Welcome Back!

Welcome back everyone, especially Jackson, who spent the break in the hospital. I couldn’t get a good snap shot of him, he kept running by me. I was so happy to see your face this morning Mr. J – I worried so much about you.

Before we left for break we were talking about money with the 1st/2nd grade group, specifically coins. We talked about what each coin is worth, we sorted money and played money bingo. During the break I set up a grocery store and today everyone got a cart, an envelope of money and went shopping. We took turns being the cashier and being the customer. It was really fun. If you can give your child a money allowance when you go shopping and let them buy and item or two while using their allowance, it would put this entire project into a real world scenario.

We also started some new sewing projects.

And we had a “Elements of Art” class with Trisha.

Cooking with Kathleen – The Movie

Pizza Dough – Working with yeast

During Cooking with Kathleen, Paul, Kathleen (our mama chef) and I each have a table of kids to help. I made this movie while helping my group – so my group is mostly featured. I made a movie of Autumn last week and I showed the kids on the office computer. They were so excited and I told them I would make a movie of them as well. I’ll try to spread the love around and get some other faces, other voices in next time. I try.

Here is the link to last years pizza dough making adventure along with a pizza dough recipe.

Monster Squeeze

Today we played Monster Squeeze for math. It was a huge hit!

First, someone in the group thinks of a mystery number between 1 and 10 (for this particular time – we’ll grow the number line for future games.) We take turn guessing the number. If the number isn’t guessed, then the person guessing asks if the number is greater than or less than the number guessed. Then the monsters are moved to show only the numbers we haven’t excluded until we figure out the mystery number.

How Many Beans Does The Whole Class Have If We Each Have Six Beans

At circle this morning, Paul handed out six beans to each student and teacher and a pad of paper and a pencil. We talked about the number six and all the ways we can get to the number six. 3+3, 2+4, 5+1 and so on. Then he had everyone write down their guess of how many beans there were all together. There were 19 of us including the teachers. It was an exercise in estimation. And all the kids thought about it and wrote down their answers. Some were close with 100 while others guessed 21 or 19.

But, Sophia, one of the two second graders proceeded to use the next hour or so (which included big yard time) figuring out exactly how many beans we had.

Without any prompting this is what she wrote:

I love persistence and seeing that drive to find the answer no matter what else is going on. And that in our school you can choose to follow that drive and see the entire process through without interruption. She did this for herself. The thirst for knowledge is unquenchable.

Go, Sophia, Go!!! Don’t ever let anyone stop you.

Day Three

Yummy plums for breakfast from Anya, Isaac and their family:

A birds nest from Flynn and her family, which led us to the study of my Ostrich, Emu and various other egg collection:

We started our Everyday Mathematics today.  It is an alternative, manipulative based math program.  They LOVED it!

And music with Katy:

This year is so much different then last year and it’s taking some time for me to settle in.  It is much more age diverse than last year and much larger.  While I miss the small intimate feeling that our tiny group brought last year, this classroom of varied ages and ideas has an even more vibrant and full feeling.  I am missing our sofa circle-time and the beginning always seems like your just moving through the day to set the pace but I can feel us beginning to gel and we are all beginning to ease into the schedule and routine.  It takes time and we have plenty of that to work with.  So here we go…

P.S.

We won’t be taking a field trip tomorrow but we will be going to Daystar Retirement Village next Thursday morning and then on to Castle Park.  We will return in time for lunch.  Parents are always welcome to join us.

A Week in the Life…

Reading and writing our own comics (especially for those who find writing and journaling grueling.)

Asher found Calvin all too familiar and laughed hysterically for the hour he spent reading all about their adventures:

If you have any (non-violent type) comics, bring them in for our comic table.

A page from Harriette’s comic book:

Lookie, lookie, peas:

Onions and nasturtium:

Dice math problems (a huge hit) :

In pairs, each partner rolls a die and then they add the amount rolled on one die with the amount rolled on the other die and then they write down the math problem they created with each roll.

