Making, Working, Doing

Who knew how much fun it is to break up garlic heads into individual cloves, and how challenging! Also surprising it was to discover how many LE students like to eat raw garlic! We learned how to plant garlic cloves which will become a spring harvest crop at Wright Locke Farm on Thursday. Along with preparing the cloves, the children loaded up a wheelbarrow with compost, spread it out over the garlic bed inside the greenhouse, and planted the garlic cloves six inches apart and a knuckle deep. Experiences like this are a part of our monthly trips to the farm!

In a New York Times article that I recently read entitled, How Makers Make the Classroom More Inclusive, the notion that children learn better when they are using the creative process to accomplish real-life tasks or solving real-life challenges. It is getting messy, making mistakes, and risk taking. We all left the farm with dirt under our fingernails, greenhouse dust in our noses, and smelling like garlic. What was the reward for getting our farm work? Building fairy houses in the forest of course!!

 

Welcome Maya!

Last week we had the pleasure of welcoming lovely Maya to our classroom. Immediately the children began to recognize all of the things that we needed to for her! “She needs a cozy cube!”, “She needs a Writing, Math, and Theme Binder!”, “She needs her name on her cubby!”. When the brainstorm was done, we had over 20 jobs that needed to be accomplished in order for Maya to feel at home in LE.

The most wonderful sights to witness were the moments, like above, when the children instinctively held Maya’s hand to bring her to snack, the playground, or lunch. She is being really well looked after, and watching the children this week I can tell how comfortable with the classroom and how things work at Acera.

Fells Field Trip

On Thursday, we loaded the school bus for a very quick drive to the Fells to hear the big kids read their stories of the mythical creatures that inhabit that beautiful place. Underwater creatures with treasure fighting giants, fanciful fairies, and oddities of all kinds were woven into entrancing tales. The children also got a chance to climb the slippery slopes, throw stones into the pond, and make discoveries of their own… including the spotting of a Red Bellied Woodpecker! We hope that this trip will ignite the LE’s imagination and seep into their own writing.

Curriculum Night

We had a small yet determined current and prospective parents at the Curriculum Night last night, braving the first snow storm of the year! They endured my laryngitis and asked many interesting questions about Acera and the Lower Elementary classroom. It was particularly lovely to have Maya’s parents, Marina and Timur, who had lots to learn about life in LE. Welcome to Acera! Here are the slides.

Math

During the few days of indoor recess this week, the LE students discovered that we have several chess boards! It was hard to stop mid-game, so the tournament was added to our math choices. There were several children interested in playing, and in the run-off students demonstrated skills of logic as well as their knowledge of the game! They shared strategies, move suggestions, and gracefully lost and won. This day Wesley was the chess champion, and the kids made metals for him which he shared proudly above!

The children also took the Bingo multiplication/division game off the shelf, and have been playing in large groups. If the children are unsure of the answer (9 x 9 for example) they pull other materials off the shelves such as the Base Ten Blocks. “If you have 10, 9’s that would be 90. So, you just subtract 9 from 90… 81. While observing, the students are committing math facts to memory and using creative problem-solving.

Stuffed Animals and Toys from Home

At the beginning of the year, I decided to be more flexible about bringing stuffed animals and toys from home. It became clear that some students needed their “Transitional Objects” to snuggle during Rest and Read. Other children were connecting with others over shared interest in squirrels “Squirelies” that became involved in block and basket structures. However, over the last several weeks, stuffed animals and toys from home have become a source of distressed. Animals were lost, forgotten at school over the weekend, or interrupting learning moments of the day instead of informing and contributing.

We had a long conversation about this at Morning Meeting today, and children shared their thoughts and feelings. Some children were extremely mad, others very sad, many others quite reasonably offered suggestions to solve the problem. In the end, it is best that we reinstate the Toys from Home Stay at Home Policy. Thank you for your cooperation and understanding.

Happy Thanksgiving!!

