Quote of the Week: “This classroom is TOO nice!”

Picture Day: Smiles all around!

We were successful in wrangling even the most reluctant photo studio subject, and the smiling faces looked beautiful with the backdrop of the calliope of colorful plants planted by our Acera community last spring!

Morning Jobs: Making Choices & Making Friends

The last three weeks spent in playful “morning jobs” gave the LE teaching team plenty of time to watch and observe the wide variety of interests and strong abilities of the students. Asking classmates to play a game of UNO, combining block structures that you can ACTUALLY sit in then donning them with gems, or simply exploring the shelves has allowed relationships to form. It has also given us time to demonstrate the number of phonetic, handwriting, core strength and fine motor exercises, as well finishing up the Literacy assessments. Important: Next week we will start our weekly progression.

Literacy: Assessments and Explorations

We have a delightfully wide range of readers and writers this year and the exciting thing about being back together in person AND being able to sit together in small groups is that the students are really motivating each other. Understanding that there is an embedded progression in all the materials (Metal Insets go from Book 1 to #10), vocabulary cards go from very simple to very complex, Word Sorts have 80 drawers, and handwriting goes from print to cursive. We have heard shouts of “I finished Book Two!!”

A couple of times already we have put a 2nd Year LE student in charge of a small group. After a quick refresher from a teacher, the student was asked to lead the group by clarifying instructions, answering questions, and listening to the younger students to “read” their work. Then the 2nd Year checks off the student as finished and teaches them how to clean-up. WOW! All the while the 2nd Year student is getting a refresher on what they learned last year, getting the pride in supporting others, and connecting with newer students. A WIN all around!

Math: Ms. Jen

Much of the work that we have been doing the first week in our newly formed small groups is setting norms, playing place value games, addition games, and working in our number books. Our mathematicians are learning how to most efficiently and correctly form numbers from pulling down from the top, directionality, and of course, proper grip. They are working and playing hard! While the number books look simple, the students are using their knowledge and creativity… “One is for ONE Atom!” There was a discussion about why “ONE” doesn’t start with a -W-. Our language is something else!

Math: Ms. Alaza

This Monday we started more formal groupings in our math block- yay! In my math group, we started group with a thought bubble brainstorm which some lovely students have called silly as sometimes the center bubble doesn’t appear to be typically math related. For example, our “Patterns in the World” brainstorm landed us all over the place talking about hair patterns, piano keys/notes and seasons. The next day we brainstormed all the math symbols and shapes we see daily. Yes, I get to have interesting conversations like this alllll day. 

 This way math is relatable to the world around us and rooted back to its main purpose- to provide creative solutions to real life problems. After our brainstorming sessions, students were introduced to two new math games: “I’m Thinking of A…” and the Trading Game which allowed for further assessing of skills in a fun and engaging way. “I’m Thinking of A…” is a game that allows flexibility of thought and a wide range of answers such as, “I’m thinking of a number that is an even two digit number” or “I’m thinking of a shape that has more than 4 sides but less than 8.” Students were able to think logically and write their answers on white boards for points while seeing classmates coming up with answers to the same question that were different and correct as well. So important! The Trading Game is a hands-on block place value game that marks the start of our dive into place value as we race to exchange our ones, tens and hundreds to get to the fabled (and quite heavy) thousand block!

Rest and Read:

We had a visit from the students in Ms. Anastasia’s Room on Friday and the classes were partnered and paired with the older third and fourth grade students reading to our class! We had some REALLY lovely moments that we would very much like to re-create by-weekly or monthly!

Projects: Connecting with Classmates

With the phasing-out of the more choice-based “Morning Jobs” we will make out Project block on Tuesdays and Thursdays pretty much open-ended. We WILL have a blanket-making station in which students will be sewing a felt “name tag” on to the snuggly fleece.

Art with Ms. Camilla

The students were happy to have Friday once again because it meant ART with Ms. Camilla! The LE’ers explored pipe cleaners again, but this time made three dimensional objects!

Making Connections in Week Two!

This week has been another week of firsts… First Creativity Day! Our class is working with Ms. Kai, Ms. Stephanine, and the Larp Folks for the First Trimester, and the students did remarkably well transitioning from our Room 1 “home base” to adventure out into the wider Acera building and playground. We made sure that everyone felt comfortable and debriefed with the specialist teachers after the sessions. The core teachers spend these Wednesdays with classroom teams, core teachers, and having cross-classroom meetings. The students always come back inspired, and the staff return Thursday with thoughtful connections which inform our practice.

