that could hang upside down!  There are five species of bats in Vermont that are endangered.