I hope you all are enjoying your extra time together at home and taking some time to reflect on what this holiday means to you and your family. How do you honor Martin Luther King Jr. day?
In other news, it has been yet another exciting week working with the Hardworking Journalists! Check out what we have been enjoying here at school!
This week students helped prepare the 4 new raised beds by adding soil and compost. They learned that soil and compost are like mixing ingredients for a cake. We added in mulch, mushroom compost and stirred away. Planting will begin again soon!
In the afternoon, the class discussed what they had internalized from our study of primary and secondary colors. After sharing out a few ideas of what other color they could create as a tertiary color, they tested the materials to find that tertiary colors consisted of different shades of brown.
The students have been exploring the new provocations in the classroom. Our Estimation Jars is challenging students to make an initial guess based on just what they see in the jar. After writing their idea on the appropriate T-Chart, they check their work by showing a representation of their estimation with gems. After checking, they might change their guess if that quantity looks like it is more or less than what is in the jar!
At Observational Drawing, students are finding themselves doing multiple drafts when it comes to attempting to draw only the specific lines that they see on the butterfly specimen or images. This has been an area that has also come to Revisiting Meeting for feedback and support from the class. Check our Discussion Notes Binder to see how friends give and receive ideas on how to match the specific shapes and patterns found in the butterfly.
The provocation about the insect habitat is forcing students to slow down in their work, checking the images and specimen carefully to ensure clarity, receive feedback from peers, sound out each word carefully, practice lower case letters, as well as finger spacing and punctuation!
There has also been a lot of excitement about the opening of the Loose Parts Area on the playground. Keep the materials coming in! Friends are having so much fun using the materials to create all sorts of creations!
Speaking of new creations, we had a friend bring in some work she did at home. Her first creating was of two books that she had written at home. This gave us the chance to check out the elements in her story and give her feedback on what parts she could add next time.
Her second creation was of two head bands that she made out of recycled materials: old bows, feathers, and the cardboard/plastic from the collars of her father's new dress shirts. This reminded us of how what some people may think is not useful anymore, others might find to be just the thing they needed to bring their ideas to life! What reusable materials can you find to make something new and exciting out of?
Also in this week, the class has been completing a school wide scavenger hunt to continue their practice of the use of Tally Marks. We have been scouring the campus to try and find how many of each item we can find, including: doors, restrooms, buildings, trees, etc. It has been hard work to keep track of our findings in an organized and accurate fashion, but friends are supporting each other the best they can.
This week, with our Buddies, we helped Beth move over 100 bags of new donated soil from the dirt parking lot to our garden! This was hard work, but with everyone's help, we got it done in just 25 minutes!! I can't wait to see what they will do with all of those supplies!
The class also took time to watch the video of our I.A. Kindergarten News show from Exhibition Night to get themselves ready to record this week's episode. They had a lot fun fun watching themselves and their friends on screen. Be sure to watch I.A. Kindergarten News Episode 2!
How about What's GNU?
I introduced a new game, Find the Meeting Tool. Here, friends take turns being the hider, the searcher, and the Tally Marker to keep track of how many times each person found the Meeting Tool, and how many times they didn't.
The last new game was, Word Search. Friends picked a letter card to focus on and searched throughout the room for words that started with that specific letter. This is great practice and exposure to how to spell words correctly, as well as letter placement recognition!
Next week, we will continue our Scavenger Hunt, finish our Venn Diagram to compare and contrast the two versions of Stone Soup that we read, and continue our study of maps.
Thanks for visiting!
Love, Gaby
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