Today the Lower Elementary class were privy to the week-long mystery of “The Case of the Missing Architecture Structures”. Estee emailed me on Tuesday to ask if I had moved the bin containing 12 site plans and 12 cardboard bases with hoop enclosures. The children had been working on them for a few weeks. The designs were a small prototype of the life-sized growing vine home that we will building outside on the playground for the next several weeks.

Wednesday and Thursday brought searches through the building, more emails and pictures circulating through Acera without any leads. Today at morning meeting, after sharing the story, the children wanted to solve the mystery themselves! Armed with clipboards, pencils, and many theories, we questioned and searched. We followed up with leads, and several children spent the better part of snack and recess continuing to take notes.

While the mystery is still unsolved, the LE students are ready and able to theorize about the possible reasons for the disappearance. In addition, they are excited about building the life-sized structure on the playground during the warmer weather to come!

Math

After the April break we have begun an open exploration of place value using many different manipulatives. The overwhelming favorite has been using money… pennies, dimes, 1 dollar bills and a ten-dollar bill. The children roll a die to see how many pennies to take from the “bank”. When they reach ten pennies, they need to say “STOP” and trade for one dime. They continue to add pennies, trade for dimes, and when they reach 10 dimes they can trade for a dollar. An extension of this game will be for the children to have ten dollars and to “spend” it subtracting a little at a time until they reach zero.

Having a deep understanding of place value will help the children as they work with bigger and bigger numbers and explore the operations of multiplication and division. We have been working with these operations in large and small groups, as well as individually. The children’s strong and steady progress in math will be fun to share at Conference Day, May 21st.

Writing and Reading

There have been many themes bubbling up in Writing Workshop this week. The maze work continues to be of interest, but making pop-up books and books with little envelopes with secret messages has also been popular. The creation of information books, “The Book of Leaves and Flowers” will inspire many. The students have also been exposed to nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs and the use of the corresponding symbols. This has helped greatly when adding detail and excitement into the writing. “The train thundered down the track!” sounds much more interesting than, “This is a train.”!

Writing notes to me and classmates has been a bustling activity all throughout the day. Today during Choice Time, I was given a clue… the first part of a scavenger hunt with clues and messages leading me to a tiny tree house with a present of a mini-notebook for my mini-Jen. The fluency and practical (fun) use of writing is just what we want to see from our K’s and 1’s!!

During Cozy Cubby Book Time, when children can read or rest, a book club has been working on using expression. Reading out loud with expression is the biggest predictor of reading comprehension. During the read-aloud children will read text in quotations, and naturally self-correct when they understand the meaning of the character’s words. This comprehension “fine-tuning” is a wonderful way to end the year in book clubs.

Theme

Measuring, building, imagining, problem-solving and persevering with challenges has been a continuing theme in the Lower Elementary Class. With this focus the children have developed a “can-do” attitude that has expanded to “I am an expert and I can teach you if you want.” This week we had expert “bicycle drawers”, “stair constructors”, “word spellers”, and “fort builders”. These skills are essential, as are the fine/gross motor strength and coordination that the students are developing through these fun and engaging activities. All the “hands-on” learning has made all the difference in the explosion of storytelling and writing.

Happy Weekend,

Ms. Jen

 

The school was a buzz this week with ASTEAMS and the upcoming vacation. The LE’s went off to explore the posters and projects with a partner and discovered many things including gum, caramel, and a group of mice with tails of different colors! They were certainly impressed with the displays, and were charged to ask questions or give a compliment.

Writing Workshop

The children’s writing has been exploding this week, especially after I read a book written by a First Grader I had in 1993! Adrian Suddenly Michael (why her middle name is Suddenly is another story) told a lovely story about a cat that met a dinosaur that has been inspiring students ever since! The children are excited about finishing up some of their many stories so that we can turn them into “hardcover books”.

In addition to writing stories, children have been building compound words, learning about the role of the verb, and developing great details in their illustrations.

Math Groups

This week we have been working on adding, subtracting, and finding equivalent fractions by using manipulatives from 1 whole to twelfths. The Lower Elementary students have been receiving individualized instruction over the last two weeks, and Vanessa and I are moving from child to child to give direct instruction and targeted practice on the concept of fractions. We have seen great improvement in understanding, motivation, and fine motor skills. Many of the children have been taught the “trick” of carrying the 1 in dynamic addition, however, we are working on trading up with actual place value blocks. This will help internalize the concept of 1’s, 10’s, 100’s, and 1,000’s. Once they master and comprehend this we will be moving into more abstractions.

Thematic Study

Our “Mini-Me” Tree Houses are taking shape and sparking the children’s imaginations! Building a tiny home for thier figures has been a wonderful way to build fine motor skills with tons of cutting, gluing, painting, tying, connecting, and squeezing those hot glue guns. Cries of “I can’t do it! It is too hard!” has been replaced with “Look what I did! I did it!” We are purposefully developing independance (I can do it myself), interdependance (I can ask a friend for help), and perserverance (I know this might be hard, but I am going to try and do my best).

We are also working on patience, flexibility, and problem-solving. How do I build an elevator? How can I attach the rope bridge from one “tree” to another? Also the children are working on making independant decisions. Do I want to use sticks or rocks on my exterior? What color am I going to paint the inside? How am I going th attach my tree house to my “trees” so that is strong, sturdy, and beautiful. The adults and children are acting as coaches and extra pairs of hands during Tuesday and Thursday afternoons… and having tons of fun!

Happy Spring Break!

Love,

Ms. Jen

This Week

We had a week full of energetic interests! Oliver brought in the book, Young Lancelot, that the children enjoyed so much they wanted to read it again. Half moral tale, half about the training that goes into becoming a knight, there was a little bit of something for everyone! The topics of adoption, arrogance, giants and battles were discussed by the children.

The other interesting development was that many children in the class started drawing mazes during writing workshop, with the goal of producing a class book of Mazes. We came together to discuss how to describe the detailed images contained in the exciting pathways. The interest most likely came from the start of a new woodworking project, designing and building marble mazes with Mr. Josh in shop. It will be intersting to see how this writing project eveolves.

Friendships

Love is in the air, and the children are making discovering new friends even this late in the school year! Begging for playdates, playing cops and robbers on the playground, and wanting to be all together sharing experiences such as testing out the strenght of a block structure. We are having fun!

Building and Construction

The children continue to make progress on thier Mini-Me treehouses, which are really taking shape. There was lots of discussion about needing more Choice Time, and I completely agree! There is so much to do in Lower Elementary and not enough time! I am pleased as the children come in each day excited about the day ahead, and today they were disappointed that Writing Workshop was shortened due to the Poetry assembly.

Have a wonderful weekend,

Ms. Jen