Fractions:

Puzzle making:

Fini:

“Michelle, I’m TOTALLY into sewing!” ~Asher

Sophia’s lovely 1030’s wool material bag for her mama for mother’s day:

Violet’s pillow:

Asher’s bag for his dad:

All of our beautiful sewing projects:

Cooking with Kathleen:

Cheddar Cheese Crackers (recipe below):

This past week we’ve been reading to each other at circle time as well as reading to other classes and to the seniors at Daystar:

Remaking the wheel:

The tadpoles are gigantic but too fast to photograph:

 

 

CHEDDAR CHEESE CRACKERS

Ingredients

¼ cup Cornmeal

¾ cup All purpose flour

1 Tbsp Poppy seeds

¼ tsp Cayenne pepper or ground black pepper (optional)

¼ tsp Salt

¼ tsp Baking powder
½ stick Butter, cold, cut into small pieces

1 cup Sharp or extra sharp cheddar cheese, coarsely grated

5-6 Tbsp Cold water

Directions

1. In medium bowl, combine flour, cornmeal, poppy seeds, salt, baking powder and cayenne (if using.)

1. Cut in butter with a fork or pastry cutter until mixture resembles coarse crumbs.

1. Add cheese and 4 Tbsp water, stir to blend with fork. Add additional water if needed to bring dough together. (Dough should be soft but not sticky.)

1. Turn out onto floured work surface and knead gently 4-5 times to combine.

1. Form dough into two balls. Using a floured rolling pin, roll out each ball into a 12” circle.

1. Cut out shapes using cookie cutters or biscuit cutters. Gather scraps and reroll as necessary to use up dough.

1. Place shapes onto parchment-lined cookie sheets. Prick each cracker a couple of times with a fork.

1. Bake at 400 degrees for 12-15 minutes, rotating racks halfway through, until crackes are a pale golden brown. Immediately remove crackers from pan and cool on wire racks.

1. Once cooled, crackers can be stored in an airtight container at room temperature for several days. If they get chewy, you can recrisp them in a warm oven.

Seeds, Spanish, Secret Codes, Sacks Full of Tadpoles, Sorting Birthdays on a Graph and Spring

We planted seeds for starts and we planted the same seeds directly into the garden so we can see the differences in growth. The peas we planted from seed are so much heartier than the starts we planted.

We played shape/color bingo in Spanish.

One of my favorite journal pages. Zavier has a secret code language he writes. The way he draws and writes, has such symmetry and beauty.

Here are our frog eggs. They grow a little each day. You can now see the heads, tails and gills. They are fascinating and we can’t keep our eyes off of them.

We made a birthday bar graph. After we all made cards with our birthdays, we taped them to our birth months. Then I asked the kids; “What does this graph tell us.” This is what they said; “When our birthdays are. The months of the year. What kind of birthdays we have. Who’s birthday is in what month. How many birthdays are in each month. Helps us remember our birthdays and who is in our class.” How smart are they???

Today we made “Raspberry – Coconut Bars” – YUMMY!!!

RASPBERRY – COCONUT BARS

Yield: 24 bars
Notes:  These are already quite sweet, so use a jam with the least amount of added sugar possible.  Whole wheat pastry flour works best, if you have it. (You can find it in the bulk bins at PCC.)  Otherwise, substitute a mix of all purpose flour and regular whole wheat flour.

