Believing in Change
We talked as a school this past week about how we had the day off on Monday because we were celebrating Martin Luther King Jr's birthday. The older children especially knew quite a bit about the Civil Rights Movement and talked about other figures they know like Rosa Parks and Ruby Bridges. The thing that always strikes me when we talk about segregation is how strongly they feel the unfairness of it all. We talk about all of the things that people did (and are still doing) to help create a more equitable world like boycotts, marches, and sit-ins. It is crucial to me that these kids understand that when the world isn't fair that they can have a role in changing it, and each of them can play a role in making the world a better place.
Morgan's PK and K Class
*Explored foam beads, Legos, shaving cream, coffee grounds and oobleck.
*Learned more about Artic animals and hibernation through songs, stories and finger plays.
*Worked with paper and paint to create penguins (by putting paint on the paper then folding it in half then opened it to see how both sides of the paper looked).
*Made wolf paper bag puppets.
*Looked at Nibbles the Book nibbler and look-n-find books. Along with shine-a-light books.
*Learned some new winter animal dances.
*Did roller ball paintings.
*Played ring toss and had egg hunts!
*Played some games with numbers and colors.
Tracy's 1st - 4th Class
In math, we have all been working on solving perimeter and area problems. Our second-grade class also continues to work with money, place value, time, and two-digit subtraction. The fourth-grade class is working on conversions (grams to kilograms, minutes to hours, feet to yards) as well as multi-digit multiplication. Third and fourth graders are working to develop their multiplication fluency at home (thanks for supporting them families!) - it makes solving all those area and multi-digit problems much easier.
Everyone has been working on writing and editing their "Declaration of Greatness." We have talked about opinions versus facts and how to come up with the supporting details that help our arguments. Our youngest students are really developing their understanding of short vowel sounds, and we are starting to add some long vowel sounds as well - it's making a difference in both their writing and reading. Our older students have really been looking at some root words and appreciating how they can help us understand the meanings of words (and help our spelling).
Theme: Science Experiments
We all did some experiments with water temperature and Skittles on Monday and Tuesday. Then Morgan's kids did a series of additional water experiments looking at surface tension and how water (and color) travels. The older kids worked out the procedures for their experiments and started to gather materials. We're looking forward to actually doing the experiments this next week.
