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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