Ms. Jen

Peace, Pose and Poetry

On Halloween many parents saw our peace, pose and poetry routine for the first time! After morning work, around 9:00-9:15, we start our morning meeting with the 3P’s. A quiet moment of peace where we close our eyes, take a few breaths, and observe a little silence. This moment of peace serves as a reset if a child had a difficult morning, very high or low morning work time, or just feeling the first moment we are together as a whole group. When that is over, we have shout a raucous “GOOD MORNING” and send around a hello and a handshake. After the handshake goes around the circle, I randomly pick a YOGA pose (our second P) from our deck of yoga cards. The third P is a poem! The children have particularly enjoyed hearing poems read-aloud, especially the book, Be Glad Your Nose Is on Your Face: And Other Poems by of Jack Prelutsky. The children find it hilarious!!

 

Math Challenge

While some children are working on finding all the combinations of numbers that add up to ten, some are adding subtracting and dividing numbers into the thousands! For others, logic problems are the most challenging. The puzzle pictured above has been a real favorite. It involves 9 squares with numbers 1 to 9 printed on each side. The challenge is to make a 3×3 square with all connected sides equal to 10. Here is the problem solved for the first time! Children want to do it again and again to see if there is a trick to solving it that is easily repeated. Any ideas? Shhh… don’t tell anyone! We want to figure an answer to that problem out by ourselves.

Child Visits… and a New Classmate!

We have been welcoming potential Acera students into our classroom over the last couple of weeks, and it has been a delight to see the LE students climbing over each other to assist and play with the visitors. Above you can see Roman and Zachary holding Maya’s hand, and Aria getting into the photo from behind. Nice photo bomb Aria!

The good news is that Maya enjoyed her visit so much that she is joining our class next week! It is amazing to have another delightful Kindergarten girl, an amazing mathematician, and kind friend join our team!

A Nest for Celeste

Just because we finished our first chapter book, A Nest for Celeste, it doesn’t mean the interest in the story has waned! Children are making their own stories based on the characters, programming Scratch computer models based on Celeste’s basket ride over the Mississippi River, and we are still weaving the giant basket big enough to hold an LE’r! It has really created a writing explosion! At pick-up today a child asked, “Can I stay here and write some more?”

Warmly,

Ms. Jen

Motivation!

An interesting development this week that stretched across the curriculum… intrinsic MOTIVATION! The children can’t stop writing during writing workshop, want to weave multiple baskets related to our read-aloud chapter book story, “A Nest for Celeste“, and math games. The LE classroom at Acera provides multiple opportunities for autonomy which has increase intrinsic motivation and self-regulated learning. If you would like to see a short piece on Motivation please check out this link.

Basket Weaving

The powerful mouse Celeste, in A Nest for Celeste, makes baskets to hold food scavenged from the dining room table and floor. She overcomes rat bullies, a raging hurricane, makes friends for life in this wonderful story set in the South. The LE Student learned how to weave tiny, mouse-sized baskets and then wanted to make baskets for “stuffies”, which is the name for the studded animals that have been coming into the classroom.

Then… a student had the idea to make a child-sized basket! Herbie suggested making 14 child-sized baskets, so that everyone in the class could have one! The whole class brainstormed materials that we can use for the basket to make it strong enough to hold a classmate, and if it works we can take on the Herbie challenge… making 13 more!!!

Embracing Challenge

It may be easy to make number combinations that add up to 10, but it is really difficult to put together this 9 card challenge! All sides that touch need to equal 10, and many children have tried with great persistence and grit! Our word sorts that teach phonics with cards, pictures and objects, have become a favorite, and you can often hear “I have done 20! I have only a couple to go!” They increase with progressive difficulty, and the children are learning a LOT about spelling, vocabulary, and conventions of print with the use of this tool.

The addition of partner reading has been a great motivator as well! I brought a huge bag of chapter books from home, and we got a shipment of “Henry and Mudge” books from Amazon… the books in a series really help children learn sight words and a repertoire of familiar vocabulary words.

Wright Locke Farm

We had a short but sweet time at the farm, and our goal is to spend one FULL day each month exploring and helping where we can. On the first trip our goal was to take a short walk, collect colorful leaves, and to do one sketch. The chickens were really friendly, so we plunked down on the gravel to sketch! The also had the chance to run (and roll) up and down the hills and meet with some of the staff! Thanks to Maggie, Kat, Jen, and Tracey for driving us over!

Happy Weekend!

