Making Connections

 Now that we are together as one class, the Blue and Gray Packs are learning all about the personalities that match the names they've been seeing and hearing about from the adults. It's wonderful to watch the children put the social skills they have practiced to use as they greet new friends at Morning Meeting and find multiple ways that they are both the same and different from one another.  

As part of our school wide project- Reading to Raise Anti-Racists, we listened and watched Common, the rapper, do a a fabulous read of Let's Talk About Race by Julius Lester

Common Reads Let's Talk about Race

 The book was a perfect lead into a new approach to our October self portraits.  You can have a look at us mixing paint to match our own unique skin tones.

A new Math game called "Blastoff" was a great way to work with a partner on the shared goal of filling hexagons with many different combinations of triangles, trapezoids and rhombuses.

Even some of our well established routines like Number Corner are more fun with more kids!  Have a look at us working on writing the missing number.  Can you tell it was 11?

And of course some activities are still solo, like Monday's Literacy Lesson about being Brave Spellers.  Brave Spellers know that even if they don't know the exact dictionary spelling of a word they can still show and tell what they want to say with pictures and "best guess" spelling.

Diving Deeper Into Literacy and Math

 As I looked over pictures from the week I noticed how focused the children were and how even a snapshot can show concentrated attention. Whether we were spilling our two-colored beans to show ways to make five, learning to write sentences with the snap words "I" "am" and "a", or entering a poem into our poetry journals, the children were giving their best!  I've also included pictures of us setting up to read The Seasons of Arnold's Apple Tree outside, under an apple tree. Lucky to be at Orchard School!

Visual Phonics- Every letter makes a sound AND has a hand signal!

A few years back, my K colleagues and I were trained in Visual Phonics.  It's a VISUAL system for isolating and learning letter SOUNDS.  I have found that it's a helpful tool for children on their journey to becoming readers and writers.  Below you can take a look at me saying and SHOWING the alphabet.  Kids can try it along with me!

Feeling Fall

 It's officially fall and  much of our learning this week was tied to the changing of the seasons.  On Monday and Thursday the packs went on a scavenger hunt looking for signs of fall.  Both groups were lucky enough to see and hear geese flying south! 

 On Tuesday and Friday the packs had their first Farm to School lesson during which they pressed and tasted apple cider!  

We thought about saying "goodbye" to some favorite summer time activities and "hello" to new fall ones. To help us remember the beautiful sunflowers that are drying, we did some careful observations and made some collaged sunflowers of our own. 

In addition to all this, we continued learning about the attributes of shapes AND Mr. T came to read on Thursday afternoon. 

Have a look...

Welcome to Room 28

 Hello Families!

Maybe this is the first time you've visited my blog or maybe you've checked it out in previous years, but this is the first post for School Year 20-21.  And what a year it is- two different halves of the same class on one blog!  The blog is like a window into the classroom and I try to rely on pictures to tell the story. 

Each day the children are working independently at table spots and teaming up to explore new materials on the rug.

Books are a major feature of our days. There's always at least one read-aloud and time for looking at books individually.

We've getting to know one another through art and design...

and making connections from the classroom to the world!

Room 28 Rocks!

I know that many teachers will remember their class of 2019-2020 because it was the year that was interrupted by the pandemic, it's unavoidable.  But I will also remember this crew as one of the most dedicated and driven to learn classes I have ever had.  Whether we were in school together or learning remotely, this group of children always enjoyed a challenge!  There were so many writing sessions in particular when I would say, "if another grown up walked in right now they might think you were second graders because you are so focused and independent".  
Even in our last Zoom they were asking each other "how they got that cool background" and teaching each other how to do it!  The learning never stops.

Take a look at some fantastic solutions to yesterday's math challenge-

Turns out Mr.T had five apple and 5 oranges whether you solved with circles or popsicle sticks! 

Usually Thursday is a Zoom day for us but we moved it to tomorrow so here's a bonus video...

Final Math Challenge!

Good morning!  We are one day away from the teacher parade and I am getting SO excited to see people for real as opposed to over Zoom.  It will be socially distant and from a bus of course but it still sounds great. Need something to do between now and then?  
Try this Math Challenge:

Mr. T was making fruit salad with oranges, apples, strawberries and bananas.  He had 24 pieces of fruit in all.  Four of them were bananas and 10 of them were strawberries.  He had an equal number of apples and oranges.  How many apples and oranges did he have?

Send me your answer over email and remember I love to see all the work you did that shows me how you figured it out.  If you haven't been by Orchard School in a while the irises that Mrs. Knox and I planted two years ago didn't bloom last year but they are beautiful now.  Here's a look-