Week 3, September 19th-23rd

IMPORTANT INFORMATION:

School Picture Day:

We will have school pictures on WEDNESDAY the 28th so please send your child to school in a manner you see fit for this form of documentation. Bow ties and tiaras are welcome, but not necessary.

Field Trip: 

This Friday, September 30th we will be going to Tilden for a guided nature walk. We will be driving, so please send your child with a booster/carseat that has their name clearly labeled on it. Please be sure to stop by and sign the permission slip as well. 

Back To School Night Follow-up:

The conversations that began during BTSN are provoking, rich, and meaningful to our entire Laurel Creek (and TBS) community. We'd love to try to set up a time to deepen these discussions with a group or with individual families. We are available for meetings before school most days from 7:45-8:15 and after school on Monday and Tuesday from 3:15-4:45, and Friday from 2:15-3:45. You can email or call as well, but talking in person is always best for us. We appreciate hearing from you and look forward to keeping up a strong home/school connection.

Water Bottles and Backpacks:

PLEASE be sure to bring in a water bottle for the classroom and send your child to school with a backpack or other bag for their belongings. We will be working hard this year to deepen good practices of responsibility, autonomy, and self-care.

 

Miscellaneous Photos from the Week:

dramatic play

outdoor time

sharing a project studio creation

Monday:

Class agreements

During our meeting we discussed the agreements we need to have a safe and happy classroom. We charted ideas on the board and looked at them together.

Self Portraits

Julianne, the teaching artist, came to visit us as she will do every Monday morning. The students made their first self-portrait of the school year for September using black paper and compressed white charcoal.

Readers’ Workshop

During Readers’ Workshop, we explored a few different projects that help look at the alphabet, sounds, and shapes. We used magazines to look for images that the children liked and then located the letter that each image began with. A lively round of Sea of Vowels and Alphabet Zoop was underway as other children worked on large alphabet puzzles on the rug. There were paper work options as well, finding sight words to color and a mysterious shape puzzle that can be solved by putting letters in alphabetical order.

Project Plans
A community discussion to look at the information that the first graders sorted based on our project ideas lead us to the topic of ants. Many people had things to share that they knew about ants, as well as experiences with seeing ants in their homes and other places. We will begin our first project within the next week, and look forward to seeing where the children will take it.



Tuesday:

Math Workshop

Continuing our exploration of pattern blocks and shapes, we used now-familiar materials to do different work. Several children entered the project studio to use the projector to observe shapes on a larger scale.

Community Games

In the afternoon, despite the heat, we went to the basketball courts to play community games. A school favorite “Octopus” was played, as well as a few new games such as Sequence, and Sneeze Tag (played with spray bottles of water to simulate the sneeze) We will take frequent opportunities to play community games as we work on our cooperation, communication, and sportspersonship.


Wednesday:

Readers’ Workshop:

Some children used macaroni letters to sort and find the alphabet in order using glue and cardboard. Ben met with one or two students at a time to take down their stories for our Story Plays, which allow children to explore storytelling through dictation and then casting, and acting out the stories for the class. A small group of children used the computer and an online program called One More Story to hear and see the pictures of a story. Afterward, they drew a picture of something from the story and wrote a sentence or words to describe it.

Attribute Castle

The story is of a king and queen who hired a very clever wizard to make a magic lock for their castle. He used shapes as his inspiration and designed 4 gatekeepers to guard the lock. Each gatekeeper holds a card that has on it 1 specific attribute of a key; such as color, size, shape, and girth (thick or thin). To get through to the castle, one brave explorer must figure out which key will get through all 4 gatekeepers through logical thinking, or luck. We record the data on the board and allow the students to observe and make predictions based on the visual recording. 

Writers' Workshop:

In preparation for Back to School Night, children made cards for their family and dictated a note regarding important messages they wanted their family to know about when then arrived Thursday evening.



Thursday:

Math Work time:Shape Art

We looked at shapes such as circles, squares, triangles, and rhombuses from an artistic perspective today in math. Each child was encouraged to take a shape or two of their liking and create their own scene, character, or any other imaginative creation. Teachers took dictation from the students about their work. The shape are is on display in the block area, so please come take a look!

Writers’ Workshop:

Why do we come to school?
During Writers’ Workshop today, the children were given the provocation: Why do we come to school? as a starting point for a discussion, individual work, and sharing. Children all worked on drawing their thinking and the first graders and some kindergartners wrote their own explanation of their drawing, while the other kindergartners gave dictation to teachers.
This work is on display from the far right light fixture if you care to peruse it.




Friday:

Free Friday

Project Time:

 Dream homes, inspired by The Big Orange Splot

On Friday morning, we read The Big Orange Splot, by the remarkable Daniel Manus Pinkwater. Afterward, they were encouraged to create their own dream houses with drawing materials. This is a part of a project that will eventually displayed on our wall as we create a Street of Dreams.

Buddies:

We met our 4th and 5th Grade Strawberry Creek buddies today for the first time!
Every Friday from 12:45-1:30 we will see our buddies. Today we met and worked on a Venn Diagram to document the things that buddies had in common, or the things that were different. They used watercolor to create a collaborative painting that will feature photographs of the the two (or three) buddies, inspired by the self-portraits of Sweet Briar Creek. Over the course of the year the buddies will engage in many different projects and experience the opportunity to work with other students and build friendships and support within our school community.

Thanks for another great week!

Happy Weekend,

Lyssa and Ben