A Wonderful Week

We had a wonderful week… a short and very sweet first three days with your beautiful children. The adjustment to the new classroom environment has been very smooth, and children have made many meaningful connections all ready to friends (new and old), materials, and to the teaching staff. Alaza and I are celebrating our second year working together, and Sarah (Sublowski) is joining us 2 to 3 mornings a week. Sarah has worked at Acera for many years and has been a wonderful small group leader during our literacy and math blocks. We will work in small groups and as individuals throughout the year so that we can individualize educational experiences. We hope that you will enjoy the weekly blog which offers a window into the daily classroom life.

Morning Jobs

We started each day with many, many opportunities for exploration and cooperation. The tables, full of activities, were very inticing and mostly opened ended this enabled students to come up with their own ideas. Some of the second year students taught new students how to make God’s Eye weavings! While exploring the place value shelf, several students worked together to make a block stack worth 9,567! Some students were drawn to partner play, and others enjoyed starting off the day engrossed in a book under the loft, or watching sand flow through a timer.

In a couple of weeks, when the students understand the scope of opportunites are available in the classroom, we will begin our Morning literacy work which includes sequenced phonetic instruction, handwriting, and story telling and writing.

Literacy

Our three small groups this week included writing A Book About Me, some initial literacy screening, and learning how to use geometric stencils called “Metal Insets” to build hand, wrist, and core strength. Each shape in the first book involves filling the shape with continuous curvilinear lines and the students demonstrated determination and grit! The literacy screening will take several weeks to complete as all students work at their own speed.

Math

We have started the year with some fun dice games including Dice Races. The game with one die introduces the concept, and using two dice does basic addition. While many of our students are capable of higher level math, everyone enjoyed the races! The classroom was full of excitement “One is in the lead!!” and the sound of rolling dice. Today we learned a great deal about the classroom as we made animal parades! The students were given animals, a strip of blue paper, scissors and glue. After they made the parade of animals, several of the children gave the animals individual instuments to play. So creative! Teachers chit-chatted with each student… “How many animals on YOUR parade? How many FEET are in your parade?” Students demonstrated a wide range of thoughtful strategies to add the correct number feet. Then, we gave the students the challenge of making a parade with only 12 feet.They discovered that there were several different kinds of parades that had 12 feet. We will continue this work next week.

Rest and Read

After Lunch and Recess we all curl up with a pillow or a book. After the students get comfortable with this routine we will start book clubs! We can’t wait!!

Project Time

The students of the Lower Elementary classroom have been incredibly creative during project time. Teachers have been listening and observing their work to understand personalities, friendships, creative use of materials, and are promoting the importance of agency. By making choices, combining materials in innovative ways, and collaborating with peers, the youngest children at Acera are learning about or school’s core capacities.

My Father’s Dragon

Our First chapter book is My Father’s Dragon, written by Ruth Stiles Gannett. We have packed a backpack with everything that the boy packed in the story to rescue the baby dragon trapped on Wild Island. It has been REALLY well received. We need a couple of things including a pair of outgrown boots, a small jackknife, and a bag of tangerines!

Reminders

Please, please, please send indoor shoes in!

Student-Teacher Relationships Are Everything!

Welcome to the new school year! We have been getting ready for your student this week and throughout the summer! We are very excited for this new beginning, and are looking forward to seeing all the students together next Wednesday, September 8th! In the meantime, here are some highlights from our summers and preparations that we are making for the Fall. We are also adding details about the classroom, our Open House, and necessary items to bring in during the first or second week of school.

Summer Fun: Ms. Jen

Ms. Jen had a great summer with family and friends!! After a masked school year, remote education, and social isolation, she planned opportunities to connect with loved ones. She traveled to North Carolina to see her brother, sister-in-law and nephews as well as a number of friends! She also spent two weeks in Chatham with her daughters, Maddie (23) and Anna (21) and their besties and then time with my West Dennis cousins. I also spent last week in Yarmouth visiting several beaches and resting before the start of the year!

