Laurel Creek Week 1!

It's back to school!

Welcome to the beginning of a new school year.  We are excited to be back and are pleased to have such an eager and inquisitive class. It was a week filled with reacquaintance, new acquaintance, loud games, quiet stillness, exploration, and great fun.  

Here we prepare for our first recess.

Outside time
We stepped outside Tuesday morning to familiarize ourselves with the geography of the outdoor space and practiced names by playing duck, duck, GOOSE! 

Community circle
On of the central challenges 

Reader's Workshop
We began Reader's Workshop on the first day.  This consists of 10 minutes of silent reading.  The length of this period will grow and the expectations will change as the year progresses.  For now, we are establishing habits and consistency.  We have also talked about what reading looks like in a K1 classroom.  For some it may be reading short chapter books but for many it is using the pictures in a book to figure out what is going on and construct a narrative for ourselves.  The latter is a crucially important skill that helps support early decoding, so even if the child isn't yet "reading", they are building strategies that will benefit them once they begin to.  
   

Cate reads aloud from the book The First Day of Kindergarten

Pattern Blocks
We spent time exploring the various properties of our pattern blocks, a Math manipulative we will use throughout the year. This versatile mathematical tool can engage a three-year-old but also present algebraic challenges to Middle School students.  This week Laurel Creek students used the blocks to build structures, create patterns, or represent objects from the world.

Morning Activities
Students will begin each day this year engaged in various table activities and games.  This 15 minute period right after entering the room will carry a Math or Literacy theme and our repertoire of activities will grow over the course of the year.  This week we continued our work with pattern blocks and tangrams where the children were challenged to fill a bounded space by aligning these geometric tiles. 

The Vowel Song
Cate took us through a song she wrote which teaches the vowels and the sounds they make.  

Rainbow Writing
We began some informal assessment this week. One of these was practicing writing our names.  We will teach letter formation in the weeks and months to come and this activity gives us a starting point with each child. 

Little _____ Walker
Another song/movement game where we have fun and practice everyone's name. 

Choice time
During Choice Time this week children had the opportunity to explore the classroom and pursue individual interests.  This also allowed the teachers to observe how children worked together and how they cared for and shared materials.  We saw intense activity   in the dramatic play area, project studio, block area, games and puzzles area, book nook (classroom library), and our writing and drawing area.


Dramatic play

Project Studio

Book writing and illustrating

Playing Sorry!

Inventing in the Project Studio

 Terrariums and aquariums in the block area

Reading in the Book Nook

These next two photographs courtesy of K. Sands

Fake naps

imposing man with moustache

Vowel hunting

We began Word Study this week with an activity where students scramble around the room searching for the vowel that makes a sound spoken by a teacher.  We grew the challenge a bit later in the week by asking them to find the vowel sound they hear at the beginning of an actual word.

Setting up and eating snack

Recess!

Breathing
After each morning recess we return to circle where we sit and meditatively breathe.  It refocuses us and sets a tone for the second morning work period. In this photo a student is setting up the chime.

Free Friday
Here are photos from our first Free Friday celebration.  We were pleased that so many of you were able to come.

Class inventory

We began partner work this week in math workshop.  Students took inventories of various classroom materials.  During the course we were able to assess students' counting strategies, their one-to-one correspondence, and how they organized their work and thinking.

Thank you all for a wonderful week!

Ben & Cate