Ms. Jen

Apple Picking Field Trip

We had a beautiful day at Parlee Farms in Tyngsboro. The sun was shining, a cool breeze was blowing, and the apples were red and ripe!!! There were so many highlights, but the children singing “LE, LE, Lower Elementary! SE, SE, Lower Elementary!” on the hay ride to the orchard was one of the BEST! Here are some of the pictures….

Thank you to our Class Parent, Maggie, and to our chaperones Mike, Kat, and Karen!

Collaboration and Cooperation

This week was marked by incredible collaboration and cooperation, as the Lower Elementary students explore interests across the curriculum. Partner reading, math exploration, and Keva block challenges. It has been exciting to see new friendships blossom and work partners become increasingly flexible.

Keva Plank Challenge

The children took a print-out inspirational Keva plank design, and made it their own by adding window blocks! A structure that started with two children became a project for all to enjoy, and at 4+ feet tall has been drawing visitors from around the school and beyond!

Observational Drawings & Plasticine Sculptures of Leaves

We have continued to explore our school and environment by drawing realistically. The leaves we choose from the playground last week were attatched to lined paper and Ms. Camilla taught the class to draw horizontle lines to create a leaf of the same size. The skills that the children have been using with our metal stencils and working with increasingly complicated strokes, has really helped them making light and dark veins of the delicate leaves.

Math Materials & Flexible Groupings

Literacy: Practice, Practice, Practice

Middle School Presentation: Birds of Trinidad and Tobago

Acera’s resident orinthologist Daniel Tripplet came by on Friday before snack to tell us about his trip to Trinidad and Tobago and share the beautiful photographs of birds that he captured. Tanagers,Vireos Finches with names like Violaceous euphonia enthralled the children. I was impressed that they gave Daniel their undivided attention for over 20 minutes! Before he left he invited the LE Students to come to the Middle School classroom anytime, “After all, we might be bigger than you are, but we have a lot in common.” We plan to do some research projects inspired by this presentation.

 

We ended last week with our first whole school assembly! We shared two of the songs that we have been singing, “We Are All a Family Under One Sky” and “A Little Wheel a Turning” Although some of the children felt shy at first, they all sang their best! They also were attentive listeners and active participants during the Rooster Story, shared by the teachers.

Apple Taste Testing

Thanks to Wesley and his family, we were able to taste test 11 different kinds of apples on Friday, writing our thoughts about the different tastes, colors, smells and textures. The Cox Orange Pippin and the Rhode Island Greening, were just a couple of the varieties that we had not heard of before! Wesley introduced each variety, each were cut into seven slices, and each was halved… 14! Our magic number!

Writing Happening Everywhere!

Notes to friends during Rest and Read, clipboard writing outside on the rope ladder, and letters written at lunch… children are writing everywhere! They know that writing is a form of useful and FUN communication and record keeping, and classmates are having fun with friends.

Finish-Up and Catch-Up Day

Friday was our first Finish-Up and Catch-Up day where children can spend the morning working together to finish-up projects and catch-up on assignments such as handwriting books, word sorts, and math assignments. One of the benefits of working at your own pace, is everyone can add the MOST careful detail into everything they do. One of the challenges is to make sure that everyone finishes up and has the sense of completion. This feeling of responsibility and ownership is an essential part of Lower Elementary, and our project based school.

 

Observational Drawings

During our first Art session with Ms. Camilla, we did an observational (or scientific) drawings of butterflies. Since then, we have been making observations of our classroom animals! Dulce the bird, and Taffy the turtle posed for students during our thematic choice time. The students noticed many details in color, shape, texture…. others embellished with smiles and included a happy polliwog!

 

Thematic Choice: Power

The most popular choice by far at the beginning of the school year has been the block area. Children working independently, in pairs, and in large groups to build museums, railways, and marble runs. The addition of white beach rocks, silvery gems, and more window blocks embellish the structures. In the middle of the session, I asked about POWER. They responded, “We have the power to build! We use the power of gravity! We can build structures that are strong, stable, and beautiful! We have the power to walk around structures without knocking them over.”