I sailed a couple of times and it inspired me to re-launch my sailing career! I am taking an intensive certification course in Boston this Fall so that I will be able to take the ASA 101 Basic Keelboat test. I am really looking forward to the course and hoping for some nice sailing weather in late September and October.

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Summer Fun: Ms. Alaza

I spent most of the summer at Acera teaching Summer camp. 🙂 It was such a positive and gratuitous learning experience to create hands-on camp fun. When I wasn’t teaching, I spent time catching up with my family in Missouri and exploring. This summer was a bunch of firsts for me! I was blessed enough to attend my first wedding, build my first scale model house, eat good food whilst being entertained at a murder mystery dinner and experience being inside a cave with absolutely no cell reception…. It was beautiful! Oh, and I got a fish named Kitty. 

Summer Work

My new home in Arlington is coming along s-l-o-w-l-y but this summer I was able to tackle painting in the bedrooms and a most challenging hallway! The 2-floor hallway involved some creative scaffolding and days of peeling, scraping, plastering, sanding, and painting. It was SO messy! Not to mention that my new puppy, Penny, was house training. She did well when I was attentive, less well when I became absorbed in one project or another.

I also did LOTS of reading for fun and learning. The best school related book was Sensory Perceptual Issues in Autism and Asperger Syndrome which confirmed my thoughts about how important understanding sensorial issues in all children and especially children with ASD! It was very compelling and will inform my practice going forward. Acera’s hands-on, progressive, and integrated approach serves children with hyper and hypo sensitivities beautifully!

Summer Preparation

Creating a New Environment

The classrooms last year needed to be specially designed for COVID, and as the returning families would share, Room 1 was outside last Fall! Our classroom was used for summer camp and so over Labor Day weekend we will work together to transform the environment to suit our new and returning learners. Dusting, cleaning, and organizing as well as lowering our adjustable tables to accimodate our 11 Kindergarteners and 5 First Graders. We will continue to adjust our classroom materials and furniture to adjust to the needs of our students.

Making Materials

While walking on Nauset Beach last week I started picking up white pebbles… and then as my hands became full grabbed a few shells to act as buckets! Picking up pebbles and filling up my shells lasted for a couple of hours and while engaged in this activity, I thought about our Room 1 students. What could they do with these materials? Sort from small to large? Large to small? Bright white to grey? Circles to ovals? My imagination is nothing compared to a 4 to 6 year old! I expect they might assign names to the stones and make a story or allocate a numerical value to the stones. We can’t wait to see how they interact with all the assembled materials available! As you have the opportunity (again) to see the classroom, please ask about the materials whoes use might not be immediately obvious.

Writing Cards

We understand that the upcoming year brings all kinds of feelings… excitement, anxiety, joy, and uncertainty. All feeling that children have will be acknoleged and accepted. Our brief introductory cards will hopefully support the positive feelings, and please encourage your student to write back! A picture of the summer, not necessasarily “writing” is communication! There is also no need to write back as we will be using the prompts “How was your summer?” to start our bonding and communication. Comming to the classroom Open House on Tuesday afternoon might also help with the transition to school!

Open House, September 7th 1:00pm to 43:00pm

On Tuesday, September 7th from 1:00-3:00 we will be having an Open House or Open Classroom! Vaccinated parents and child are invited to come anytime for 15-20 minute visits to meet the teachers, see the classroom, find their cubby, drop off extra clothes, and tour the space. Alaza and I will be working on the space and invite the children to do the same. This is clearly optional, and we will offer Home Visits during the year if Teacher/Student connections need to deepen.

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Clothes, Belongings, and Stuff

• Please label all clothing
• Please send a complete change of clothes in a clear, zip-locked bag
• Please send weather apporpriate gear as we will be outside in all weather
• Please send a SMALL blanket for Rest and Read

A Special Visitor!

The magic of being outside started today when a Praying Mantis walked across our classroom platform! Blending in with the Fall leaves falling and the warm breezes made for a memorable day! Here are some pictures from our first day together!

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Plimouth Plantation

What a wonderful day we had on Monday at Plimouth Plantation! Huge thanks goes out to Rene, Maggie, Kat, Catilin, and Emily for taking time out of their busy schedules to make the long drive! It was worth it! The exhibits were not crowded which made it possible to ask so many of our burning questions, which were answered thoughtfully! We spent most of the day in the Native American exhibit learning about how America’s indigenous peoples survived and thrived. Here are some of the pictures!

