April 30th to May 4th

In a flurry of activity, Laurel Creek begins its final 2 months of the school year. We celebrate Plant Day with Oliver and his family, begin to experiment with measurement, read poetry, write non-fiction, and begin the final phase of our structure study: building.

On Monday morning we got busy writing. The students put finishing touches on their How-to books and completed an "about the author" section. Later that afternoon expert bookbinder, Andrea (Violet's mom) came in to help us do chopstick book binding while Jennifer (Edward's mom) helped children with writing and acted as photographer of the authors. The experience strengthens the children's knowledge of the anatomy of an actual book as well as provides them with the experience of publishing a work of their own. We are planning a reading that parents will be invited to next month.

 We also worked on our May calendars, which the children have brought home. At this point in the year they are quite savvy with their knowledge of number placement and observations of how the calendar connects us with important information. Most of them are secure in their understanding that each month can begin on a different day of the week, depending on the number of days in the previous month and so on. We hope that these calendars serve as a talking point at home as a way to track specific events that the children and teachers have made note of.

Tuesday began with Readers' Workshop. As the Fire Eagles went to Music, the Giants discussed "Bossy E", which causes vowels before it to say their name. 

Share this video with your child to help reinforce their learning!

The Fire Eagles worked on letter recognition and letter sound correspondence. We read a poem together to search for the letters T and G, sorted items based on their initial letter sound, and played a game of bingo in which the children had to see a picture and determine the beginning letter sound in order to cover that letter on their bingo board.

During Project Time, we embarked on the 3-D phase of our small group structure design project. Using a tower of unifix cubes to indicate the height of an average Laurel Creek student, we discussed the concept of scale. In their groups, the students referred to their drawings and worked cooperatively to construct a model of their structure using recycled materials, tape, and staples.

The afternoon arrived and it was time to honor Plant Day. Oliver's parents joined us for some wonderful activities. To the musical sounds of Ellen's viola, the students adorned one of the campus trees with beautiful streamers and flowers in a TBS Maypole. Thanks to Mark for preparing and supervising the decoration process. We headed inside to make terrariums with succulents. Using our knowledge of breaking projects into steps, as in our how-to books, we outlined the process before sending the children off to work. (To care for your terrarium, be sure the succulent pieces are nestled firmly in the soil. Spray with water or lightly water the terrarium once a week.) We ended the day with some community games. We spontaneously invented Plant Tag in which evil weeds tag seeds and prevent them from growing as gardeners come to water the seeds to set them free. We also played "Flower, Flower, where's your garden?", a version of "Doggy Doggy, where's your bone?", a guessing game where students worked on their best "poker face" and worked through challenges of sharing, playing fair, teamwork, and managing disappointment.

Wednesday was a day to make plans. We began discussing the upcoming Step-Up Day. During our morning meeting, meeting helper William helped scribe people's ideas about what the coming year would bring. Many children mentioned looking forward to making new friends, taking on new challenges, and seeing old friends from previous years. During Writers' Workshop the future First Graders made plans to host incoming Kindergartners  while future Second Graders wrote letters to the 2/3 teachers to express appreciation for the upcoming visit and to voice questions and wonderings about the future. Big feelings about upcoming changes will be given time and space over these final weeks of school. We will be communicating openly with students about the changes that are coming and we hope to work together to provide strong support for each other.

In math, we split into our half groups. The Giants used cubes to measure items in the room and document their observations. The Fire Eagles practiced their skip counting to count nickels. We have been practicing counting by fives this week, so feel free to have a "concert" at home to hear your child do their best counting. 

counting by 5's

The weekly estimation jar had many people baffled when Edward and Liam demonstrated that assessments of how many plastic links were inside the jar were far lower than the actual total. We used a strategy of grouping the links into groups of ten to assist in counting efficiently.

On Thursday in Readers' Workshop the Giants worked on identifying short and long vowels. The game "blend-o", a form of bingo that uses consonant blends, was a popular choice of activity after the lesson.

For our K/1 literacy time, one group studied the letter V, this week's Terry and Tommy sound. Using assorted materials, the children were challenged to create a creature whose name began with the letter V. Results varied from vampires to vultures. The students also practiced their fine motor skills by cutting paper violets, writing words that began with V on them and gluing them into a paper vase. The other group used photographed images to evoke creative words that would become the very first poems we will write this year.

On Friday the much anticipated trip to Zev's dad Eitan's shop was a wild, busy, messy success! We rode the AC Transit bus down to 2nd street and University ave. Eitan explained some of the final steps to the design process prior to actual construction. The children broke into their groups to take their drawings to another level wherein each side of the structure had to be drawn independently from that perspective. After that, the groups did some shopping around the workshop for the materials they needed. Under Eitan's careful instruction and thanks to our AMAZING chaperones, each group began to assemble the structure laid out on the ground. Excitement rose when a few power drills and some saws began to hum and children saw their structures begin to stand independently. We return to the shop on Wednesday to continue our building process. The structures will be transported to TBS and showcased in an upcoming assembly! We hope that these creations will be able to remain on campus as part of the K/1 playscape. Any parents who would be able to help the transporting process by lending a hand (or a truck) are welcome to contact Lyssa or Ben.

Upon our return, we settled in for lunch and a well-deserved siesta time. At the end of the day we held an author's chair sharing time of some of the completed how-to books.

Finally, Ben and I would like to take a moment to express our appreciation of the Laurel Creek parents. Thank you so much for being such enthusiastic parts of your children's lives and for helping our classroom to be such a wonderful place full of amazing opportunities. Over the coming weeks we are thrilled to have so many of you sharing your time and talent with us. 
Happy Weekend to All,
Lyssa and Ben