Pantomime, Signs, and Breaking News!

Happy Veteran's Day!

I hope you all had a lovely time together.  I can't wait to hear about the children's adventures and what Veteran's Day means to them, what is a veteran, and how do you celebrate Veteran's Day?

Here is a snapshot of what we did last week!

A friend brought in a book about someone who was in a play about "The First Thanksgiving."  This got us talking about what we knew about plays, what our personal experiences were with plays, what are some roles in a play, as well as props and costumes.  Check out our Discussion Notes Binder for more info.

With this in mind, we played a new game called Pantomime.  I whispered a task into a friends' ear and they would try to silently act it out as best the could so that the rest of the friends could make a guess!  Want to play?  Look at each picture and try to guess what they're doing.  The answers will be at the end of the blog!

This week in Gardening, students took another look at our garden soil and do a “finger test”.  They described how the soil feels with their fingers when they stuck them in to the dirt.  Is it wet, moist, dry?  They then looked closely at the plants stems and leaves to see if anything has been munching on the plants.  Students began to think about the good and bad bugs in the garden.  They talked about ways to help our plants.

Kids used flour paste to “glue” root veggies to newspaper for garden prep.  They used math skills to determine how many seeds to put in each space and how far apart our seeds should be.

Check out what friends did in Math in Motion!

We honored Cecilia's special day by doing some of her favorite things and learning about her family's customs from Denmark!

Pernille explained to us what a typical child's birthday celebration is like in Denmark, including waving their country's flag as they sing their version of the >>>Happy Birthday Song<<<

We also enjoyed a Kagemand, or Cake Man, in the shape of Cecilia, covered in sweets!

After Cecilia blew out the candle, she cut the cake across it's neck and we were all invited to scream as she did so!  The history behind this tradition is unknown to Pernille, so if anyone else knows a bit about it, please share it with us!  If you'd like to read more about Danish birthday customs, >>>CLICK HERE<<<

We met up with our Buddies for a Walk and Talk to the neighboring park.  We practiced Safety Agreements for walking.

During Class Council, the class brainstormed solutions for a problem happening on the playground across the grades of people climbing on to the playhouses.  One suggestion was to draw a sign to post on the playhouses so that people can remember that it is not okay to climb on them.

After lunch, we did some research on the internet to learn more about signs, what they mean, and how people are able to understand their meaning.  

 

During Relax and Reading Time, two friends worked together to draw their first draft of the potential sign.

Before we can move forward into making the executive decision of posting this sign, we need to get feedback and the buy in from the other classes so that they will honor and respect the sign.  The artists of the sign went to 2nd grade to get feedback from them.  Check out our Discussion Notes Binder for their suggestions.

We ended our week by finalizing our Class Name.  If you've been keeping up with our elimination process, you'll remember that we had narrowed it down to TWO names:  Careful Artists and the Hardworking Journalists.  We took our final vote and by a majority vote, we are now the HARDWORKING JOURNALISTS!  How exciting!

We continued our research on the internet to see how other journalists present the news on the TV.  We watched a few videos of opening and closing scenes of different news channels and then worked in partnerships to try it out ourselves, as well as doing some improv Breaking News Reports!

Next week, we will discuss more about the world we live in, more equations, and getting feedback from 1st grade and Jennifer's Kindergarten Class on our sign.

Alright, here are the answers to our Pantomime Game!  

-Eating cereal

-Brushing your teeth

-Coming your hair

-Riding a bicycle

-Riding a horse

Thanks for playing!
Love, Gaby