Ending a Year

We're heading into June and the last few weeks of the school year. It's an emotionally charged time for the kids and me as we reflect on this past year and think about the changes that are coming. It's also a time for lots of fun traditions. We're writing appreciations for each other, noticing and noting what makes each person special. Each of these last 3 weeks has one or two special events: our annual zinnia planting, Game Day, Bug Day, Secret Gifts, a field trip to Billy Beez, our Talent Show, and End of Year Celebration. The kids helped decide on what they wanted to add to our usual schedule and helped define what each day looks like. Hopefully we'll strike the balance between having some extra fun and holding onto the routines that ground us, and when we look back on this ending, it will feel like a good way to end our time as a school.

Rose and Norine's PK and K Class

• Made marble mazes out of play dough.

• Matched lower and uppercase letters.

• Used special rainbow scratch off paper and wiki sticks.

• Learned about the life cycle of birds, reading Johnny and the Birds.

• Made a bluebird and its nest.

• Continued phonics work with "a" letter blends.

• Read Losing Teeth and Falling Leaves, then decorated a tooth.

• Read Frog and Toad's "The Lost Button" and played with all the different ways to sort different buttons.

• Played a silly game with socks.

• Made big rings with tinfoil "gemstones."

• Read several of Aesop's fables. Experimented with water displacement after reading "The Crow and the Pitcher."

• Played a movement game with Eric Carle cards.

• Played Simon Says.

Tracy's 1st - 4th Class

In first grade math, we experimented with building bridges, decomposing numbers, and making patterns out of cubes. In second grade math, we worked with place value, fact families, and time. Our third-grade class was working on solving area problems and multiplying double digit numbers. The fourth graders experimented with some different punch recipes while working on converting ounces to cups and finding equivalent fractions. We also started learning the US traditional way to solve division problems.

In writing, we have jumped into poetry. We're looking for interesting language, words that pop, and different perspectives. Kids experimented with sense poems, riddle poems, acrostics, shape poems, and free verse. We'll be continuing to read and write poems over the next week.