I Love Math Week...and more

You may have read in The Core that this past week was Orchard School's first ever "I Love Math Week".  Many classes had guest math teachers and our class was lucky enough to host Barbara Yarrick, Math Coach from Central School. Ms. Yarrick challenged the children to fold their 8 1/2 x 11 paper into a smaller and smaller rectangles, then a square and finally a triangle. Then she taught us how to make origami cups!  Unrelated to Math we also had fun this week reading books by Tomie de Paola.  Below you can see pictures of the children working in small groups to create posters about his book, Strega Nona.  The posters will be displayed outside our room for parent conferences.

Big Snow and Big Bees!

This week was definitely dominated by the big snow and I was able to capture a few photos just minutes after the children climbed a top the giant snow bank on Thursday.  Earlier that day Ms. Courcelle, our Tech Integration Specialist introduced our class to programmable Beebots- a super fun tool that helps children learn to code.  Below you can see her explaining the basics followed by pairs coding and programming in the tech lab.  To wrap up the week the fifth graders made a big impression on us with their recitation of many of the digits in Pi. There's also a photo of an excellent explanation of Pi that happened at All School morning meeting on Friday.

 

An Eventful Three Days

This post is largely about two special events that made a big impression during our short week back from break.  On Thursday, Cardboard Teck Professors Pete Talbot and Ben T. Matchstick spent the day in Kindergarten teaching us about Force and Motion using their invention, the Pinbox 3000.  I encountered Ben and Pete at the Art Hop last summer where they were displaying their cardboard pinball machine kits and I knew they could make our science curriculum come to life.  It was awesome to have them with us and you can check out their story on their website.  Click on the link below:
www.cardboardteckinstantute.com/

 

 
Push, Pull, Gravity, Force, Inclined Plane and Friction... its all there!

 

 

On a different science note, we celebrated a Candle Day on Friday by learning about Praying Mantises with one of our own, Kindergarten naturalists.  Candle Days are a simple way for children to share things they know and care about with the rest of the group.  We get to know each other and our families just a little bit more with each one. Have a look...

Super Readers have Pointer Power and Bring Books to Life

Last week I began Reader's Workshop by telling the class how genuinely proud I am at how hard they've been working on applying strategies to figure out new words.  As a class we invoke "Eagle Eyes", "Lips the Fish", "Stretchy the Snake" and "Tryin' Lion" all the time.  These are all important strategies that readers can do on their own BUT... when you team up (like a super reading duo) you can be even more powerful.  And that's where using Pointer Power with a partner comes in because two heads are often better than one!  One partner point and the other reads.  The pointer can't move on until their partner reads the word but they can help! Check it out:

Remembering back to Old Favorites, Frog and Toad now live among them as many children have heard them several times, are now reading them and have even seen the stories dramatized on stage at the Flynn.  Logically then, the next step was to retell the stories ourselves with the help of some puppets.  Have a look:

Our Friendship Ambassadors...Frog and Toad

This week began with a Valentine's celebration of friendship in the classroom and ended with a field trip to the Flynn to see one of the most friendships in children's literature (Frog and Toad) play out on stage. Both were a huge success and I want to express a big thank you to you, the parents, for helping making both happen.  One classmate said that our "friendship salad" was the best fruit salad he had ever had! And, the best thing about exchanging cards is that the children experience happiness brought about by simply writing, reading and giving.  Enjoy a look.

Happy 100th Day!

100 days in Kindergarten is a milestone and certainly a reason to celebrate! We marked the occasion with a K-1 parade that ended with a free-form dance party in the gym.  Here's a look at the children creating headbands with 100 tallies and necklaces with 100 pieces of cereal.  And, in the spirit of Gerald and Piggie, even our superstar sentence station has taken on a positive feeling of success- check out the sentence that was created.  In case it's too small to see it says "Today I will fly".

Full Speed Ahead!

In considering this post, there is so much I could say!  I skipped a week of blogging due to report cards and I think it's best to catch you up on all fronts.  Below I'll offer a little look at some literacy work- two friends writing their own Elephant and Piggie stories for fun, some math work- finding patterns in pictures and numbers, some explore time creations- a block aquarium and playdough "baked goods", a look at our recent Farm to School lesson, and lastly, learning about loons at James' Candle Day.  Make sure to scroll all the way through.  

Above you can see students using Mo Willem's Elephant and Piggie books as "references" for spelling the words they need for their own E and P stories.  Thanks for the inspiration Mo!   There was a recent article about him in the New Yorker Magazine- check it out

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/02/06/mo-willems-funny-failures?mbid=social_twitter

The focus that students are bringing to both their writing and their math is evident in the photos!

Explore time is SO important for us!  Allowing the children time to be self-directed with open ended materials, playmates and imagination is VERY VALUABLE.  It's how they learn from one another.

Here we are learning about sweet potatoes- how they grow, how to cook with them and what they taste like.  This Farm to School lesson took place in the classroom and the cafeteria.

And below you can see highlights from a recent Candle Day.  We learned a little bit more about a one of our friends and little bit of science about Loons- fantastic!