 

 

Math Group

Each day this week, we have been warming up using the book Each Orange has Eight Slices by Paul Giganti, Jr. and Donald Crews. In the book, we have to use addition, subtraction, multiplication and division to solve the problems. The use of pictures and using multiple strategies to get the same answer has led to interesting conversations. This week the children were able to explore their interests in numbers more individually with the addition of several more materials. One child “built” the number 1,000,000+99= and them we were able to have a discussion about the use of zeros and place value. This led to an exploration of even bigger numbers.

 

Writing Workshop

 

Writing notes to friends, sorting vocabulary cards, dictating and acting out stories, drawing and writing in hardcover books, and practicing handwriting have made writing workshop very dynamic!

Upcoming Events

• Thursday, October 4: APPetizer Social 6:30-8:30pm
• Friday, October 5: ILP Writing Day (no school)
• Monday, October 8: Columbus Day (no school)
  
• Thursday, October 11: Gifted 101-Robbins Library, Arlington  7:00-8:30pm
• (tell a friend!)
• Thursday, October 11th at Parlee Farms(https://parleefarms.com)

 

Learning New Skills and Using Real Tools

The last two weeks the children in LE have been becoming (re)acquainted with tools of all kinds in the classroom and throughout adventures in Art and Wood Working. We demonstrate the careful use of classroom tools and materials, and over the last 14 days children have painted with watercolors and tempera paint, the careful way to build and steps in  block structure demolition, and how to use applications on the iPad to reinforce knowledge acquired from the use of manipulatives.

Creativity Morning

After two introduction sessions,  your child made Creativity Morning choices. This past Wednesday we started the day in the LE classroom, and at 9:00am the students traveled to Architecture, SEEDS, Yoga & Free Build, Circus & Drumming, and Wood Shop. I was able to be with the children during the snack and recess transition, and the longer blocks of time allow our LE kids to experience the morning with depth.

Morning Work

Each morning the LE students make choices from a widening group of literacy-related activities from letter and word sorts (discriminating between letters, letter sounds, and letter combinations), handwriting on dry erase boards, handwriting books, and on the iPad, and metal insets which are designed to build sequencing and coordination of movement.

Math

Our small groups have been focusing on base 10 blocks, adding and subtracting numbers 1-10, and 1 to 100, multiplication number stories, dice games, and measuring. Children are also noticing patterns in numbers, particuarly when they are using the 100 grid. We are beginning to differentiate the flexible groupings based on interest, ability, small motor skills, and comprehension.

LE Schedule 2018

We have a wonderful schedule again this year, giving the youngest students at Acera a balance of work/play, practice/mastery, exploration/discovery. Your children have been doing so much in the last 13 days, and that can explain the tired behavior at the end of the day. “My Mom has snack in the car at pick-up” was declared at the end of the day this week. A little susitnance might be needed on the way home to avoid the before-dinner-melt downs that can occur before dinner/bath/book/bedtime.

Listening Conferences

This Friday, September 21st, the whole school will be closed for Parent/Teacher Listening Conferences. This is time set aside at the beginning of each year to hear about your hopes and wishes for your child’s year ahead both academically and socially.

It is a wonderful opportunity to catch-up on your child’s experiences over the summer, share important aspects of your family life together, and for me to ask questions about your child’s overall development. You can expect all kinds of questions with the aim of gleaning as much knowledge I can about your child in the short time allotted.

My questions could include:

• How was your summer?
• What are your child’s current interests?
• Are there any current stresses in your home life such as parent travel, sibling relationships, schedules, etc?
• How has the start of the year been for your child, and what has your child communicated?
• What are your worries, hopes and wishes for the year?
• How is your child’s overall health/eating/sleeping?
• What are your child’s current strengths and challenges?
• What are the reading/technology/writing/math habits at home?
• How do you like to hear about your child’s life at school or is the LE BLOG helpful?

Of course, you may ask any questions that you like about the LE classroom and your child’s experiences thus far. We are just in the process of getting (re)acquainted and setting classroom norms, but each day brings exciting events! I suggest writing your most burning questions down prior to the conference to make sure that you leave our meeting with the information that you need. I have been taking notes to share as well!

The Listening Conferences are also an important part of what I will use to build your child’s Individual Learning Plan. Unlike other schools, Acera creates ILP’s for each child. This living document changes and grows with your child during their years here! It can also be updated during the school year as necessary. You will receive a draft of your child’s ILP in October, and we can also meet at that time to review goals.

