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We built 300 sets of 10 – counted by 10’s and counted by 100’s and practiced writing our numbers. Some of us kept working through journal time and independent reading time.
We took a glass of water and a glass of oil and placed the water on top of the oil upside down on cardboard. We then moved the cardboard over slightly and the water and the oil changed places (it looked a lot like a lava lamp for a few minutes.)
Enjoy the snow…
What is Thanksgiving?
Brigit: “When it’s time to say thanks for things.”
James: When you have people over for dinner.”
What we’re thankful for.
Neve: “My mom and my dad.”
Jackson: “For myself.”
Harriette: “My family.”
Zavier: “Food in my tummy.”
Sophia: “Friends, family and even God, my sisiter, my mom, my dad and Jay and animals.”
Justin: “My family.”
James: “I love my mom and dad. Getting presents on my birthday and candy on Halloween.”
Isabel: “Papa, mama, books, food – for poor people to get food and clean clothes.”
Brigit: “Family, animals, giving money to the poor.” – Jackson: “I’m with Brigit.”
Asher: “Books! My mom for getting me 5 and 6 year-old books even though I’m not 6!”
Michelle: “Autumn, my family, my home and a job that I love and books (thanks for reminding me Asher!”)
Quote of the day from Monday via Amy:
“This is ridiculous – where is Michelle?” ~Asher
This however plays no part in how wonderful Kathleen was when she helped yesterday morning. All I heard about was donuts, donuts, donuts. At morning meeting I asked it they wanted Kathleen back and they all started chanting Kathleen, Kathleen, Kathleen – traitors!
And we had a visitor. Ms. Ramona paid us a visit. She was in my class two years ago and then was in Julie L.’s class last year. She’s now off to public school but wanted to pop in for the afternoon. I think she was hugged out by the end of class.
Yo, yo, it’s math and from the mouth of James; “I LOVE this Michelle!” We built ten rods of ten cubes to make a block of 100! And when we’re completely finished since we have 10 kids, we’ll have a block of 1000! Whew! It’s so handy that we have 10 kids in our class and our number system is based on 10. Every morning at circle, we organically add and subtract from 10 while everyone trickles in. I say; “How many kids are here.” And someone will count and say; “Six (or whatever it may be that day) and then I’ll say; “How many do we need to make 10″ and they’ll answer. We also do this with the number of the day. We are counting our days of school, we are going to have a party on day 100, we’re at 29 today, and they can always figure out how many days we have left until 100 in about one second. You can see the wheels spinning while they’re figuring it out (because while some remember – others figure it out again each day) – the wonder of real life math.
We also worked on a winter wonderland!
The Cha Cha Cha…
It is so hard for me to be away from my class. Autumn and I were under the weather all weekend and it seemed to peak today. I kept looking at the clock while we were laying in bed and thinking; “What are they doing now?”
Kathleen covered for us. It was “Cooking with Kathleen” day anyway and they made donuts – I can’t believe I missed donuts. One of the activities I had put out when I set up on Friday was the Ship Excavation kits from the Maritime Museum, which sounds like they were the activity of the day.
Here is Kathleen’s report:
”Donuts were fun today. Sarah helped out, and the kids did
a great job reading and following the directions and
working together.
While they were eating donuts, we talked about the
automatic donut-making machine at Krispy Kreme. Most of
the kids had seen the machine in action. They were
interested to see the same process unfold in a
non-mechanized way, and we had a fun conversation about
the differences between the two experiences. They also
spontaneously generated a list of all the other things
they want to cook in class. Here it is: Chocolate chip
cookies, cake, lemon cookies, cake, yeasted donuts with
chocolate frosting and sprinkles, cake, ice cream,
cinnamon rolls, and cake. I’m sensing some kind of trend
here.
The biggest hit of the day was the “excavating the boat”
activity. It was the cause of some argument and grief, as
everyone wanted to do it all at once, and no one was
inclined to share or take turns. However, everyone who
wanted to did get at least one turn at it, and they were
all very excited to see the boat pieces emerge from the
block. I wasn’t there for the afternoon, but Brigit tells
me they finished excavating all the pieces and made plans
to put the boats together tomorrow. “
See you all tomorrow…
There was something magical about our trip to Daystar this week. When we entered the building, the kids ran ahead of us, yanked off their coats, piled them where we always pile them and bounded into the area where the seniors wait for us. It was like going to grandma’s house. There were no nerves or fears or unease it seemed. We hung out, drew pictures. Kathleen read “A Chair for My Mother.” There was more interaction between the kids and the seniors and we all just felt comfortable.
