More Candle Day Learning

Candle Days are a super way to learn little bit about a lot of things.  We don't all have the same talents, passions, interests, expertise, or cultural background and that's a good thing because it means we can learn from one another! Recently we learned about Skiing from Maren, Dolphins from Oliver, and Yoga from Hannah.  These "family shares" really enrich our classroom. They are always meaningful and memorable.

"We Are In Community..."

The title of this post is a reference to a line in the Orchard School song- "here we are, all together, we are in community...".  This feeling was so present during the preparation, running, and take down of our Spring Tag Sale.  You may know that the proceeds from the sale go directly to fund our gardens, but unless you've worked on the event you may not know how inspirational it is to see everyone pitching in to make it happen.  The event is just ONE of the ways that we teach environmental responsibility or the importance of taking care of the earth.  In the case of the Tag Sale, it's all about REDUCE, REUSE, RECYCLE.  A group of highschool freshman, led by two seniors came to help cart items and sort clothes for the sale.  They also spent time in the classroom helping each K student to make a paper mache model earth.  Stay tuned for a future post when you can see the finished products!

Connecting with Kindergarten Age Kids in Tanzania

Friday, May 3rd was the day of our long awaited Skype meet up with a school in Tanzania!  Our friend Miss Libby, who has taught in Tanzania, was instrumental in helping us create this relationship. Our Librarian, Mrs. MacDonald, was key in helping us navigate the tech connection. To help us get ready for "meeting" our new friends Libby came to our classroom to talk to us about the specific village in TZ where the children are from.  Here you can see her showing a picture of a village house and also what a girl in TZ may wear.

This connection is one that begin with the idea of giving, way back in February when we collected gently used books for the children in the school.  Since then we have participated in their Paper Plate Project where student's in TZ draw "what they see out their window" on a paper plate to send to us and we did the same to send to them.  This prompted us to formulate some questions to ask during the Skype session and to learn some words and numbers in Swahili! On the day of the Skype, the children in TZ were excited to learn that it was one of our student's birthdays and they sang her "Happy Birthday"!  We were excited to learn that there was a student in their class named Rachel, just like in ours.  We sang them the Orchard School song and they sang us a song about counting fingers.  The virtual meet up highlighted similarities among 5 and 6 year olds around the world!

Let's Catch Up- Candle days and Panting Veggies

It's been a while since I posted and our class has been involved in several important events.  In this post I will try to capture the spirit of what's been going on.  Right before our April break we had the first of this year's Candle Days and Connor taught us about his family's passion for legos. 

We also went out to the garden to plant radishes with our fifth grade buddies.  You can tell from the pictures that it was pretty chilly but we were thinking ahead to sunny days and fresh veggies.

 

Once we returned to school after the break we deemed it time to plant the peas! 

Spring Has Sprung!

It's been officially spring for a few weeks now but with the temperatures finally climbing we are able to add more outdoor time back into our learning.  This week we "planted the seeds" for this- pun intended!  Inspired by one student's "signs of spring" sharing from March, we delved deeper into the life cycle of a seed and here you can see Bronagh showing the children how the seed we planted at sharing time is on it's way to becoming a new bean plant.  We followed this up with a sequencing activity.

Speaking of getting outside more, on Wednesday we watched our 5th grade buddies in the culminating activity from their Star Base Program... the Rocket Launch!!!  "How long until fifth grade" was asked more than once that afternoon.

And of course, I can't miss an opportunity to share how the children are learning more and more from one another all the time.  Below you can see children reading to one another from their "just right" book packs, and friends putting their heads together to create more "vowel power" with their vowel shields right close by.

How do you measure, measure a year?

Any musical fans out there may think the title of this post sounds a little familiar... As I look back over recent pictures it seems as though they all show how much the children have progressed in their ability to work collaboratively.  In Math we've been exploring different ways to measure length and weight.  Below you will see children working in pairs and as table groups to measure tape lines on the floor (in the standard unit of "craft sticks") and bundles of pencils and crayons in the standard unit of "bow tie pasta".

As we challenge ourselves to make our writing stronger, we've been looking to inspiring author Kevin Henkes (Chrysanthemum, A Weekend With Wendell, Lilly's Purple Plastic Purse and more) for a model of how to use "juicy" words and interesting details.  Here you can see table mates becoming more familiar with Henkes' style.

An important event in the last week or so was our final Farm to School session with Miss Meg. The program will continue with a different educator next year. Meg has been a motivated, dedicated, and knowledgeable food educator in the district for two years. In her last lesson she taught us about cacao, a plant native to the Dominican Republic where her mother is from.  We were able to try an authentic version of hot chocolate with a Vermont twist- it was sweetened with maple syrup!  A perfect tie in to our recent field trip to Shelburne Farms.  We learned all about the molinillo (wooden wisk tool). Take a look at what one student thought of the taste... thumb's up!

To the Woods and Back Again

Our Maple Sugaring field trip to Shelburne Farms on Monday of last week was picture perfect.  It was the kind of crisp and sunny early spring day that sugar makers hope for!  I will let the pictures speak for themselves- they show us tapping a tree, understanding how much sap it takes to make 1 gallon of syrup (40 gallons if you didn't know), learning about the evaporator, and re-enacting the whole process through dramatic play.

From the timeless and fairly low tech, to the very present day world of coding... we spent our tech time this week experimenting with using the bee bots to draw and write!  Some pairs of students even wrote codes that directed their bee bots to write a letter!

Friday morning's all school meeting was one of those very "Orchard School" times when everyone present can feel the strength of our school community.  We had a great time playing a cooperative game of pass-the-hoop with our big buddies.