Classroom News: Reminders

Reminders:
Tuesday, November 3rd: E.C.O lesson  Bring warm layers for spending the afternoon outdoors.

Friday, November 6th:  Conference Day (no school for students)

Conference confirmation slips were sent home in Friday Folders.  If you did not send in a sign up form, I have either talked with you about possible dates or scheduled a time for you.  Please let me know as soon as possible if a time does not work for you and I can find another time.  I tried to give every family one of their first choices, but was not able to do so in all cases.  A big thank you to families who had to be extra flexible to help me schedule all 23 conferences!

(Somehow a message from last year was sent out again instead of this post.  Please disregard the upcoming events in that older post.)

Arts Integration: Up North at the Cabin

On Tuesday, we started an arts integration project in which we explored descriptive language in the beautifully written book, Up North at the Cabin.

Students worked in small groups to select sentences from the text that used interesting descriptions and/or comparisons.  Then, all groups brought their selections to the rug and shared one sentence which I recorded on chart paper.  We decided on the following sentences:

"The houses are made from logs that look like shiny pretzels."

"I am a smart angler… I bait my hook with peanut-butter-and-worm sandwiches."

"We can all watch the loons dance down the sun."

"I am a great gray dolphin.  The lake is my ocean."

"Rising in a sea of air-bubble balloons, I float on a carpet of waves."

"Like a house on stilts, a bull moose stands in the shallows."

"When I’m far away from summer… I close my eyes 
and once again, I am up north at the cabin."

Next, we began the challenging work of choosing creative movements that would best represent each sentence.  We put all of our movements together and it was exciting to see how it looked as one longer piece.  It was interesting to perform our movement phrase to two different types of music.  Students felt that one piece of music best fit our "dance".  Afterwards, students reflected on the movements and choices they had made throughout the process.  We also discussed some goals for the future, such as working on performing movements in unison.

On Thursday, we performed our movement phrase again and then started to create cray-pas illustrations of our favorite sentences from the text.  Students are making great choices about how to best capture the important details from these well-written sentences.

I was so impressed with students' hard-work, creativity, and ability to take risks with their learning.

Classroom News

Upcoming Events:

Saturday, October 24th, 6 to 8 PM:  Bingo Night- a fundraiser for the K-3rd grade E.C.O. Program We have received numerous donations from sponsors to use as prizes for bingo games and a silent auction. 

Monday, October 26th:  Homework due

Friday, November 6th:  Parent/Teacher Conferences (no school for students)


Conferences:

I will send home a conference sign-up form on Monday with times on a few different days.  Please indicate your top choices for conference times and then return the form as soon as possible. 

E.C.O. Photos:  Tree Life Cycle Game (with Rock, Paper, Scissors) and Investigating Trees and Parent Plants

First Week of Sharing!

Morning Meeting: Sharing

Sharing:

This week during our Morning Meetings, we discuss expectations for Sharing time which will begin on Monday.  We will start with just one person sharing each day.  We brainstormed a list of expectations for both the speaker and listeners that will help us make this time successful for our whole group.  Sharing time is always a wonderful time for us to get to know each other better.

Please check out the October/November Sharing Calendar that came home last week to find out your child's sharing day and help your child think about something special to share with the class.  Students should prepare to talk for about 5 minutes and then we will have a short "questions and comments" time.  Students came up with great suggestions about they types of things they can share, such as:

• something fun they did this summer
• a sport or hobby
• an instrument they play
• artwork
• favorite books
• stories they have written
• photos/stories about pets
• photos/stories about family events
• a favorite toy or stuffed animal
• a collection
• a photo album  
• a place they have visited

If you would like to send photos or short videos for your child's sharing, please email them (preferably the day before) to lgiammusso@u32.org.

Bingo Night- October 24th!

Classroom News: ECO

Last Tuesday, we had our second ECO lesson with Carrie, which focused on interdependence.  We reflected on what we have learned about food chains.  We played a game called "Eat and Run" in which "deer" forage and then need to run to escape from predators.  Some students were the "coyotes" who tried to catch the deer.  We discussed what it felt like to be the different animals and what helped the deer to escape.  We learned how being in a group can help animals.  Ask your child what it felt like to be a coyote or a deer and how the "lead deer" alerted the others when predators were near.  

Next, we enjoyed "tidying up" our sit spots and then spent some quiet time noticing what we could see, hear, smell, or touch.   After returning to the classroom, we wrote about our learning and observations in our ECO journals.  

Thanks to Carrie for another great ECO lesson!  Thanks also to Karen Liebermann for joining us!

Please let me know if there are any dates that you would like to join us for one or more ECO lessons.  Our next ECO lesson will be on Tuesday, October 20th.