This Week in Review - October 1 - 5

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

Rebecca Murray, a parent from Grace’s class, came to share her knowledge about honeybees with students from both first and second grade classes this week – what a treat! On Monday, she brought lots of beekeeping tools (including the outfit that keeps beekeepers safe), and answered many of our questions. On Wednesday, the weather was a little better so we got to see an observation hive. The children participated in three different station activities to learn about all the different jobs of the honeybee. Each student got to take home a jar of fresh honey and a pumpkin. Did you know that female pumpkin flower requires roughly 15 visits from pollen carrying bees to make a pumpkin?

 Wednesday was a beautiful day to go to the Farmers Market! We completed a scavenger hunt with the help of helpful farmers (and lovely parents). The morning was made complete with a healthy market snack of apples in the sweet courtyard area. We learned a lot about organic farming techniques, and the variety of fruits and vegetables that are currently in season. When we returned to school, we shared what we learned with each other. All agreed it was a morning well spent.

Our Special Readers this week were Miles and Sophia. Miles read an Elephant and Piggie book (always popular), while Sophia shared a story good for the season – Creepy Carrots. Our chapter book, Winnie the Pooh, is about half-way done, and is being thoroughly enjoyed. We will be seeing a Honey Pot of Pooh Stories at the Wild Swan Theater later on this month!

In math this week, we did some deep thinking and strategizing. On Tuesday, we did a partner activity where we attempted to make number pairs to make 100. This was after a whole group activity where we made number pairs to 50, and talked about what a possible rule could be. This was brain-stretching stuff. This week we also learned a strategy/place value game I taught at Curriculum Night called Guess-Digit-Place. Both of these games fall under the broad theme of “number sense.”

Our second Environmental Super Hero project of the year is off to a good start with the arrival of 2000 of the finest compost worms! We set up our classroom vermicomposting station on Thursday, and it will be the children’s responsibility to maintain and care for our worms all year. We will learn much more about worms, composting, and gardening all year. The worm poo (castings) will be fed to our plants in the spring.

Grace led our classes in our project work this week in thinking about art in nature. After reading I Am an Artist by Pat Lowery Collins, a thoughtful picture book about an artist finding natural beauty in everything, Grace also showed some photographs of other artists’ work in nature, like that of Andy Goldsworthy. Inspired by these images, children went to our gorgeous wooded playground to create some of their own natural artwork.

And if that wasn’t enough, Exploration Blocks started this week! There were four exciting choices, and students were excited to start this four week session. Children could choose from Extremi-TEES, Making Music, Travel Back in Time, or Fairy Tale Feasts. I’m sure they will have a lot of stories to share Friday afternoon.