One of last week’s highlights was baking, decorating, and eating the gingerbread cookies. We did other activities around that topic, including smelling each of the spices that are used: fresh-grated ginger, fresh-ground nutmeg, cinnamon, and allspice. We also read several versions of the folktale, including The Gingerbread Boy, The Gingerbread Man, The...
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Last week read Beatrix Potter’s The Tale of Squirrel Nutkin. Students answered questions about how the squirrels went to Owl Island to gather nuts for the winter, and what happened to Squirrel Nutkin for being rude to Old Mr. Brown. Students practiced counting and subtracting using pictures of acorns. We also used...
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During the week before Thanksgiving, we did a lot of festive activities. We read stories including “I Know an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Pie”, and “‘Twas the Night Before Thanksgiving. Students made Thanksgiving cards with stamps and fallen leaves. Our Winter Wonderland mural is now finished and on display near...
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Last week we concluded our Communities unit with a trip to the Belmont Firehouse. Firefighter Don zoomed down the pole to greet us, then took us on a tour and explained some firefighting history. Students also got to take turns sliding down a “trainer” pole, take a virtual ride in a fire...
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Last week we learned a lot about firefighters and how they do their jobs, the history of fire trucks, and how each type is specialized to fight different kinds of fires. Most importantly, we have been learning about fire safety, and students took home a checklist to go over with their parents. ...
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Last week for our Communities Unit we continued to learn about different types of work people do. We also read a book called Road Builders and saw a slideshow of the big trucks, pipes and equipment being used on Mr. Post’s block for improving the sewer and drainage systems. This week we played...
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Last week for our Communities Unit, we learned more about different types of jobs adults have, brainstorming jobs, reading books like “You Might Fly a Jet”, and doing activities like a jobs word search. We compared this to some of the jobs students have at school and at home. We also...
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Last week we continued to learn about signs all around us, and we went on a short walking trip around the neighborhood to take pictures of street signs, school signs, and shop signs. We made a slideshow of the pictures, and we printed some of them to cut out and add to our neighborhood...
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Last week we started our Communities unit by doing an activity with Google Maps to look at our local neighborhood, map it onto a large piece of paper, and identify where our school, park, shops, and some of the students’ homes are. We will add pictures, drawings and signs to the map. ...
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Last week the words of the day included “den”, “dot”, “dog”, “dad”, and their related word families. On Thursday, the word was “donut” and we did a donut tasting. We also played a game called “Double It”, starting with 1 + 1 = 2, and working our way up as high as 512....
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Our last Letter of the Week was “C”. Words of the Day included “Can”, “Cat”, “Car”, “Cap” and “Chip”, and students also worked on building word families around these words. Speaking of chips, we had a chip tasting– students tasted blue corn tortilla chips, multi-grain chips, and Hawaiian style barbeque potato chips, which...
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Last week we worked on our All About Me booklets, in which students listed their favorite things and completed sentences like “My family is…” and “Something I’m really good at is…” These booklets and some Comic Life pages will be on display for the Open House on September 22nd. We continued...
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We have had a good first week of school, welcoming back our students and sharing our summer experiences. We have reviewed classroom rules and are establishing the routines for how we do arrival, centers, jobs, quiet time, and lining up. The letter of the week was “A”, and we studied word families including...
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For our World Cultures unit, last week we focused on China and Taiwan. Students watched a video that compared country and city living in China. We learned about the Chinese Zodiac and students found out what animal represents the year they were born. Then we made “Chun Lians”, which are good luck expressions...
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Last week we explored Africa through folk tales including “The Lonely Lioness” and “Why Mosquitoes Buzz in Your Ears”. We read “Ahmed’s Secret” about a boy who works in Cairo, Egypt and has a secret to tell his family. We also took a virtual trip to Morocco on Google Earth and Google...
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Last week we explored Ireland! We took a virtual flight into Ireland using Google Earth and saw where the Dublin Castle is. We learned a couple of Irish Songs including “Michael Finnegan”, an Irish Folk song. We read the Irish Folk Tale called “James O’ Roarke and the Big Potato”, made potato stamping art,...
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Last week we explored Mexico by making maracas, a limbo stick, and a piñata. We used these things to play the game limbo, and hit a piñata for one of the student’s birthday celebrations. We learned a few words and phrases in Spanish, including greetings, counting to 10, and Cinco de Mayo. On...
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We have been gearing up for Art Night this Thursday, finishing up our projects. On the bulletin boards in the dip, we have combined the students’ clay hands and names with the photographs they took on the Holga medium format camera. Outside of our classroom, we are featuring the “splatter” paintings students made...
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Last week we began our World Cultures unit with a questionnaire about each student’s national heritage. Several families have returned them for students to share at school. We also read books about children around the world, showing what their daily lives are like. I did a slide show of my last trip to visit...
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Last week we wrapped up our science unit with a review of many of the things we did including, Sink or Float, measurement activities, graphs of favorite things, and the five senses activities. On Thursday, five parents joined us for our field trip to OMSI. We did many hands-on activities in the Turbine Hall...
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Last week we did several science activities including measuring the length and width of our classroom. Pairs of students either used their feet or two long blocks to measure with. Then they cut and pasted tables and other major features onto a floorplan of our room. We also did “Name That Sound” using iMovie...
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Last week we finished the clay hand prints and they came out of the kiln looking lovely. We started making Spring-themed cookie cutter patterns and the letters to students’ first names. Our clay artwork will be one of our featured projects for Art Night in May. We are also doing another photo project for...
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