Laurel Creek 2012-2013: October 24th-28th

All Call: Please save you egg cartons and bring them in. Egg cartons are a valuable and versatile material and we are running low.

Week 8 in Laurel Creek saw some new academic adventures and a long-awaited field trip to the city.

Calacas

Our dear friend, teaching artist Julianne, was back in on Monday and brought with her inspiring examples of Dia De Los Muertos calacas. We made hats, clothing, organs, and baubles to decorate our skeletons. Students were challenged to find ways of embellishing their art works without obscuring their beautiful painted work beneath. Next time you're in the room it is anybody's guess where you might find these skeletons lurking.

Social Rules for Kids

Kate Claire came in to lead a community meeting as part of our project to create a personal book of social rules. This week we had a rich discussion on the importance of classroom agreements and why we follow them.

Readers Workshop -- Sound and spelling sorts

Ben introduced sound and spelling sorts to the half groups this week. Sorting is an interactive way of establishing relationships between words and word features. Students completed sorts targeted to their ability level-- from sorting pictures based on initial consonant sound to distinguishing the different letter patterns that create a 'long a' sound (_ai_ , a_e) in words.

Dia De Los Muertos activities with the 8th Graders

For the second week our 8th grade Spanish buddies (and Dia De Los Muertos co-celebrators) paid us a visit and assisted in several activities. Children made circular books dedicated to the 4 elements or quatro direcciones central to Dia De Los Muertoes -- Fire, Water, Earth, and Sky. They also created marigolds (cempasuchiles) out of tissue paper and sugar skulls (sugar and water pressed into molds) to decorate our altar.

Writers Workshop

Lyssa read the book, I Remember Abuelito, a story about a girl honoring her grandfather as part of Dia De Los Muertos. After reading the story students reflected upon loss in their lives and created a butterfly to celebrate the life of a person or animal who touched theirs.

Terry and Tommy
We heard another tale from the lives of our friends Terry and Tommy, a brother and sister who are always discovering new sounds. This week, at the Central Park Zoo, they encountered a goat who tried to eat the shirts right off their backs. In the process of disengaging from the animal it uttered, "aaaaaaa" (the short 'a' sound). Students practiced forming the letter and came up with words that begin with the letter sound.

K/1 Playscape
Some assorted pictures from our 'backyard'

Grade Level Literacy Time -- The Letter A and Piecing together Anno's Journey

The Laurel Creek and Blackberry Creek Kindergartners rotated through several centers all focused on the letter A. They created apple trees on which grew words that started with the letter A and an alligator in whose mouth they drew and counted teeth. They also used differently textured materials on which they drew and wrote the letter a.

First Grade students worked in groups to sequence and tell a story using a picture from the book, Anno's Journey. This is part of a First Grade unit on sequencing.

Anna's Birthday Celebration

We celebrated Anna's 6th birthday this week. We heard the story, If You Give a Mouse Some Popcorn and ate some pumpkin cupcakes adorned by a bug.

Pumpkin Carving

We had the opportunity to carve pumpkins with our across-the-courtyard friends in Sweet Briar. Students were paired up, co-designed a jack-o-lantern face, and then carved together. They all did a great job working together and sharing the task. Those who didn't finish continued their carving the following day, as seen in the photos below.

The Ants Go Marching
Students had previously created ant colonies using three conjoined sticky dots as an ant. This time they were asked to figure out how many dots they used to make x ants. With each ant comprised of 3 dots they were introduced to the concept of skip counting by 3's as well as multiplication.

Field trip to the Mission Cultural Center

On Thursday, at long last, we took field trip to the Mission Cultural Center in San Francisco. The children had a fantastic time. We rode BART (and befriended some fellow passengers); we spent time viewing ofrendas (altars) and learning more about Dia De Los Muertos from our tour guide, Xico at the Mission Cultural Center; and we had lunch at La Corneta taqueria right on Mission St.

Papel Picado

We returned from our field trip to find Julianne ready to teach us a Mexican paper cutting technique, papel picado ("perforated paper"). Students loved making tiny cuts and then unfolding their tissue paper to magically reveal a beautiful design. They each made multiple pieces and enjoyed the challenge of trying to reproduce a cut out shape from a previous piece. In the process we set a record for number of scraps of paper littering the classroom floor.