Where In the World!?

Hello Hardworking Journalists!

Here's a recap from last week.  Enjoy!

After learning so much about special traditions that take place in Denmark, we had so much to talk about the world we live in.  We discussed where Denmark is in relation to our country, state, and city.  We "zoomed in" on the USA to dissect where we live a bit further, practicing our cardinal directions as well as thinking about the oceans around us, and using a legend.

This inspired one of our friends to go home and further his research about where his family came from and with some help, he created his own world map and legend to indicate where in Asia his parents are from!  This got the whole class interested in creating a large world map for all of us to use and label where we come from!

In Math in Motion, the students worked with Erika on dancing different emotions, including happy, angry, sad, scared, excited, etc.  Partners practiced mirroring each other's expressions and movements.

Apart from mirroring, they also practiced being a shadow to their partner!

Lastly, they worked together to show their feelings using expressions, different positions, and connecting with their partner with at least one body part!

This week, Buddies came in to help us on a special card for our friend Clara.  She was enjoying time with her new family on her honeymoon and celebrating her birthday in Cancun, Mexico, but we were still thinking of her.  Friends generated a list of special words they might need to know how to spell for their card, and Buddies supported them in sounding out other words as well as reminding them about letter shapes and finger spacing.  Thanks guys!

Beth supported friends in maintaining the garden this week.  They caught up on different garden tasks, such as adding mulch to the raised beds and talking about how this helps keep moisture at the roots.  They checked the soil and determined that they needed a little more water. They added seed strips for root veggies (carrots, beets, radishes) to a new bed.  Lastly, they moved soil and mulch to staging areas for later use!

These Hardworking Journalists have become increasingly excited about noticing words in different books and sounding out others that they are not familiar with.  Friends practiced reading to their partner and supporting each other when they needed a tip in sounding out a word.

Quite a few friends wished to share what they practiced during Relax and Reading Time to the whole class, so we gave the space for them to read aloud either a tricky word, sentence, page, or even a WHOLE BOOK!  

Thank you Tovah for being our Family Reader this week!

We had the opportunity to say a special goodbye to our dear friend, Ariana, on Thursday.  She started her first day at her neighborhood school on Friday.  We shed a few tears and had a special moment together to give goodbye hugs.  We'll miss her and her family very much.

The artists of our playground sign visited 1st grade this week to get more helpful feedback!

We ended our week with a discussion about where my family came from:  Mexico.  Again, using the globe to check where this country was in relation to us, we moved into sharing what we knew about this place.  Check out Discussion Notes Binder for more details.  This share inspired our Friday Cooking as I brought in the ingredients to make guacamole.  We did not have any instruction on how to make this recipe, instead, we created our own!  Friends wrote in their journals with the help of the "Peace Educators" about which steps we would need to take to make this avocado sauce.

And away they went!

We gathered around to listen to some information about the >>>ORIGINS OF GUACAMOLE<<< and discussed further some key terms such as Aztecs, ancient, molcajete (the bowl used to make sauces in), and tortillas. 

We also discussed why avocados and other fruits turned brown after a while.  I introduced the term oxidation and we compared how metal rusts when exposed to water, and guacamole "rusts" when exposed to oxygen, or the air we breathe.  After this, we were ready to taste our freshly made guacamole! 

Most friends enjoyed this ancient recipe and had many tastes--- until there was NONE left!  As a group, we wrote out the steps we took to make our guacamole, so if you would like to try it at home, have at it!  We organized our work into rows of three--- how will you organize yours?

Thanks for visiting!

Love, Gaby