Welcome Back Aria

Love is in the air as we approach Valentines’ Day! The class gave Aria the warmest of welcomes when she returned from Puerto Rico with cheers and hugs. The class is very connected at this time of the year, and even when one child is out they are missed! When Roman stepped on a toothpick this week and left the class abruptly, the whole class was very concerned. One child said, “I almost fainted!” We were relieved to get the good news that he was okay, and I am not the only one now vigilantly checking for indoor shoes!

Math

The LE students we saying that subtraction was difficult, and so we have been practicing in several ways… subtraction card games, money game subtraction, and spending the pretend $100 bill from individual wallets at the supply stores at Thematic Choice. Through practice the children are able to notice trends and patterns when “borrowing” and the operation is becoming more automatic.

Reading

The LE students are forming their own Book clubs, enjoying the projects associated! Re-reading, Frog and Toad are Friends, and using tracing paper to draw the characters was a popular activity this week. An influx of books (a big THANK YOU to Ellison’s family for the birthday book gifts) has led to renewed excitement during rest and read. Partner reading with student visitors, and writing down the books we read have encouraged practice, practice, practice! We have completed another round of reading assessments as well to document student’s progress.

Writing

The class has begun to cruise through the word sorts, doing two or three in one sitting. Those along with the phoneme booklets are helping learn more and more complex spelling patterns. Using a tray of sand and dry erase boards to perfect handwriting has led to another leap in handwriting progress.

Thematic Studies

The high point of the week has been the children taking over the sales department at the Home Depot and Ikea stores during the loft building project! We are trying to finish the cardboard models before the February vacation. The children have been so excited about getting credit cards, but I insisted that we know how cash works first. The class has been balancing spending their pretend money and making use of the free resources in the classroom. One student was impatient with the roll out of the credit cards, and took on the project of issuing them himself. I was interested in the number of children that turned down the offer of credit, and impressed with the knowledge of the financial system.

Warm Regards,

Jen

Baby Spider Plants, Tool Boxes, and Wagons

This week the LE Students worked diligently to finish their second woodworking project of the year, a toolbox! Because children work at their own rates at Acera (see the article linked to Hiker Brain vs. Race Car Brain below) there were lots of options for children who had finished the project. Teams of students assisted our new student completing the toolbox as a group! Working on the project for the second time, student helpers were able to offer short cuts and assistance. Other children painted, created wood burning designs, and  finely sanded their crafts.

On Tuesday each child choose a clipping from the thriving spider pants on our windowsill, and placed them in a small glass jar. (We love glass jars if you would like to add to our collection please send them in!) They placed them throughout the room where they would make our classroom beautiful, and have the light to thrive. We have little plants in our dollhouse, on our work tables, and next to Taffy the Turtle’s tank! We will watch for roots to sprout over the next couple of weeks, and eventually plant in soil to learn more about plant life. This will help us make connections to the work that we have done, and will do, at the farm.

We also built horse drawn wagons, a connection to the book that we are reading aloud, A Quest for Celeste. Our heroine, Celeste, took a bumpy ride in a wagon in the 1800’s only to be thrown from the back into an unknown forest. Luckily she is taken in by all the forest animals, including a pair of beavers that explain how dams and beaver lodges are built. Our next project will be to construct dams, lodges, and beavers!

Writing Groups

We had a small writing group this week, and the assignment was to take pictures of what makes our class special. One child said, “We will need to take pictures of all the kids, because we make it special!” They went on to take photos in teams of two, and uploaded them so we could print copies. The children are then going to make a photo-illustrated book entitled All About the LC Class Acera. Writing the phrases “In our classroom we have a __________ .” In addition to making a class book to share with Acera visitors, the small group is working on spelling, letter spacing, punctuation, and descriptive language.

Math Groups

We have introduced week-long targeted small groups during our one-hour math block where we gather in clusters over a week to master a specific skill while the other students master familiar math games/skills. This week we gathered to learn more and master addition with carrying, and with the appropriate notation. We started by manipulating materials (a familiar skill) and moved toward the abstract, writing two 4-digit number equations and adding them together. The children learned that the “1” that you write takes the place of trading the units. They were THRILLED that they could then continue into the 100 thousands, and even millions.

