The Home Stretch
We are at that time of year when we are pulling together all of the pieces, making plans for our end of year celebration, doing a last round of assessments, and trying to finish up all of our projects. We are also really actively supporting community making and communication as we continue to get used to being back full time with a full school. I'm reminded of the joys of multiage education as I watch so many of our older children help to teach and mentor our younger students. Meanwhile our younger students have our older students delving deeper into their imaginations as they take off on their tree "ship" and sail away to exotic locations. It is so nice to see all of the new social opportunities and the budding of new (and old) friendships.
Our Theme: Plants
This week as we read The Reason for a Flower and went on a flower hunt around the school. As we carefully drew what we saw, some of our older kids pointed out stamens and stigmas to our younger students. We read A Seed Is Sleepy and learned about some incredible seeds - ask your child about the coco de mer palm. We started some seed germination tests, made seed mosaics, and generally wondered at the marvel of seeds. Leaflets Three, Let It Be: The Story of Poison Ivy taught us about all of the many positives of poison ivy (the leaves, stems, flowers, and berries all provide food for different animals) while helping kids to identify it and avoid getting a reaction. We identified some poison ivy hotspots in our woods and talked about the importance of avoiding them. The PK and K students started a bean seed experiment, and everyone else designed plant experiments that we hope to finish in the next 2 weeks!
Tracy's PK-2nd Grade Reflections
My writers are pulling together their imaginative stories. We've had mini lessons in the importance of adding details to help your reader get a clear picture of what is happening, dialogue and how we use quotation marks, and making a strong ending. It's funny how both Theresa and I had similar lessons this week - these are skills that we work on over and over again until they are truly understood.
In math, we have been having fun with lots of different games that help us practice our addition and subtraction facts. We want these to be as automatic as possible, and so we keep practicing them in different ways. We played with base 10 blocks on two different days, played our adding version of "Rock, Paper, Scissors," and played "Race to a Dollar." We even had the chance to shop at the store Theresa's math kids set up for us.
Theresa's 3rd-6th Grade Reflections
The big kids at Country Classroom are halfway through their final projects
In writing, they are working on personal narratives. This week, they took all of their notes, flashbacks, vignettes, extra details and revisions, and cut and pasted them into a cohesive whole. Then they read their stories to each other, for constructive feedback. This week, we will edit them, and then the final personal narrative is done!
In math, they are deeply engaged in the study of geometry. They became even more engaged when the assignment contained art. They were assigned many different triangles, with specific measurements. After they created all of their shapes, they made them into art!
The kids are very much enjoying have a bigger pool of kids to play with. Many friendships from last year have been re-kindled, and many new friendships are forming. It all bodes well for next year.
