Get to Know Visual Phonics- a short video of hand, sound, and picture cues.

Part of a Learning Community

There is a line in the Orchard School song that goes like this, 
"Here we are, altogether.  We are in community!"

As I reflected on our learning experiences this week, several examples of the different configurations in which the children are learning popped out at me.  Have a look...

We often work in partnerships to build friendship, accountability and maximize brain power!

Sometimes small groups provide an extra challenge in cooperation and allowing everyone's contribution to be seen/heard.

Once a week our Learning Buddies provide one to one mentorship and assistance with special projects as needs arise.

And from time to time special guests, like Mr. T add a bit of variety to learning as a whole group.

You can join the classroom community from home with the next post!  It's a short video of me demonstrating Visual Phonics with hand, sound, and picture cues.  This practice has become a helpful addition to our work with understanding letters and their sounds.

On Your Mark, Get Set...ABC!

This week culminated in the Fun Run and our class seemed to enjoy every minute of it.  From stretching before hand, to running the course, to snacking outside and cheering the older students on- we had a blast!  Below you can check out our pre and post run looks.

Believe it or not, earlier in the week we had a ton of fun with a much more low key activity- browsing though alphabet books!  Working in partnerships the children tried to decide what the overall theme of their ABC book was and which pages were either so interesting, perplexing or unexpected that they just HAD to show the rest of the group.  Take a look-

These days our Phonics focus of every letter having a sound and our Reader's Workshop focus of examining EVERY page in a book- cover to cover, to learn the most you can are converging with Alphabet books.  And little by little we are building our own ABC books as we introduce each letter in our handwriting program.

Flavors of the Season

Living in Vermont brings subtleties to the seasons.  We have a fifth one in some places- MUD SEASON!  Often the timing of the others is sometimes a bit off.  When the calendar tells us it's spring there's still snow on the ground and this year when the calendar told us it was fall, it still felt warm and sunny! Well, things shifted this week and as a class we embraced the change. Below you can see us sampling some apples and honey that Ms. Allyson brought in to signify the sweetness of a new year for the tradition of Rosh Hashanah. 

On Wednesday Kali and Makayla from Farm to School taught us about cold hardy veggies like kale and chard.  They explained how big strong veins in the leaves can withstand a frost.  Then we all helped to make some kale pesto.

 And lastly, on Friday we went to the forest with our buddies to make some art with the colors and textures of natural materials.

Daring Designs

This post requires very little text.  The materials and the children's creativity speak for themselves.  It's important to know that this is work that comes out of the children's "Explore" or free play time!  We are learning all the time!

"Red Apples, Green Apples, Yellow Apples too...

...Everyone says they're good for you!"
The title and the first line of this post are taken from a poem that the children have been learning.  In preparation for our trip to Hackett's Orchard last Monday we did several apple related activities including a taste test of three different color apples!
Below you can have a look at the taste test  (we did it on a sunny day in the Courtyard), some highlights from our trip, and making applesauce back in our classroom.

Continuing with seasonal fun, we did a fall scavenger hunt with our big buddies on Friday.  

Above you can see some buddies searching for items such as "a red leaf" and "a sunflower".  Speaking of sunflowers, we did some really careful looking at sunflowers earlier in the week and created ripped paper designs to illustrate a sunflower poem in our poetry journals.

Lastly, a highlight from our week was Friday's Workshop during which I challenged the children to be "Brave Spellers"- to use the words they know and write the sounds they hear in words they don't know.  To do this we took to the outdoors to recreate something we practiced inside.  Having already practiced the phrase  "I see __________" on whiteboards in the classroom- we went outdoors to see what we could see.  The children saw so many fall favorites!  "I see a pear", "I see a playground" and "I see a leaf" were all authentic pieces of Kindergarten writing that we celebrated.  Below you can see Literacy Teacher, Ann Knox lending a hand.

Hard At Work and Play!

I hope that this post will give you a good idea of the range of experiences our class has over any given week.  Below you will see the class working through a rotation of three different activities within a Math Block- this is laying the foundation for what will become our Math Menu sessions.  For now, the children work in groups with a teacher at each station.  Have a look at Domino Parking Lot, Spin and Trace a Shape, and a cut and glue Pattern Page.

You can also catch a glimpse of our first Farm to School lesson with Kali and her helper.  We met out by the garden where we opened up bean pods to see the seeds inside and helped chop bok choy and peppers for a bit of garlic-y stir fry.  Many of us wanted seconds!

 

Every day the last block in our schedule is Explore (aka Play) time.  The children make choices to build with blocks, use art materials, play in the pretend area, use playdough, and engage in with a wide variety of open ended toys.  Classic games from the shelf are also an option and here you can see two children having a super time with Connect Four.  It's a social and self directed way to finish our day.