In this classroom, we don't just follow
my rules because
I say so. After all, it is
our classroom and
we are in it to learn, teach, and have fun
together. So here's what we did this week to make our rules...
We read
Extra Yarn by Mac Barnett. It's the story of a little girl, Annabelle, who lives in a black and white town. One day, she finds a box and inside is some yarn. She knits herself a sweater and finds that after she's done, she still has extra yarn. So she knits her dog a sweater and again, she has extra yarn. She continues to knit things for everything, even things that don't ordinarily wear clothes - houses, cars, animals, everything! Her dream was to have a colorful town and she made it happen!
We were inspired by the book, so everyone in our class thought of a hope or a dream for their school year. Ideas ranged from building reading stamina to playing with old friends to being able to count to 1,000.
Then, each child posed as if they had just achieved their dream. I snapped their picture and VOILA! We have a display! Well, after they learned how to use scissors, glue, and yarn to make the coolest display...
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| Can't see it? Well then, please stop by for a visit so you can take a closer look! We are awfully proud of it. |
After all of that, we had to make some class rules so that way we could reach our hopes and dreams. If we wanted to reach them - we couldn't have kids running around and screaming and being wild all day!
We came up with about 30 different rules, which seemed like way too much to remember, so instead, we put them into three categories: self, others, and materials. Then we thought of how to phrase each rule and voted on our top choice. Here's what we came up with...
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We signed them to show that we would follow them all.
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Finally, we practiced and discussed them A LOT this week and worked with colored pencils so we could illustrate a book about them.
Our Class Rules Book
ASK your child about our class rules and why they are so important! :)
Animals use different senses to find their way. One of the activities we got to do required our sight and memory. We used egg cartons to arrange a variety of knick knacks. A leader showed the carton to the group for 15 seconds, then the group had to rearrange their egg carton to match the leader's. It's much harder than it sounds! (ASK your child about the challenges!)
I wanted to express my gratitude to all families for the support and collaboration this year (already)! 
We read The Sneetches, a book about the argument between star-bellied Sneetches and plain-bellied Sneetches. We talked about if the book had a community we would want to be part of. Everyone decided they wouldn't want to be a part of it, but then began to talk about whether they would want to be star-bellied Sneetches or plan-bellied Sneetches. As the discussion continued, a few small voices began to say "it doesn't actually matter." The tone of the conversation changed as all children began to talk about how it didn't matter whether they were star-bellied or plain-bellied. Here's some quotes from our discussion:
This week, Mrs. Daigle read NEVILLE and we read The Brand New Kid. These realistic fiction books sparked a discussion on being brave and being different. We talked about how making our own choices because we know they are right, can change someone's day.
Every day, we start by drilling sounds and learning or reviewing a spelling idea or rule. For the first few units, we are reviewing rules learned last year.
To show kids how maps are visualized by cartographers (map makers), I started with the world. The nice round, orange world. (Feel free to fully enjoy that quote now! ;) )
Voila! Our world was changed from a "globe" to a map!
Next we learned a new reading strategy "Using Prior Knowledge to Make Connections." It's now on our CAFE menu of strategies. We used what we knew about maps and then read a book about them. We learned that explorers thought the world was flat, but then discovered it was round because they explored it and never fell off the edge. We even learned about ancient maps that were made with twigs and reeds.
We are also learning the difference between streets, towns, and states. We talked about how streets are the smallest, then towns, then states. We used Google Earth to move from the world view to continent to country, state, town, and finally street. It's such a neat resource and the kids love it! In these last two pictures, you can see what we're using to remember how we "fit" in our street which "fits" in the town...and so on!
Math workshop is a time when children can choose between a few different math activities. Each activity is based on the unit we are working on and helps children stay motivated to learn because they get to choose how they want to learn and practice a math concept. It also gives children an opportunity for independence and practice on decision making and time management.
Before math workshop, we discussed the expectations of what it would look like, sound like, and feel like. The mathematicians came up with many ideas and reflected on how they did in meeting the expectations after every workshop.