LE Listening Conference Schedule 18-19

See you tomorrow!

Jen

First Week: Welcome to Lower Elementary at Acera!

 

Teacher Favorites

When chatting informally this week, a student asked me “Who is your favorite kid in LE?”. I replied, “Good teachers never have favorites, that would be unfair. ~Very Long Pause~ But, great teachers treat all students as their favorites.” Observing individual strengths, recognizing talents, and encouraging emerging abilities in young children has been a big part of the week, for this year we will be leading with those strengths to help the students learn and grow in developmentally appropriate ways.

It is such a privilege and pleasure to work at Acera where teachers have the ability and freedom to customize each day to the students intellect and ability. In the coming weeks we will be engaging in many activities that will allow the children to emerge as learners, and to establish an environment where individual students are seen, heard, appreciated, and challenged.

Routines

It is hard to get into routines after a summer full of camps, vacations, and free time! If I can feel the adjustment, I know that the Kindergarteners, First Graders, and Second Graders are highly sensitive to the changes the fall brings. Establishing predictable and appropriate routines at home and school are essential to academic learning and social/emotional health. This is why I have been very focused on routines at the LE classroom at Acera.

Warm welcomes, organizing stuff (back backs, indoor and outdoor shoes, and outerwear), reading the morning message, sign-in, and checking the morning work basket, are quickly becoming comfortable routines. While children are now given gentle reminders, these systems will become second nature. The goal being that children can engage in creative thinking when the classroom environment is automatic. Please see the weekly schedule attached in your email.

Math

We had a school-wide math assessment yesterday. Because the LE students were just getting warmed up from the summer away, we will continue to review and assess prior knowledge in the coming weeks. Although math groups will start next week, expect some changing and shifting before we find the “Just Right” group of learning peers. Each math group throughout the school also individualizes for the students, and we appreciate your support while be balance the complex learning needs and social of your child(ren).

Reading: Rest and Read

The time of day where children practice reading skills is called “Rest and Read“. I have just begun to give every student in the class an informal reading assesment, establishing the current decoding, comprehension, and stratetegies with which each individual has begun the year. There has been so much growth over the summer! When reading a book today, a child read a word that was incomprehensible. I paused to explain the word (law students in their first year study this word). The student said, “I don’t need to know what that means to read the book”. I said, “If you are reading the words, the MOST important thing is to understand what you are reading.”

Please continue to read-aloud at home, pausing occasionally to explain vocabulary. choose one word per page, or ask your child to stop you when there is a word that they don’t understand. In the classroom we will be making lists of new vocabulary words.

Writing

We have a classroom of storytellers! Even before we officially started Writing Workshop, children asked where the writing paper was stored and started stapling pages together. Our Literacy Block is composed of vocabulary, handwriting, creative writing, and spelling patterns. We also write about events that have happened over the weekend or during the week in school. Many of the children are writing quite fluently, others will rely on teachers taking down dictation while they build the skills and knowledge needed to build words. We will be guiding the children gently along the vast continuum of abilities, while we learn from each other.

Thank You’s

 

Thank you to our pillow and cushion makers, Tracey (Noah’s Mom) and Lisa (Harper’s Mom) for helping with getting ready for the first day of school outfitting our cozy cubes with the essentials! Thank you to Roman’s family for making customized trays for our math manipulatives. Parents from last year gifted plants for our windowsills, bringing the green leafy outdoors in. We also had a parent volunteer to do some work from home (paid by employer) in evenings, which is very valuable when it comes to entering the children’s writing into word documents. We are so grateful for the support from our parents at Acera. There will be an opportunity to discuss other opportunities to support the LE Classroom at our Back to School Night on September, 13th.

Creativity Morning

 

I was able to take lots of pictures of the class during the Creativity Morning sample classes! They went to Circus Arts, Yoga/Free Build, Drumming, and Woodworking on Wednesday morning, and next week they will sample several more classes. There were lot of laughs, some challenges, and enough time to understand the nature of the classes.

Suggestions for a Great Year

• Early Bedtime: 7:30/8:00pm
• Food: Hearty Breakfast, Substantial Snack & Lunch, Water Bottle
• Read Aloud to your child each Night for at least 1/2 hour