Changing Things Up

Routines are a key part of our school day. When we come to morning circle, there is a movement song in English, a time for sharing and discussion, and a movement song in Spanish. After finishing lunch, we wash off our desks and put our chairs up on the desks to make it easier for "floor patrol." Our kids are grounded in these routines, and they keep our days humming along.

But then we have weeks where we get to break from our regular routines, and they provide a fun chance to experiment with what happens when we do things a little differently. This past week we celebrated Read Across America Day on Monday by wearing our pajamas to school, creating party hats worthy of Dr. Seuss, making special "Cat in the Hat Kabobs," and reading a special book from home with our reading buddies. On Wednesday, we had a belated 100th day of school party (better late than never, right?). The children counted out 100 popcorn kernels ("That's not much!") and were impressed to see what they looked like once popped. We did 100 exercises in 10 groups of 10 and used our parachute to "popcorn" 100 colorful balls. the children wrote about what they would do with $100 or what they think the world will be like in 100 years. All these extras made for a particularly exciting week but one student mentioned on Friday that she "was super tired from all the fun." She seemed relieved to know we'll be returning to our regular routines.

Rose's PK and K Class

• Took a poll and made a graph to see who likes green eggs and ham. It took some assumptions about what they might taste like!

• We read about how different animals survive in the cold and talked about how we warm up ourselves.

• On the 100th day of school, we read a book about a fairy going to market, then drew pictures of what we would buy with $100. The kids estimated how long they thought a string should be to hold 100 beads. Then we tested it. 

• After reading how Rumpelstiltskin spun straw into gold, we began learning the art of stitching in burlap. Sewing continued into the next day, where some kids learned how to make their stitches very small and neat, and to make shapes out of stitches. 

• Over the winter, Morgan changed the game of "Duck, Duck, Goose" into "Penguin, Penguin, Polar Bear." Since we have seen signs of spring and are learning about raptors this month, we decided together to change the game to "Chickadee, Chickadee, Eagle". 

Tracy's 1st - 4th Grade Class

In math, the fourth grade class is continuing to work on division and figure out what to do with remainders. The third grade class started multiplying larger factors and learning about the order of operations (and parentheses). Second grade math has been focusing on measurement in both US Customary and Metric units. Everyone helped to hide 100 raptors around the school - some of those birds are still on the loose so keep an eye out.

In writing, we are sharing our animal/people reports and starting to think about our family trees. We also are working on a plan for what to do with the money the students raised last year in their slime store.

Our reading groups are working their way through Skylark, My Side of the Mountain, and the Elephant and Piggie books by Mo Willems.

Our Theme: Raptors

This week we started reading and learning about raptors. We looked at lots of pictures of birds and worked in small groups to create Venn Diagrams of bird traits: what do all birds share, what is unique to raptors, and what is unique to birds that aren't raptors. Everyone made a few cotton ball "mice" and an eagle finger puppet, then went hunting for the mice in our wild field. The children hypothesized the white mice and the sparkly subvariant would get eaten first, and they were correct. Children also made nests for their eagles, laid "eggs," and collected food for their babies.