Gerald and Piggie Do It Again

For the last few years it has been a Orchard K tradition to dive into the humor and friendship inspired antics of Mo Willem's Gerald and Piggie books after the Feb/Mar break. This year was no exception. All four classes put their sight word knowledge and decoding skills to  work as they read  and laughed along with story after story. Over the last two weeks we've used the books as models for how to read and write with expression. We also talked about important main ideas/author's message. It seems Mo REALLY wants children to know that: having friends is fun, it's important to keep trying, it's okay to ask for help, and reading can make you laugh!  Take a look at all the ways we celebrated these stories- including a parade!

From the Classroom to the World

 If you are new the the Orchard School community you may have recently learned about our school wide project "Beginning with Books: Affirming Identities and Raising Voices".  It's actually in it's third year!  Formerly known as "Reading to Raise Anti-Racists", our  monthly read aloud program uses books as a springboard for learning about different racial, cultural, and gender identities.  The two books that were selected for February both connected to Black History Month.  With the help of our fifth grade buddies, we were able to learn about both Carter Woodson- the founder of Black History Month and Thurgood Marshall, Supreme Court Justice.

Right within our classroom community, there is SO much we can learn from one another. It was SO much fun to experience our first Candle Day of the year and learn about family travel!

Creating our own classroom traditions and special events contributes to classroom community as well.  Take a look at our lovely lunch on Fancy Day.

Finishing out this post and taking it right back around from learning about the world, to learning from one another, to learning from our country's shared history, you can see our class taking in the third grade's work over Zoom.  On the Friday before break our All School Meeting happened in individual classrooms but nevertheless had our whole school learning about the inspiring and significant contributions of several influential Black Americans.  It's very powerful to have older students leading our learning!

Growing a KINDergarten

 Readers of the weekly newsletter might recall reading about the book KINDergarten: Where Kindness Matters Everyday.  This book laid the groundwork for us to explore different kinds (or types) of kindness. Beginning in mid-February with the backdrop of Valentine's Day, we began focusing on: Caring, Inclusiveness, Courage, Responsibility, Integrity, and Respect.  

We are mid-way through reading a book that helps to illuminate each kind of kindness, but we are also practicing what we're learning through our "communication  station".  Below you can take a look at classmates writing kindness notes for one another. 

In this way, we not only exchanged the cards that classmates made at home, but also put our writing skills AND kindness skills to good use over many days. On actual Valentine's Day we had a super time distributing and opening cards as well as making a Friendship (aka fruit) Salad. 

In this last picture of the post you can see our paper-people-chains...

Look carefully to see that the spaces BETWEEN the paper people are hearts!💓

Creativity Abounds!

 It's Mid-Winter Break and that means...time for me to look over photos and make some blog posts!  Sometimes, when pouring over pictures, themes emerge. With that in mind, the themes of this post and the next two will be "create", "communicate", and "classroom culture".  Starting with creativity...

These pictures should give you a good idea of what classmates have been building and designing lately.  It's true that we're not long past our "Global Day of Play", but truthfully there is time for open-ended exploration of materials everyday!

Above you can see design skills with pattern blocks, with Zoobs, and then with pattern block shapes on the chromebook!

In this second group of pictures you can see the designs that emerge from revisiting old materials like the wooden geoblocks and rubber band "geoboards", as well as with the pentominoes and gears that are just recently entering into the play. With just ONE crank, the buddies above were able to make EVERY gear in there creation turn!

The Play is the Thing

 The title of this post comes from a book I remember reading years ago as part of teacher training. In our class we try to incorporate play experiences throughout the day in addition to the time we call "Explore Time", which is student generated, free play. I think it's best to let the pictures speak for themselves.  Below you can have a look at the friends having fun with the lion dance as we learned about Lunar New Year and letting their imaginations take over with trains, legos, and and other building materials. You can also see that we spent a portion of Global Play Day outside on a snow mound playing "pokemons, penguins, and pandas".  Maybe you can even spot the pine branch "bamboo".  And just for fun, though it's not a typical form of play, I thought you might enjoy a look at our last Farm to School session (we made sweet potato hash) and a drawing experience with Art Hub for Kids.

Recent Highlights

 It's important to keep things fresh in these darker days of winter.  This past week two fun activities (one inside and one out) brought smiles to our faces.  On Wednesday we joined our fifth grade learning buddies in their classroom for a change! They showed their Kinder-counterparts how to navigate the math practice application, "Dreambox".  This will become an option on our Math Menu in the weeks to come.  

On Friday, the freshly fallen snow called to us to come outside  early for recess and simply enjoy the rolling, packing, and piling potential.  Have a look...