Reading Groups

Several children this week read the Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats, a story about a little boy’s adventures in the snow. They took turns reading aloud, practiced the book by themselves, and then read with a partner. After a few days they knew the book very well, and developed a high degree of fluency. Our population of children tend to rush, speeding through books and not always reading every word. Our book clubs slow the reading process down by reading aloud and looking at a book in depth.

This week several children were working on identifying sight words. We have sets of cards with sight words, and also each child has a personal dictionary with 100-400 lists of sight words. These tricky words often brake the spelling “rules”, for instance the word “was” is pronounced “wuz“. It takes a lot of practice to master these!

Hiker Brian vs. Race Car Brain

Happy Weekend,

Ms. Jen

Lower Elementary Reading Loft

This week we confronted some problems in the Lower Elementary classroom. Partner and small group reading has left many of our cozy cubes empty, but taking up much needed book storage and block area space. Some children’s are in the Lower Level cubbies and want to be higher, and children who have higher cubbies want to be lower. Some children have bigger cubbies, but everyone is growing out of the small spaces! Children have become such good friends, and want to read together in flexible groupings and this is hindered by the separation across the classroom.

“What if we had a reading loft?” generated a lively group discussion that lead to research on the internet, concept drawings, and a proposal meeting with Ms. Courtney!

Some of the ideas presented were two ways of getting up and down, places for Dolce (our classroom parakeet to land), cozy spaces, rock wall, increased book storage, more block space, hidden tunnels, keeping the plants, and much more! Ms. Courtney approved our project with the condition that we document our progress, create a structure that will become a permanent part of the LE Classroom, research materials, incoperate the input from architects, builders, and our parent community, and make drawings and models to scale! We heard the good news today, and we will get started right away!

Library Finished!

With the help of many LE Students, led by some of our second year students, we finished labeling and inputting our entire collection of “learning to read” books by the Guided Reading Levels A to P! We used a program called BookBuddy to scan all the barcodes so we now have a searchable library of over 300 titles. Herbie was instrumental in discovering to solutions to problems… books with no barcodes, adding pictures of each cover, and how to share the list on the “cloud”. He then went home and purchased the App with his own money so that he could scan his own library collection! Thanks Herbie!

Happy Weekend!

Ms. Jen

We Are All Together Again… + Caleb! Welcome

Our circle is complete with Maya joining us in November and this week we welcomed Caleb! The LE’s had a second opportunity to practice their gracious brand of kind leadership. Bending down to speak to Maya eye-to-eye, taking Caleb’s hand walking down the hall, and showing him where we store the stray parakeet feathers.

Art

In the new year we will be having Art on Friday afternoons, and Woodshop on Monday afternoons, providing an additional literacy block in the morning. Today Camilla presented a lesson about birch trees and perspective. Using several widths of masking tape the children made their own birch tree forest. While working the children talked about making their forests in the season of their birthdays. So we had winter, spring, summer and fall scenes.  Beautiful!

Writing

The excitement of returning to books in progress was exciting to watch! The focus this week has been on the editing process… planning, drafting, editing, and the final copy. The stage was set in the fall when we played “edit message” as a class. I would write a short paragraph with a number of mistakes in spelling, capitalization, and punctuation. The children edited the message, one mistake at a time. This week I let the children know that everyone creates rough drafts… even grown-ups! If you could reinforce this at home, it would make quite an impact!

Reading

Everyone was given a reading journal when they returned to create a running log of the books that they are reading. By writing down the titles, each student will pay closer attention to spelling in addition to creating a running record. It has the side effect of encouraging children to start and finish books. You should see the concentration and focus on the children’s faces each afternoon during Rest and Read!

Math

Over the break I made shelf inserts to double our math material area! It has made quite an impact with children discovering materials that were hidden. Addition, subtraction, multiplication and division games were incredibly exciting and several times I heard “Math is my favorite time of day! And why is math time (one hour) so short!”

Thematic Choice

During the first three days back, getting reacquainted to classmates and classroom materials was a priority. Block building, painting, finger knitting, led to lessons about sharing space, working collaboratively, and understanding the perspective of others.

All-School Skating Field Trip

It was such fun skating with all the LE students! It was impressive to see children hitting the ice who never been on skates before. Several children acted like mini Zambonies skimming “snow” off the ice to make mini snowman on the edge of the rink. Awesome!

Happy Weekend!

Ms. Jen