April Action

 I'm not quite sure about all the reasons why, but things got away from me a bit in April, "blog-wise".  We had all kinds of things going on in the classroom but I'm realizing now, I didn't allow enough time to reflect!  SO... here we go at warp speed so you don't miss out on all the action.  In April we...

...saw a motivational speaker who's messages about anti-bullying and perseverance were enhanced by bike tricks! Here you can see what the children remembered when we returned and how we worked hard to capture those memories in words and pictures.

We also spent time learning about measurement in April.  A favorite activity was working in pairs and trios to measure the length of different tapes on the floor.  Our unit of measure was popsicle sticks!

Sadly, we had to say goodbye to Miss Molly at the end of April and

we have so many wonderful memories of her.  It seems only right that we capture her on the blog.  Best of luck Miss Molly!

It's hard to tell what we are working on in this photo but in anticipation of Earth Day we embarked on a study of Natural Resources and Conservation.  In this picture the children are sorting pictures to show which materials are "person made" and which come directly from the earth. Of course the most important component of a study of natural resources and conservation is the hands-on experience, so we "invested in renewable resources" by planting peas and worked to keep our environment clean by picking up litter around the school yard.  We also planted bean plants for each child to take home!

Back in the classroom April's Literacy focus was vowels, and our big buddies helped us to create paper flowers that displayed word "families".  In the center of each flower was a rime such as -at, -an- ip, or et. And on each petal a consonant was added to form a CVC word.  So, on the "at" flower you might find petals with bat, cat, mat, and sat.

To round out the look at the month I will highlight two more independent times in our day- Quiet Time and Explore.  We "upped our game" by introducing book bins with "just right books" for self selection during our most peaceful 15-20 minutes of the day.

I'm pretty sure the only reason we are able to have these mellow minutes is that the crew knows that Explore time comes next!  Here's a look at independent engineering at its best during Explore time.

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Tech Time

 In recent weeks Chromebooks have been a fixture on our Math Menu.  Our March self portraits were created using the painting tools on the SeeSaw platform, and last week the children worked to "click and drag" the labels and values next to front and back images of the coins.  Of course almost everything is more fun when your joined by your fifth grade buddy. So this week our fifth grade pals helped us explore the Nat Geo Kids site. As the spring progresses we'll continue to find ways to practice and show what we know using the classroom chromebooks.

Making it Through March with Maple

 What the one thing that sweetens up mud season...Maple Syrup!

All Vermonters, even the youngest ones can cultivate gratitude for the land we live on. Learning how Maple Trees give us sap for making syrup is a perfect March lesson.  If you follow this series of pictures you will see us: learning about identifying Maple Trees, participating in tapping a tree, collecting sap, and making and eating pancakes. We were joined by Ms. Bauman's second grade class for all of this because both classes had an interested in taking our learning outdoors. If you're wondering,  we did talk a lot about the boiling (40 gallons of sap to make 1 gallon of syrup), but it happened off site...in my kitchen!  Sorry we couldn't share the pancakes with you, but please enjoy the photos.

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!