Another shortened week has passed. We discussed Martin Luther King, Jr., celebrated Liam's birthday,created structures inspired by famous buildings, learned some new counting strategies, became starstruck, and celebrated Stanford Day.
Read on...
Tuesday began with Readers' Workshop. The Giants learned a new game called fly catcher that helps children build their sight word knowledge. We continued to work on the Words Their Way sorts, focusing this week on short and long vowel sounds and the word families "-an" and "-at".
Writers' Workshop:
News writing continues as the children get more accustomed to this routine and take on more challenge in their writing. We have made a display space for the news reports of each child on the back wall by the painting easel. We will be posting the news of each child so that it can be flipped through, much like the self portraits.
Community Meeting: Fairness is...
One of the joys of teaching are those magic moments when everyone in the room becomes amazed, captivated, or otherwise enthralled. We had one of those moments Tuesday afternoon when we showed the class footage of the famous March on Washington and Martin Luther King's speech. Thoughtful reflection and observation followed as the children discussed what they saw and noticed about the footage. Afterward the students did some writing and drawing to express their own opinion about what it means to be fair. Please come take a look at their work, displayed in the block area by the self portraits. We will return to themes of social justice and equality in the coming months.
Later that afternoon Liam's parents joined us for his 6th birthday celebration. Liam's dad read us a delightful story called Superdog by Caralyn and Mark Buehner.
Wednesday:
We have recently begun working with the 100's board. During meeting times we have one child come up at a time to choose a number from the bag and decide where it goes on the chart. We have been noticing patterns and using prior knowledge to figure out the proper placement. Students give their input on whether they agree or disagree and they are given an opportunity to explain their thinking.
During math work time we looked at the number line as we learned a new game. The Jellybean Game allows children to use the number line to solve equations. When a child is "it" they will use a pointer to indicate numbers on the number line as they ask "How many jellybeans will I have if I have ___ more than ___." They call on someone to solve the problem and we all check the work together by counting the number of hops on the number line.
After the full group game, everyone was invited to play other math games in small groups.
Seeing Stars:
After learning how to make paper stars from equilateral triangles from our weekly guest teacher and curriculum support coordinator Nancy Lieblich, many children were inspired to create their own stars from different types of paper. Some children created their own mobiles. We will continue to explore this interest and see where the children take it. So far we have done a lot of decorating the classroom. We broke out a jar of glow in the dark paint, and one student suggested:"We should put black curtains in the windows and make it look like it is the night sky!" Stay tuned to see what happens next.
Structure Study:
Using images of interesting and famous buildings from all over the world, Ben led the class in a discussion about different types of structures and what the children knew about them. Many students shared interesting knowledge about the Sydney Opera House, Leaning Tower of Pisa, Eiffel Tower and more. The students made predictions about which structures would be the most difficult to re-create with building materials found in the classroom. Given a range of options, the class set to work constructing. We shared photos of the students' work on the projector and the rest of the class made guesses as to which famous structure the construction was modeled after. Can you guess which is which?
Thursday:
We rolled with the punches on Thursday, having some changes and unexpected shifts to the day. Our morning consisted of half groups alternating between Spanish and Math.
While the Fire Eagles were in Spanish, the Giants took a look at the 100's board as a strategy for solving double digit addition equations. Using a button as a marker, we discussed the shortcuts available for greater efficiency. By moving vertically, each square moves forward ten units. They students solved equations and created some equations of their own to solve. You can see some of this work displayed on our Math Strategies wall next to the entrance of the Project Studio.
The Fire Eagles did some work using cubes to play a game called "One More, One Fewer" to work on similar concepts of greater and less than using a game board. They built towers of cubes, recorded that number, then decided to circle either one more or one fewer, represented by either +1 or -1. Depending on the symbol, they had to decide whether to add or subtract. Some students took great delight in making very tall towers to get into some bigger numbers. They recorded their answers and checked their work with a teacher.
Friday:
Some highlights from Free Friday:
Readers' Workshop:
With our temporary music schedule, the Giants now have music on Friday and the Fire Eagles have Readers' Workshop. We revisited our work with beginning letter sounds, learned about choral reading, and worked together on a new matching game. Children worked together to read sentences of basic sight words and consonant vowel consonant (cvc) words. They then had to find the picture that matched the sentence.
Inspired by the weather, Laurel Creek did some singing and had a read aloud called Storm Boy, by Owen Paul Lewis. We sang our usual rain song "Robin in the Rain" and then volunteers shared other songs they knew about rain. This evolved into some brief performance art as 2 children at a time were chosen to act out the song. We had an impromptu song writing experience as we worked together to create a song to the tune of "It's Raining, It's Pouring." that featured an overheated volcano.
During the read aloud, the concept of Text to Text connections was introduced. The children were encouraged to share other books and stories that came to mind while we read Storm Boy. Responses ranged from Star Wars to Where the Wild Things Are. Feel free to explore conversations during your reading at home with your child about the connections you all are making!
Indoor Recess:
Due to the rain, we stayed indoors for our normal 10-10:30 recess time. Everyone was very busy building, creating, imagining, and playing.
Stanford Day:
Now we realize that this day may spark some dissonance, as some of you are Cal folks... however, it was a day of spirited play, cheer, and soggy delight. William's dad, Dave, came to coach the football team as the fan section remained indoors to prepare pom-poms, banners, flags, and other creative signs of support. Everyone braved the drizzle, mist, and eventual light downpour with big smiles. Go Team!
Finally, a few random photos from the week:
Happy Rainy Weekend, Everyone!
-Lyssa and Ben
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