INGREDIENTS

¾ cup   Unsweetened, shredded coconut

1 ¼ cup Whole wheat pastry flour

• • (OR substitute a mix of ¾ cup whole wheat flour + ½ cup all purpose flour)

¾ cup  Brown sugar

¼ cup  Sugar

½ tsp  Salt

12 Tbsp Unsalted butter (1 ½ sticks), cut into pieces

1 ½ cup Oats

3 Tbsp  Wheat germ (optional)

¾ cup  Raspberry jam  (or sub a different flavor jam if you like)

¾ cup   Sweetened, shredded cocount

DIRECTIONS

1. Preheat oven to 375.  Grease a 13×9 inch pan.
2. Spread unsweetened coconut onto a sheet pan and toast until golden, around 4-5 minutes. Cool slightly.
3. Combine flour, sugars and salt in the bowl of a cuisinart.  Add butter chunks and pulse to blend, just until a dough forms.
4. Turn dough into a large mixing bowl.  Add oats, wheat germ (if using) and toasted cocount.  Use your hands to mix it all together.
5. Measure out ¾ cup of dough and set aside.
6. Press remaining dough evenly over bottom of greased baking pan.
7. Spread jam evenly over dough.
8. Crumble reserved dough over jam.  Sprinkle sweetened cocounut over the whole thing.
9. Bake until golden brown and bubbling, 22-25 minutes.
10. Cool on rack for at least 45 minutes.
11. Cut into bars.

100 Days

Next Wednesday is our 100th day of school. So, if you would like to help your child bring 100 like things to school to share and count, please do so. We will be reading 100 day books, eating (and sharing) 100 yummy snacks, counting and sharing our 100 items, finding all the cool ways to get to 100 and celebrating the fact that we’ve had the pure pleasure of spending 100 days together in this little classroom family.

Playing Catch-Up

I was gone for four days at a funeral and while we were away we adopted a battered Australian Shepherd – so my evenings/blog time has been taken up with catching up from my trip and our new dog, Rosa.

We’ve been making math problems with unifix cubes and writing math sentences on the board.

Asher concentrates:

Jackson said; “This is the only reason I come to school.” – YEAH RIGHT!

We tried using motion and inertia to get a marble to stay in a cup without a bottom:

We made mosaics with our glass from Village Green Nursery:

Harriette painted a portrait of me:

We studied Sea Plant Life:

We’ve been playing hang man build a woman/cat/dog/baby etc – we LOVE this game:

We went ice fishing with ice, water, salt and a string:

We’ve been reading “Ask the Bones” and some have been a bit scared so we broke the group in two but some of us are LOVING IT so much!

We’ve also been reading the “Miss Nelson” books, “Henry and the Underground Railroad,” and “A picture book of Harriet Tubman.”

Me made Oatmeal Soda Bread:

OATMEAL SODA BREAD

                              Yield:  1 loaf
INGREDIENTS
2 ½ cups Oats

1 ¾ cups Buttermilk
2 cups  All purpose flour

½ cup  Cake flour

½ cup  Whole wheat flour

¼ cup  Brown sugar

1 ½ tsp  Baking soda

1 ½ tsp  Cream of tartar

1 ½ tsp  Salt

2 Tbsp  Butter, softened
1 Tbsp  Butter, melted (for the crust)

DIRECTIONS

1. Put 2 cups of oats in a bowl.  Add buttermilk and mix well.  Allow to soak for one hour before proceeding.
2. Preheat oven to 400.
3. Whisk flours, the remaining ½ cup oats, sugar, baking soda, cream of tartar and salt together in a large bowl. 
4. Cut in the softened butter with a fork or your fingertips until the mixture resembles course crumbs.
5. Add the soaked oats and stir with a fork until the dough comes together. 
6. Turn dough out onto flour-coated work surface.  Knead for about 12 turns, just until dough is cohesive.  (Do not overwork the dough – it shouldn’t be smooth.)
7. Pat the dough into a 6 inch round.  Place on a parchment-lined baking sheet.
8. Using a sharp knife, score the top of the loaf in an “X” shape, about ¾ inch deep.
9. Bake until the loaf is golden brown and a skewer inserted in the center comes out clean, 45-55 minutes. 
10. Immediately upon removing the loaf from the oven, brush the top with the melted butter.
11. Cool to room temperature before slicing (about 45 minutes.)