Community, Connection, Collaboration

As the weeks are rolling by, we are amazed at the amount of collaboration and connections that are happening in LE. These are evident through the many ways that students are interacting and truly becoming part of our community. On the playground, there is the lively chatter of conversations, invitations to join in play, the sharing of strategies on how to play a game, and also the design, development and construction of structures, bases, and “booby traps!”

Vocabulary Sorts

This group of students love a challenge and there is always a buzz of activity when it comes to the vocabulary sorts. While some students prefer to do their own, others will team up with a peer and take on a larger sort. They help each other with not only saying the words in their sort, but also helping sound out an unfamiliar word. Today, two students, who had opted for a larger sort, decided to split it in half so that they could both work on it, but get it done in a quicker time. This type of collaboration and communication adds to the depth of the learning as well as the acquisition of an extensive vocabulary through not only the exposure to the words, but also the conversations that are had as they complete the task.

Writing Prompts

There has been a lot of discussion (still) over what happened to Clucky, our fish. As a writing prompt, students used words and sentences like “Lost”, “Missing”, “Have you see our fish?” and made a poster to hang around the school, in the hope that someone might have some information that leads to solving the mystery. A second prompt was for students to write a get well soon note to Ms. Lisa after gum surgery. When she came back to school on Thursday morning, there was a delightful pile of very thoughtful messages and beautiful illustrations with lots of hearts (her favorite thing), rainbows, waves, and vikings. She was so happy!

Get well soon cards, lost signs

Math

Paper Theme

This week, we started exploring our theme of “Paper.” We read a lovely book called “Emily’s Idea” by Christine Evans, about a little girl who had a small idea that becomes a big one. She decorates paper chain dolls and initially, she decorates her home, but then it extends out to her community and then they end up all over the world, showing how different they are but really, all the same. Students got some great fine-motor work using small scissors to cut out their paper dolls. It was a heavy card stock and took quite a bit of effort. Then, using only paper and glue, they made their clothing, facial features, and hair. There were some very creative ways of making eyes and embellishments on their clothing and accessories. We are planning on visiting all the classrooms at Acera and having everyone participate in making a paper chain of dolls that we will display throughout Acera as a way to engage in and continue building our sense of community.

Math Groups

This week, we have been reviewing adding and subtracting numbers in the tens. Our goal is to increase automaticity before we move onto hundreds and thousands. Using glass bead stairs – red represents one, green represents two, etc., up to ten, we scaffolded the activity so that students worked on discovering as many ways as they could, to make the number ten. They drew the bead stairs and wrote out the number sentence that corresponded, practicing and ensuring that the number directionality was correct. As a challenge, students created their own sums using the bead stairs then writing the addition or subtraction number sentences. We also made two wooden tile memory games, one addition and one subtraction, in which the students flip two tiles and if they combine to make ten they earn the tiles and another turn. It has been very well received and we are helping the students boost memory as to not rely on using their counting fingers.

Vocabulary Sorts

Thursday is Vocabulary day where students can select a vocabulary sort activity. They first sort the pictures with words, then match the pictures, and then match the words. When they are done, students can get a strip of lined paper and write out all the words in their sort. This helps to reinforce words they do know, offers exposure to new ones, as well as writing practice for making their talls, smalls, and tails on their letters.

Lunch and Snack

Lunch and snack is a wonderful time for friendships between new and old students. There has been many a funny conversation, or sharing of stories and these kids really enjoy each other’s company. It’s so lovely to watch all the social connections being made.

Specialist

This week, we got to have our first meetings with Ms. Alison, our engineering and technology specialist, and Ms. Camila, our art specialist. In keeping with our exploration of “Paper”, students experimented with designing and building structural columns using paper and tape with Ms. Alison. In art, they are creating landscapes using paper. Do you see a theme??

Field Trip

We had a wonderful time on our field trip to Honeypot Hill Orchards and the weather was fabulous! After a visit to the farm animals, a wander through the pumpkins, and a clamber over the tractor, we had a snack, and headed for the hay ride to pick some apples. This year, we picked Ruby Mac and they were delicious! Everyone did a fine job of reaching up and twisting the apples to get them out of the tree. We took a fast, bumpy and bouncy hay ride back to the parking lot and headed back to Acera for lunch. We are so appreciative of all the efforts by Pengpeng, Ying, and Rosa to coordinate and plan for such a fun day. And, a big thank you to Amanda, Dave, Lipin, Peter, and Rosa for chaperoning. Enjoy your apples and your weekend!

