This Week in Review - September 17 - 21

                             Please note: This information is also found in Walter's weekly email.

In math this week, we continued expanding our work and play with place value. Our High Number game has gotten a bit trickier, as promised, as we are now up to the 100,000’s place. We are also polishing our mental math skills with playing cards – I flip over two cards and each child tries to quickly add the digits up, and then tell me how many more to make 20.

On Monday we heard from our first two Special Readers! Alex and Ian really set the tone for the year, and showed everyone how it is done. They showed the pictures nicely, and read with nice volume and expression. Well done! 

We also illustrated our third poem in our anthologies, and several children bravely wanted turns reading it aloud. The newer participants chose to read it “all together” (chorally), while the old hands usually chose “all by myself.”

Our writing project this week was to draft and write a sweet thank you to a sweet person – Deanna White, our host for berry picking last week. Children completed their letters on Friday, and some even included a picture. I’m sure Mrs. White will really enjoy her letters and artwork.

 The self-portraits we drew last week were dressed up with some wonderful nature inspired frames. We spent some time out in one of our magical courtyards gathering small bits of twigs, berries, seeds, and other items that could be glued to sturdy cardboard. After a quick rustic whitewash, we used a LOT of Elmer's glue to fasten our natural materials. The frames turned out really lovely.

Although we have done some Nature Explorations already, Grace and I unveiled the “official” project on Thursday of this week. After reading Explorers of the Wild, a cute picture book about the love of exploring outdoors (especially with a friend by your side), the students got to pack up their “Adventure Kits.” They each received a canvas bag, which they could decorate and then pack with a pencil bag, colored pencils, regular pencils, sketchbook, wooden dissecting pick, non-latex glove, insect collection magnifying box, and a nature workbook. We will be using these for the next 2 and half months on many nature journeys – collecting seed samples, making sketches, and lots more. In fact, on Friday morning, we did our first foray to County Farm Park for some seed collection and sketching.