Tuesday

Just a couple of photo announcements for parents that might've not seen these in our hallway.

Buddy reading today!

 ^^ Today in writing we learned that format of writing in our journals.  We also set a Grade 2 writing goal of writing 30-40 words and Grade 3 writing goal of writing 40-50 words.

^^ The Grade K and 1 children learned that we need to make spaces between our words.  We even brought out our spacewoman and spaceman to help us make those spaces!

Our last lesson was creating nature contour drawings.  The students were to only look at the outline of things in nature and put them into their new sketchbooks.  This is a difficult age where children want to draw what they know in their heads and its a challenge for them to draw what they actually see.  I was so impressed with their work!

Our Tuesday

"Look on the floor a pattern!"  

"We could try and draw out the pattern."  

"Yes, let's get some paper and tape it to the floor."

In writing today, we had two lessons today.  One lesson for the Kindergarten and Grade 1 students and the other for our Grades 2 and 3 students.

We learned that letters make up words.  We recited this poem pointing out all the different words in it.

In Grade 2 and 3 we learned that we write in all different forms.  We made lists of all the different ways we write at home.

 We aren't quite silent reading yet in our classroom.  What we like to call it is "quiet time" right now.  And this blissful quiet time is at 3 minutes.  We are learning to build our stamina as a class and next week we will be learning what it looks like, and feels like to be reading, as well as, setting goals to build our stamina in reading.

It was a busy, fun-filled day today!

Nature, Art, and Reading!

I was able to capture the students buddy reading on Thursday.  They get to read with the other two classes every week too!  

Our butterflies are starting to come out of chrysalis and the kids have been fascinated with the wings flapping.  The butterflies that are on display have been preserved from a few years ago.

In art we created "noise machines" for the community garden.  We talked about all the different ways you could scare the animals away and the kids have come up with some pretty unique creations.

We went on our Thursday nature walk.  It's a magical time in that forest of ours.  The kids are able to just be free and connect with their surroundings.  They love finding little streams, or a unique root, animal prints, large rocks to climb, and so much more.  We are so fortunate to have a forest as our backyard.  These kids are so lucky to have this connection with nature at such a young age.

It sure is beautiful where we live.