We had prepared some songs to sing but the time hadn’t felt right for singing and then spontaneously the kids just started singing the songs while we mingled and drew. It was perfect. It was organic and came from the kids because they wanted to share. Sometimes I just need to remember how much the kids know exactly what needs to happen at exactly the right time. I just need to listen to them.
I also realized as we were coming in that I have been insisting that their voices stay low and that they don’t run or wrestle. I wanted us to be respectful and to have certain boundaries in the beginning. But now I’m realizing that maybe that has also kept us from being our outgoing, rambunctious selves. So, here we go into a new era – I’m going to loosen up and I’m just guessing this will help everyone else loosen up as well.
Oh, I have so much to learn…
There were tears over toilet paper. Wet pants. Wrecked structures. And entire school of tired teachers. What’s up. What’s going on with the moon? It’s the season for the sniffles and even though I don’t have them – the world seems to have tipped toward the tissue. I may be the only one who noticed though…
A is for Asher (and Autumn and Amy and Apple and…)
Our button excursion continues with more “Lost Button” play practice (today we worked on voice projection):
And button sorting and counting:
Outside time was just too wet – so we had it indoors with Sarah:
Our class picture came in today…could we be any cuter? (I love that Asher doesn’t have shoes on but has a dress-up vest on.)
We’re off to Daystar tomorrow with a new set of songs. Maybe we’ll even be brave enough eventually to do our play – this is up to the kids though. And…Kathleen has agreed to take the class on December 14th because I’m going to be gone – and everyone best be (well, at least agreeable!)
They were all so proud of this marble maze that they asked me to take the picture and made me show them to make sure it was a good one:
Look at this sentence – it has punctuation. Aha – they are understanding sentence structure.
A journey through Harriette’s journal:
How clever is Zavier with the magnets:
Sophia creates a vase card:
Banana smelling “moon mud”:
A literary lineup:
We also tried two runs at our story we turned into a play from “Frog and Toad”; “The Lost Button.” They were nervous, shy and quiet and we didn’t even have an audience – we may just be a class of intellectuals and not actors (but I’m all for that.)
Isn’t this how you wish you learned to read?
Sophia brings in a book to share.
James writes STOP in poofy letters.
Today we started a Button Excursion in math and our first part was to guess what was in the bag (what it felt like/size/shape/number of{it was a surprise} button’s.) This was what we figured out:
Three of us guessed 4 (the amount of buttons in the bag.) And Harriette figured out that they were buttons but let everyone have a chance before revealing her guess. We then read Frog and Toad’s adventure “The Lost Button.” We then made the creatures and trees from the story out of paper and hung them from our necks and we are going to act out the story tomorrow. Then we are going to sort and count buttons.
If you get asked questions about the body, it’s because we had an anatomy lesson for science today:
Today we had project based Spanish and created a mural while learning what the colors are in spanish:
Sophia started violin lessons today with some of the other students:
“You know what? Michelle has enough love for ten children and I am one of them.” ~Asher (via Asher’s mom Krista)
Man! They’ve got me pegged!
When Kathleen asked me how I thought today’s field trip to the Maritime Museum went, I said; “Great, it was so fun and everyone really has the hang of riding the bus and being in traffic.” Then without really realizing it until I said it aloud, I said; “It’s really all about the journey for me, not so much the destination.”
I realized how so true this is and how it’s probably like this for the kids as well. As much as they loved the Maritime Museum and all our other field trips, it’s really all about the partnering off, the walk to the bus, the event of the bus ride itself, the walk to the destination, leaving our comfort zones, meeting new people, seeing new sites, hearing other peoples conversations, eating snack and or lunch in a new space and then the return. It’s our own little Odyssey happening every Thursday.
On this trip we witnessed an argument between to senior women on the bus about whether we were too loud or not. One having the opinion that the kids should be told to be quiet and the other having the opinion that “They’re just kids having a good time.” I wanted to scream, YES! But I kept my mouth mostly shut and just encouraged the use of our regular voices. I guess we’re just too excited for everyone around these parts!
The Maritime Museum was a blast though. We played in the water table, making dams, floods, sending boats down stream to topple. The wooden fishing boat was also a big hit, especially for Jackson “Titanic” Espeut who has visited the museum many times before. It was Pirate themed and we made pirate gear crafts (hat, eye patch, hook.) We went on a treasure hunt and heard a pirate story.
Also, we had some special guests. Of course, my superhero, Kathleen (Brigit’s mom) was with me as she is on all field trips but we also had the pleasure of Krista (Asher’s mom) and as special guests; Logan, Max and Dana joined us from Edmonds. For those who don’t know, Logan was in my class for about two and a half years before moving up north to start kindergarten. We all miss him so much and we were so, so glad to see him.
I just love ‘em to pieces…
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