Can I?

"Can I write during free choice time?"

"Of course!"

"Can I use this to make a multiplication game?"

"Sure thing."

"Can you cut some rope for me? I want to make a tow rope for my car."

"Okay."

I know my Grandma Manning would want all of those to be "May I's", but the greater point here is that our kids know that they are active participants in their education. They know they can approach writing projects in different ways, use any of the materials we have available (as long as they clean them up), and make decisions about how and what they are learning. They have a chance to improve their executive functioning skills as they think about what they want to do, make plans to make it happen, and troubleshoot problems as they occur.

Morgan's PK and K Class

*Explored dry and wet oobleck, painting at the easel, clay creations, roller ball paintings, play dough, and used shaving cream with food coloring to make a neat design on hearts.

*Used the sewing shapes that have English and Spanish words on them.

*Played with the dress up clothes and played house, family and restaurant.

*Used the light bright to work on our colors and fine motor skills. 

*Worked with Lincoln logs, geoboards, Legos, and felt story boards.

*Played number and letter games, created with pattern blocks.

*Made different designs with the quilt pieces.

*Picked up pom-poms with clothes pins and had to drop them into jars. Used water droppers to see how much water could be held.

*Cut their name and hearts out to glue back together (like a puzzle).

*Worked on their Valentine's Day bags! 

*Used push pins to trace around hearts then enjoyed feeling the textured hearts.

*Colored hearts bright colors in crayons then colored over them with a black crayon. Followed by scratching the black off to make pictures!

*Had fun with mini courses. 

*Enjoyed the nice weather outside!

*Listened to Valentine's Day and Chinese New Year books! 

Thanks for the extra socks everyone!

Tracy's 1st - 4th Grade Class

In math, we talked about ballpark estimates and using them to check that our answers make sense. Different kids took different approaches on their estimates, and we talked about which ones would be closest to the actual answer. Our second grade class is developing different strategies for double digit addition. Our third grade class has been working hard on learning multiplication facts. The fourth graders have been adding and subtracting mixed numbers as well as learning how to measure angles.

In literacy, everyone is working on reading for information: identifying the topic sentence of a paragraph and finding the supporting details for that big idea. The fourth graders almost have their play written about the Wampanoags and the Pilgrims. The animal research projects are coming along as well. We talked about strategies for ferreting out the truth when different sources have conflicting information.