Signs of Fall

We mentioned that the autumnal equinox happened last Saturday and spent a good chunk of this week looking for signs of fall. We found some beautiful leaves, sampled some of our Asian pears, noticed a new surge of wooly bear caterpillars, and rivaled the squirrels in our collections of acorns and hickory nuts.

Another special sign of fall in our woods included a visit from Harold T Gnome and his friends. The children have an on-going correspondence with Harold T that has transpired over the years through a series of notebooks. He invited all of us to tea on Wednesday, and we were tickled to join him! The children are crafting a careful thank you for the delicious chocolate chip cookies and party.

Morgan's PK and K Class

* Searched to find the best apple in our orchard and sampled it.

* Learned about the parts of a tree and looked closely at their changing leaves.

* Developed scissor skills while making beautiful fall leaves from tissue paper.

* Practiced counting, addition, and subtraction skills through a variety of games including "Sum Swamp," "Count Your Chickens," and "Expanding Train."

* Wrote in their writers' notebooks.

* Practiced letter sounds and used shaving cream to make the letters "M, H, T, S, P, and B."

* Learned new apple fingerplays.

* Worked on an apple maze and counted apples.

Tracy's 1st - 4th Class

In math, we tackled place value. For our fourth graders this included sorting numbers into the millions. Other math topics this week included odd and even numbers, patterns on the hundred chart, telling time, and continuing work on math facts. Everyone learned (or re-learned) how to play "Sushi Go," and we played with a partner on our team. This led to some great conversations about the relative values of cards and probability.

In writing, some of the class is continuing with research while others are working to put their research into a shareable format. Right now, that includes a book and a puppet show. We're working on bringing these projects together. A number of students are using Chromebooks to help make a final draft of their writing.

In reading, each group is continuing in its chapter book. Our fourth graders were learning about the trip to the New World for Europeans and John Smith. Our younger readers are working on noticing vowel sounds and grouping CVC (consonant vowel consonant) words by their vowels. We have all been talking about homonyms and trying to develop strategies to help us remember when we use flour versus flower.

Theme: Seaside City

We are going to see how our city runs this coming week. It now has a beach and park, library, restaurant, repair shop, farm, firetruck, and blacksmith. The medical complex is coming along as is the recycling and trash pickup. We had a discussion this past week about whether we should have money - no one was interested in running a bank - so children talked about how things might run without money. Bartering and gift economies both came up. The consensus was to wait and see how it all unfolds.

We could still use a few more boxes, if anyone can send some in!