This week was marked by the celebration of the 100th day of school! The children brought in 100 drops of water in a bottle, 100 balloons, 100 marbles, 100 foam cuisonnaire rods, and the hundreds came trickling in all week! I can’t begin to count how many times we counted to 100, but I do know that we counted backward by 100 once during our morning meeting this morning. Whew!

During Choice Time we attempted to make 100 homes from colorful paper, connect 100 cardboard triangles to a platform with tape, and paint 100 train cards. All of these tasks involved teamwork, persistence, and hand-eye coordination which we have been emphasising in the new year. I have been seeing an increase in endurance and focus in all areas of the curriculum, as well as classmates supporting each other.

Writing Workshop

The children have continued to be extremely motivated to write using the comic strip format to tell stories. This very graphic technique is ideal for encouraging the habit of including small details in drawings as the children aren’t overwhelmed by trying to fill an entire piece of paper. It also allows the kindergarteners and First Graders to tell an entire story in pictures, before going back to write words.

Everyone in the class was shown the same picture from the Chapter book that we just finished reading, My Father’s Dragon. The task was to write about the picture, and to include a detailed picture of the baby dragon. It was a lovely writing sample to capture the progress the children have made thus far this year.

Math Groups

Besides grouping by 10’s to count to 100 and participating in all kinds of 100 day activities, we have also been working with the concept of measurement. We used Unifix cubes to measure the height of our Amaryllis plant, and it is already 39 cubes tall. Then Ms. Courtney asked us to collect measurements from the Commons and we spent the day using manipulatives to discover the length and width of the grey tables. In addition to lining up the materials and counting, the children used the skills of estimation, and we had a conversation about fractions.

Birthday Books

On Tuesday the 6th Tavi’s Mom, Miriam, came in and read us the story Pandora. This beautifully illustarted Picture Story book has powerful messages, references the Mythological tale of the same name, and addresses deep feelings. Thank you Miriam and Tavi for the wonderful read-aloud and for gifting the book to our classroom. We will use the treehouse drawing in the story as part of out tiny home inspiration.

If you are interested in donating a book to the Lower Elementary classroom as part of a birthday celebration, that would be delightful! Here are some tiles that go along with our study of homes.

Have a wonderful weekend,

Ms. Jen