Peacefulness

Yesterday was the 30th day of school!  Wow, that went fast!  It has been such a beautiful and sweet beginning of the year.  Such an incredibly delightful and amazing group of kiddos!

We began pulling our first Harmony card this week.  The card we read was Peacefulness.  I love the rich discussions the card brought to our morning meetings.  What does peacefulness mean?  How do we choose peacefulness?  How do we bring it within ourselves and to each other?  The children all had wonderful and insightful comments to share.  At the end of the day a couple of times a week, we share how we choose peacefulness during the day.  Yesterday, one child shared how he helped a friend that looked sad.  Another shared how he felt quiet and peaceful while we were reading.  And another shared how he helped a friend feel included in his game so that everyone felt peaceful.  YES!  My hope with these virtues cards is that it will create opportunities for us to connect more and witness how we are connecting with one another.  It will bring positive interactions and share with us all the wonderful virtues that are part of living in harmony.  I will let you know what card we pull next week in a class email.  Perhaps you will have opportunities to continue the conversations and focus at home!
 
Math
We have been having so much fun in math!  I love how everyone is really embracing ways to challenge themselves.  The older group (the younger group will begin this soon) has begun taking math vitamins.  That's right, a vitamin of math!  Sometimes we take vitamins to give our body a little extra nutrition to help us grow strong and full of energy.  Our brains like to grow strong and what better way than a weekly dose of a math vitamin (although it has been requested they get one every day, so we may be getting more in the future)!  These "vitamins" are math problems or puzzles that are challenging and take a good bit of thinking power to figure out.  Many different skills may be needed like trial and error, strategy, applying number knowledge, seeing patterns, or interpreting information to figure it out.  On Monday, we had our first vitamin and when one child solved it (after much figuring) she gave a big "Yippee! I did it!!!"  I love it!
 
We have all been working really hard with place value and adding numbers.  Some are working on recognizing and naming two-digit numbers (and adding single digit numbers)  while others are using base ten blocks to add two-digit numbers and others are practicing their mental math in adding two-digit numbers. Fun! Fun! Fun!
 
Literacy
Writing workshop has already produced some wonderful stories!  We have been creating story maps of books we read together to help us get a sense of all the parts of fiction stories.  There is a problems and a solution!  We have been exploring using a story map to help focus our stories and get our thoughts in order so when we go to write, we know where we are going!  
 
We had fun playing with idioms earlier this year and made our own feelings book. A couple of children had an idea for us to write a poem for our spider or spider web (just like in the book that inspired our ArtsWalk art).  Look for these on our wall soon!!  
 
We have begun our word sorts as part of our literacy centers. One group is learning about magic "e" while another is doing a quick review before we move on to when two vowels go walking.  Another group is working on consonant diagraphs.
 
Theme
Swoosh!  This week our focus in weather is the wind.  We have learned about how wind is made (experiment happening later this week!).  We have also explored Bearforts scale of wind and made our own wind gauge that helps us measure the wind.  We have started graphing the types of weather we experience at school and the temperature highs/lows.  It will be a fun way to explore different kinds of graphs!
 
Before we began our unit on weather, the kids shared what they already know about weather, what questions they have and how they want to learn about it.  They had such great ideas of ways we can learn about weather!  I can't want to make it happen!
 
So sorry for the lack pictures!  My computer is no longer working. :(  I had some great ones all downloaded and ready to go, but alas, the computer could not be revived.