Week 10

Week 10 

This week saw our first student-created holiday celebration, dark forests, peas and carrots, the letter o, an all-school assembly, ch's and sh's and wh's and th's, and a trip across the courtyard to visit altars.  

We began the week with the sharing a of field journal from a recent vacation.

On Monday TBS held its second assembly and our first one indoors.  We all crowded into the depot (K - 8th Grade), heard about the work on recess agreements that had been done by the Student Council, and sang, Who Were the Witches, a song which returns witches to their rightful historical place as nurturers and healers.     

                               

Social Rules Books
Student worked on their Social Rules Books.  This week we were thinking about Body Do's and Body Don't's.

News: Writing about the events from their lives.

Math Workshop
This week in Math Workshop we separated into two groups.  One group visited a dark forest and the other, a muddy farm.  In the first, students glimpsed x eyes, y tails and z legs in a forest and were challenged to figure out what combinations of animals could be lurking in the blackness.


The second group was asked to figure out how many boots a farmer would need to shoe different animals' feet and keep his barn floor clean.      
   

Word Work
This week First Grade students spent some time looking at and distinguishing between two new digraphs: /th/ and /wh/

Guided Reading
In Guided Reading everyone in a small group independently reads a copy of the same book.  We then discuss comprehension strategies, word attack strategies and look closely at individual words and word features (e.g. -ai- vs. a_e to make the long a sound). 

Alphabet Work
Kindergartners cut out letters and assembled them alphabetically.  In this activity they developed fine motor skills and because each had a different non-traditional font alphabet to put together, they were sifting through letters that do not look like the textbook letters they have practiced forming and identifying in class.  This ability to recognize letters in multiple guises is very empowering to emergent readers.

Baseball Day
On Tuesday we celebrated the first annual Baseball Day.  For the celebration, Myles (the holiday's founder) had us signing a real baseball, creating baseball equations, singing baseball songs, and  finally squaring off 1/2 class versus 1/2 class in a splendidly raucous and civil game.

Ant constructions
On Wednesday, Diego's dad and clay sculptor, Keith, dropped by to instruct us in how to create ants out of Sculpey clay.

Math Workshop
A new game was introduced in Math Workshop, Part/Whole Bingo.  This game encourages students to find multiple addition combinations to reach a target number.    

The Letter O
This week our Friends Terry and Tommy discovered a new sound, /o/
or 'ah'.  Known in Laurel Creek as the "don't do it sound" (as in 'ah, ah, ah' while you shake a prohibitive index finger).  Ask your child about the 'don't do it sound'.

Journal writing

Math Workshop - Peas and carrots
Another activity encouraging students to find combinations of various numbers. 

Grade-Level Literacy
While Kindergartners explored the letter o, first graders provided words to the textless picture book, Tuesday.   

Visiting the Sweet Briar and Temescal ofrendas


Laurel Creek students paired off with buddies from Sweet Briar and Temescal classrooms who gave us a tour of their wonderful ofrendas honoring loved ones (relatives, friends, and pets)who are no longer with them.  

Happy 6th birthday Myles!

Playscape Play

Have a Wonderful Weekend!

Ben and Lyssa