Highlights From Before the Break

 This blog post contains a smattering of photos taken in the days right before the February break. It highlights the incredible variety of activities that happen with the children in Room 28.  You can see the concentration that the children bring to journaling at Literacy time, the focus involved in a Math game with coins, the fun of playing Limbo with Mrs. Frostman at Music, the playfulness of our extra, earned recess and the cooperative spirit of completing a puzzle as a group.  I can't wait to get back with the crew tomorrow!

Winter Fun with Snow, Games, and Friends!

     Last week we talked as class about wishing for some fresh snow to play in and... this weekend we got it!  Just a few days ago we got ourselves in the mood by learning about Vermont's own Wilson "Snowlake" Bentley- the Vermont farmer/photographer who was the first person to capture single snow crystals in a photo.  Have a look at the children being inspired by his photos from over 100 years ago.

As you can see, Snowflake Bentley inspired us to make some snowflakes of our own out of paper AND out of pattern blocks.  The secret is six sides!

This month's Sharing theme is Games.

The children are having fun teaching each other some favorites like "Ants in the Pants" and "Snakes and Ladders".

Amidst all this we have our quiet moments too.  Below you can see two friends practicing the ASL alphabet.  Learning is more fun with friends!

New Year- Same Us!

 It's 2021 and I am so happy to be back with the class after a break.  This past week we talked a bit about our hopes and resolutions for the new year.  I can tell you that common themes were the virus ending and working harder on reading, drawing and listening.  This is a thoughtful and hard working bunch of kiddos!  Below you can have look at us making some artwork for the January calendar. 

Here is look at a Math game we learned this week that involves addition and subtraction under 10 as well as some strategy to get your answers to line up as three in a row for a win.

Lots of folks are discovering and re-discovering chess recently and  the students in our room are no exception. This month's Sharing theme is games and with a little help from our fabulous friend Dew from School's Out, the children are learning the rules from one another.  Thanks Dew!

It's Been a While- Let's Catch Up!

     Regular readers of the blog will notice that I haven't been posting as frequently as I did in the past.  Perhaps there's a New Year's resolution in there for me.  Take a look at some highlights from the week before our Winter Break. You can see two children playing a math game in which their Bears were racing to 50, one friend taking the lead in sharing her handmade item at our Morning Meeting, and a group of tablemates enjoying the classic Chanukah game of dreidel.  I think all of these pictures add up to give you a sense of the kind of cooperative classroom community that is going strong in our room.

Time Travelers

 In a previous post I shared photos of the children playing in our "old fashioned" pretend area. It was created to look like the home in Ox Cart Man - the book that set the stage for our look at family life in mid 1800's Vermont.  In addition to pretending, the children tried their hands at weaving, sewing, and designing quilt squares.  The inspiration for the Quilt Square Challenge was a book called Sam Johnson and the Blue Ribbon Quilt. It's a fun story about a rivalry between the men's and women's quilting clubs in a small town.  When the quilts fall partially in the mud on the way to the competition, the groups are forced to redesign a joint entry using parts from both quilts! 

Below you can see samples of our weaving, sewing in action, and our class [paper] quilt.  Below THAT, you can see us back to the learning materials of today- having our first session with chromebooks and checking our Dreambox, a math application.

Making Learning Visible

 I know it's been a bit since my last post and I'm afraid I'm skipping over some things that I've been meaning to share, but as looked through a recent batch of photos I saw a theme emerge.  Both in Math and in our Social Studies Unit of "Long Ago and Today" there are many ways that we've been learning to make our thinking visible- have a look.

Gail Gibbon's book, From Path to Highway: The Story of the Boston Post Road inspired us to apply our understanding of 2D shapes to make a mural.  In this scene the children are attempting to show how a foot path that was created by Indigenous people became the "Mass Pike" we know today.  Below you can see the the landscape that starts in the 1600's on the left and moves towards current times on the right.  First without shapes...

And now after...

This mural was a timeline of sorts and the children each made their own personal timelines that show important milestones in their lives.  Here are a few-

In the next series of pictures you can see how we used clay and some great guidance from Miss Smith to both feel the difference between a sphere and a circle and draw the differences between squares and cubes or triangles and pyramids.

Lastly I wanted to share a photo form Art Class (it happens right in our room with Ms. Susie).  The children are really enjoying new materials and visual challenges

What Does Kindergarten "Work" Look Like?

 As I looked through my photos from the week I was struck by the different modes of learning that the children are engaged with.  While we're always "working harder to get smarter", we know that everyone learns best in different ways AND that being challenged builds stamina.  Miss Smith has been leading the charge of explaining the importance of a Growth Mindset with the children.  Here is a look at their "Yes You Can" flowers- "blooming" with strategies for how to persevere in the face of a challenge.

In Math our learning is often very hands on.  Here you can see an addition based dice game that "adds up" to a decorated Haunted House and using 10 frame puzzles to show different ways to make 10.

In Literacy our work often involves communicating ideas with words and pictures as we become a classroom of readers and writers.  Here you can see the word books and the poetry journals we are building.

Even through exploration of materials, children are working on patterns and geometry.

Of course stories can come to life when play is encouraged and authentic materials are available. Exploring props from The Ox Cart Man helps learn language and history.