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.

Getting to Know the Routine

A look back at the second week in Kindergarten reveals small glimpses at important parts of our day.  Below you will see the children proudly displaying their numeral writing on chalkboards- it's part of a system of instruction where we "wet, dry and try" the strokes to make each number or letter as a way of training our muscle memory. You can also see the children working in pairs to play "Ladybug Race"- a game the Ms. Kathy, our Math Coach introduced on Friday.  Earlier in the week we enjoyed our time in the Courtyard making Fairy and Elf homes and playing hopscotch in the round.  Last but not least we worked together to color a "mystery puzzle" the turned out to be a colorful picture of two children with a heart between them.  All in all a beautiful week of getting to know one another and the different parts of our day.

Welcoming a New Class

It was a very successful first week in Kindergarten for the children in Room 28!  We spent time getting to know each other (and our schedule) through work and through play both INSIDE and OUTSIDE of Orchard School.  In these photos you can see the children and Mrs. Freeman engaged with playdough during our Explore (free play time) at the end of the day and bringing their focus to a sequencing paper involving scissors and glue sticks with Miss Allyson. 

Another activity that required patience and a careful approach was collaging names with seeds- a follow up to a book we read called The Surprise Garden.

 Speaking of the garden, we explored some of the outdoor spaces that make Orchard "a wonderful place to grow".  Below you can see kids playing our own version of Bocce in the courtyard while others are drawing with chalk or playing in the sand.  

We had our first Friday Forest adventure and took a group photo at the stump circle after looking for insects and taking a quiet moment to hear the sounds all around. 

Looking Back

It's hard for me to write the final post of the year but this is a happy one.  And, a big shout out goes to Ms. Freeman, whose mother-in-law is the inventor of the awesome "scrolling calendar" we've used everyday this year to keep track of our days!  Here's how it worked...  A common feature of our daily End Meeting was to collectively decide on an experience from the day that we wanted to "capture" on the scrolling calendar. Each week the calendar displayed a square for each day (so 7 squares). But on our last full day together we finally unrolled the scroll!  It stretched from the K space to Mr. Pecor's room!  And below you can see us revisiting highlights from the year- when Aiden joined our crew, when we met Leo Lionni's Frederick, and more!  What a gift to ourselves.

Happy Summer!

Mindful Movement by Our Own Design

An exciting project that we were able to enjoy right at the end was a kind of culmination of much of the work we have done throughout the year with mindful movement (often called yoga).
Starting at the beginning of the year I introduced different poses and breaths to the children as a way to bring awareness to the present and to help regulate our energy.  We kept up with this practice through brain breaks, with our 100th Day Sequence of 10 poses for 10 counts each,  the website "Cosmic Kids", and most recently through the Design-Your-Own-Sequence Template that I created for the class.  Our tech integration specialist, Kristen Courcelle, was incredibly helpful to me with this project.  You can see how it works through the pictures below.  First, children sit down at their Chromebook and click and drag stick figures in familiar poses to create a movement sequence in 8 frames.  Next, they stand up and try their own sequence being mindful to link their breath to the movements with slow, full in and exhales.  After trying their own sequence, children can team up with a friend to simply try someone else's or, to practice a sequence together!  Alternatively, we can project one person's sequence for the whole class to try as a group.  It's a design your own mindful movement break!  Have a look.