Making Friends!

It has been a wonderful week two! Thank you so much for making the time to make it to out Back to School Night! We have so much to share with you! The most exciting observations we have during the first two weeks of school are always the unique ways students connect with each other and with the classroom materials. This year we started the day with open-ended materials for our new and returning students to explore. In this way we get to observe the interests, motivations, and personalities of our new group. We have been teaching for many years and no year is ever the same! This cluster of classmates are clear-minded, goal oriented, and exploratory. They have also been very open to cross-classroom partnerships, especially on the playground.

Fine Motor and Helpful Classroom Connections

Our clever and creative group discovered the fuse bead trays and have been working in LARGE groups creating all kinds of geometric shapes. A student will shout out, “I need some transparent reds.” Another student will rush to the rescue, and we will acknowledge, “It is so it is so fabulous to have many eyes looking at colors!” Visual discrimination, clever conversation, grit, and delicate fine motor skills have been on full display this week!!

Literacy Introductions

As we demonstrated last night, each morning we spend the first part of the morning on handwriting and phonetic exercises. Monday:Metal Insets, Tuesday: Handwriting, Wednesday:Word Sorts, Thursday: Vocabulary, Friday: Journal Writing. This week we have introduced all these activities slowly and carefully, making sure that all the students understand WHY and HOW of the morning work. All these discrete experiences combine to create well-rounded writers and readers!

First Weeks of our Math Block

We have spent the last two weeks observing our students closely and their use of very basic math materials! The bead stairs are a series of 9 colorful glass beads that represent the numerals from 1 to 9 that Maria Montessori developed early in her career over 100 years ago. They have been copied over the years by many educators including Georges Cuisenarie in 1945. Maria’s are more beautiful and have a distinction that Cuisenarie lacked… a clear definition of ones in the form of separate glass beads. Our students have been using these beads to add, subtract, multiply and divide although we have only introduced addition and subtraction! WOW!

We have also been participating in a school-wide assessment process that will assign our students with the very best teacher and learning group. Acera is unique in that we can provide each student with the “just right” level as they move at their own pace through math curriculum.

Creativity Stations

This trimester we are partnering with Ms. Kathy (fiber arts) and Mr. Dylan (stop motion animation) every Wednesday morning and afternoon. Both instructors are masterful in their own ways and bring areas of expertise to our students that we don’t necessarily focus on while teaching our core subjects. We do, however, learn from each other and bring the talents, interests, and skills that they learn on Creativity Wednesdays into our classroom!

Listening Conferences Zoom Link

We look forward to seeing everyone in person or on ZOOM tomorrow! We will be asking many questions about your child, their interests & hobbies, family, and routines. We will also ask for your hopes and goals for your child this year to incorporate into the Individual Learning Plan (ILP) which is a living document. It is a commitment between teachers and parents, teachers and students, students and parents as we are partners in the year ahead!

What Your Child can do at Home

Warmest Regards,

Lisa and Jen

Welcome Back!!

Wow! What an amazing first week we have had in LE. We have spent a lot of time meeting new friends, catching up with old friends, learning about each other, the classroom, the playground, and exploring the different spaces at Acera School.

Exploring the Classroom

We have many budding architects, mathematicians, and engineers in our classroom. At Theme, students have been exploring block building, fuse beads, geometric shape sorting, and art.

Exploring the New Playground

It has been ridiculously hot this week, but the LE students have been having a great time checking out all that our upgraded playground has to offer. They have been running, climbing, swinging, digging, and building with the large outdoor blocks.

Writing Books!

During Writer’s Workshop, many of our students have chosen to already start creative writing by making their own books, and developing stories with illustrations. It is kind of amazing to see the energy and excitement as they share their ideas with each other and with us.

The Upcoming Week…

Next week, we will begin our Metal Inset books, continue learning the schedule of the day, and reinforcing the three rules of our classroom which are, we take care of ourselves, we take care of each other, and we take care of our community. We look forward to seeing as many of you as are able, at the Back-to-School night. As always, please reach out if you have any questions or concerns. Thanks for sharing your amazing children with us!

Listening Conference Schedule

Expanding Attention Spans

Warmest Regards,

Lisa and Jen