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!

Happy Summer Everyone!

Have a wonderful summer friends!  I will miss you.  Here is a look at the crew on Thursday after having snack in the woods- 

happy just being together.

Still learning more about each other

Thank you to all of you, children and grown ups, who rallied in the last weeks to share a Candle Day with the class.  I hope I haven't missed posting any of them here.  It's very powerful to learn from the children themselves about their own individual experiences in the world and their areas of expertise.  Here's a look at: a trip to India, the science of volcanoes, love of family and Moldova, all about puppies (including drinking like a puppy) and passion for comics and graphic novels.  Enjoy!

 

 

 

Fun in the Sun

I feel like every minute together in these last two weeks is important but I thought you'd like to see some photos from our beach day last week.  Enjoy! 

Here, There and Everywhere

Maps were a big focus for us this week and one of the first things we did was notice and discuss what we already knew about maps. From there we formulated some questions- what did we wonder about on both the world map and one of the United States? Below you can see us in the hall near the K-Space learning from one another as we read words, symbols, colors, numbers and shapes to make sense of maps.  Later in the week our class walked around the school with in pairs with our fifth grade buddies to label a map of the school for their Kindergarten Memory Books. Thursday shaped up to be sunny enough for Field Day and I wanted to give you a look at us having fun out on the field. Finally, you can see us inside the library organizing a lego robot parade that synthesized all we've been learning about building and programming lego robots.

Catching Up

I've been saying to colleagues and friends that the end of the year seems to wind up rather than wind down.  Posting to the blog over the Memorial Day weekend got away from me so here is a post of three Candle Days one from the week before last and two from last week.  I hope you enjoy a look at three students-  One, sharing her instrument and even playing for us while we danced. Another, explaining cyanotypes (a photo project with sunlight) and indulging us with a favorite family snack that led to a some spontaneous art. And the last explaining all about her love of puppies while we created a puppy craft and tried drinking like a dog!

All in a DAY's work!

I planned this post and the last post together- there just wasn't a way to put everything together this week. Friday was epic and I'd love to take you through it.

We started our day with a visit from Champ at all school morning meeting.

Next was our most challenging lego robotics session yet.  The task was:  working in pairs to design a sign that would warn people of a frog or turtle crossing in the spring time.

Try to imagine how to go on from there?  How bout a Harry Potter themed Candle Day complete with a home made slime potion.  Hearing about a friend's deep love for a book series and its central character can be very motivating.  I suspect you might be asked to read some HP to your child in the coming months!

At this point in the day I was very grateful for our fifth grade buddies.  Each of Mr. Wright's students took their happy and excited end-of-the-week kindergartner under their wing and helped them to create truly special "biopoems" that you will be hearing more about soon.  Have a look.